The Show and Tell Tactic For Technical Job Interviews
With the increased competition around for technial posts in the current economic climate – should you be invited for a job interview, you need to have done as much preparation as possible. One technique that you could consider preparing to use is the present to and tell strategy
The cornerstone of this tactic lies in the finding that interview panels are more affected by candidate showing them what they have done – which thereby exhibits the possession and use of the essential and desirable skills – than by simply telling the job interview panel that “I am a good team player” and “I am have good time management skills”, etc
Your goal is to create the setting for you to exhibit to off your skills and then be ready to pounce, with relevant examples of your work, to exploit that opportunity to sell the notion that you have the skills that the interview panel are looking for. To pull this off you need to focus on two tasks:
1. Get them to ask You for Your Work
2. Produce Your Project
To set up the play, try to bring up the opportunity by using one of the following language patterns:
* If you’re interested I could present to you…
* If you wanted to know more, I have the (report) with me right here…
* If it would be appropriate, you could have a look at…
* I have a written precis of the project here, if you wanted to see it…
* If it would help…
You also need to be able to display your work at the job interview. In order to do this, pick out one or two projects that you could use for this tactic. Choose the projects that * have work already in a written or electronic form * which sell the most amount of skills, which are relevant for the post that you are being interviewed for * that would be most likely brought up in the job interview
Anticipate which questions could fall out from the job interview panel, after they have scan your report for the first time and with no real warning. You could ask a friend or colleague to quickly review your project work and let you know what questions naturally follow from their minds.
If you can, be prepared to leave the interview panel with a physical copy of your work. It will form a tactile and visible reminder of you when they are reviewing the performances of all of the interviewees
