Fun Facts Friday

5 Unorthodox Pre-interview Routines that Actually

Preparing for an interview can be a nerve wracking experience. Fortunately, there are some ways to prep for it which will let you ace the interview. While these may seem like strange pre-interview routines, they actually do work and will help you to land the job of your dreams:

Look at Facebook
This is actually two strategies in one. First of all, check your Facebook profile out and make sure that your own profile is set to private and there are no embarrassing photos of you tagged on the site. If there are, untag yourself from those photos and ask your friends if they would please refrain from tagging you. If possible, get the photos taken down. Double check as well that status updates you’ve posted aren’t embarrassing. If they are, delete them.
While this won’t completely remove the record of those photos, it does make it harder to find. That in turn means if you ace the interview, your interviewer is less likely to find embarrassing material online which will make them think twice about calling you back for a second interview.

The second half of this technique is to find out the name of the person who will be interviewing you and look up their Facebook profile. Get as much information as you can about the person since this will be helpful to you to throw into the conversation when you are meeting with them. Showing an interest in something the person is interested in is a sure way to get yourself remembered out of the hundreds of interviews the hiring manager has to conduct.

Prepare a Folder to Fiddle With
Yeah, it sounds strange, but this is a great pre-interview technique that can come in handy. Often, you will be asked to wait for a few minutes before your interview. Most times, it’s just because the person interviewing you is busy or wants to make you feel as if you aren’t the most important person for them to meet. However, on occasion, this is actually a test. They will secretly observe you to see what you do when you are waiting to be interviewed. If you have a folder with your papers in it, you can spend the time appearing to organize yourself so you ace that test.

Put Water Behind Your Ears and On Your Wrists
This is actually something to do just before the interview. Duck into the bathroom and dab a few drops of water behind the ears and on your wrists. These are areas where you have major arteries and some experts claim by putting water in those locations you can help to calm your nerves by cooling down quickly.

Write a List
This one is actually not such a strange pre-interview routine, but it does work wonders. You’ll inevitably be asked to tell the interviewer about your proudest achievements, your best qualities and your worst qualities. Most people just wing it when they walk into the interview. However, since you know these things are likely to come up, pre-empt them by making yourself a list of things you can answer. Just make sure to pause for a moment when answering so it appears natural and not rehearsed. Speaking of that…

Rehearse in Front of a Mirror
While a common pre-interview routine is to rehearse by having a friend or family member go through a mock interview with you, a strange pre-interview technique which actually does work wonders is to rehearse on your own in front of a mirror. Your face will often speak louder than your words, so you want to take the time to make sure when you answer questions, you don’t telegraph you aren’t comfortable answering those questions. By rehearsing in front of a mirror, you can avoid that problem completely.

May 12, 2011, Ted Hekman, http://www.careerealism.com/pre-interview-routines-work/