Ace Your Next Interview By Knowing What Companies Want

How long does it take an employer to decide whether they want to hire someone? The answer might surprise you. On average, it takes an employer less than five minutes to decide whether they want to hire someone. It takes just sixty seconds to look at your CV and decide whether you even get an interview. That’s the world we live in. That’s how competitive the job market is. You are one in a million, and you have to make that statement a selling point. You have to show that there is no one else up for the job that is better suited for it. How do you do this?

Clean Up Your CV

Contrary what you might have heard, employers don’t want to read CVs that are five pages long. Keep your CV, short, concise and to the point. Also, don’t use any space fillers like adding big fonts because employers see right through this. Instead, you should put down work and educational experience that relates to the job you are applying for. If you can, you should put a few bullet points on how each relates to the job. Remember, when you apply for a job you should tweak your CV, so it matches up with that specific role. Don’t make the mistake of sending out the exact same CV for every job that you apply for. For instance, you might be applying for journalism and PR jobs. But while similar, these paths require different skills and traits from an employee.

Also, don’t forget when writing your CV to put some unique things about you, but they have to relate to the job. If you worked in a theme park over the summer, that’s great. But only if you can relate it to the traits an employer looks for such as leadership and teambuilding.

Improve Your Hireability

If you want to get hired, you’ve got to show that you have experience and knowledge. Experience you’ll find along the way, but you can pick knowledge up by taking a training course. Taking some business courses shows that you have initiative and will almost certainly put you ahead of the competition. It will make you more desirable to an employer because you’ll have the skills you need to help them run a business. Activia offers a number of different courses including ones that teach project management that are sure to benefit you.

Also, you shouldn’t rule out taking on jobs while you are continuing the search for your dream career. This might even be unpaid work. Remember, any experience that you get will improve your career prospects further down the road.

Acing The Interview

job-interview-437026_640

Image Link

Once you’ve got the skills and sorted out the CV, you’re guaranteed to get more interviews. The trick to an interview is not to let it get away from you. You need to keep your answers short and to the point, similar to your CV. Don’t expand on an answer unless they ask you to otherwise you could find yourself answering questions they never brought up. As well as this, you have to show you are confident. If they think you look the part, you’re far more likely to get it.

Take this advice and we guarantee that next job you go after will be yours.

Ken
Latest posts by Ken (see all)