First impressions are everything when it comes to job interviews. Unfortunately, it only takes 5-10 seconds for someone to form an impression about you. Your interviewer is going to have an impression of you as soon as you walk in the door. If that impression is good, then they will expect the rest of the interview to be good as well, but if you come in dressed inappropriately for the interview, or without confidence, they could just write you off from the beginning.
Of course, you’ve spent a LOT of time preparing for this interview. You went through all the CCO’s practice questions and formulated unique answers, researched the employer, practiced out loud in front of a mirror, and even in front of your friends. All that’s left to do is make sure when you walk through the door your interviewer falls in love with you on the spot!
Dress appropriately. Your attire is the first thing an interviewer is going to see. If you dress professionally you show that you take yourself, and this opportunity, seriously. How dressed up should you get though? Remember you can always take off a tie or a suit jacket to dress yourself down if you’ve overdressed, but you can’t dress up more once you’ve got there. If you still aren’t sure what to wear, check out the Career Spots’ videos Interview Dress for Women and Interview Dress for Men.
Make eye contact and give a firm handshake. This can be an indicator of how confident you are. Make sure your eye contact and handshake reflects your confidence!
Be confident and have a positive attitude. The way you carry yourself in your mind reflects on your appearance. Think positive thoughts, and prepare yourself enough to be confident. Give yourself a pep talk before you go to the interview! The best way to be confident is to be prepared. Research your employer so you have talking points, practice common interview questions on the student page of the CCO’s website, and sleep well the night before. All of this will give you the ability to rock your confidence!
If you follow these tips there is NO reason an interviewer won’t fall in love with you as soon as you
walk through the door. Remember, you know you’re awesome, confident, professional, and perfect for this position. Your job is to make sure your interviewer feels this way about you from the start!
For more tips check out the CCO’s 7 rules of interviewing:
https://www.cco.purdue.edu/Student/InterviewingRules.shtml
Also, Resume Bear has a list of embarrassing interview mistakes:
http://blog.resumebear.com/featured-articles/classic-must-avoid-interview-mistakes/
