Cracking the Code to a Successful Interview

Lesson 1- Power of your Mind-set

The first thing to do before embarking upon the task of preparing for an interview should first work on your mental set-up and attitude. You need to visualize success and be confident before you walk into the interview. Before you can start preparing for an interview, you need to be willing to work hard towards success. Defiance is one of the biggest challenges. Defiance can be due to egoistic arrogance or fear of failure and an innate tendency to be in control. Some people can be scared of success as well. So you need to be conscious of yourself so that self-defiance doesn’t end up ruining your chances at success.

Hiring managers have some preconceived notions, which create some concerns that they require the candidates to address. These concerns are about results and achievement, process, creativity or working style, relationships, aggressiveness, and energy and likeability. Most of these hiring managers receive little training and do not have the best tools to select the best candidate. Here are some of the common types of managers one can expect to find-

• Some managers go extra hard on candidates to satisfy their intellectual prowess. These managers feel the only way they can establish their intellectual superiority is by beating down the candidates. Stay focused on answers, and do not let such an onslaught affect you.
• Some managers are fearful of exceptional candidates. They fear that such candidates will be better than them at their job and feel threatened. You need to create an atmosphere whereby you will minimize such irrational fears.
• Some companies employ the latest techniques, which require you to give specific answers to specific questions—for instance, STAR is the acronym for Situation, Task, Action and Result. So you will need to frame your answers to suit such styles of interview.
• You may face managers with zero experience in recruiting candidates, which leads to rogue interviewing. Questions are often based on untested logic, and personal notions often cloud their judgements. These managers often have a biased outlook depending upon schools attended, place of residence and so on.

Having identified such potential contingencies, we shall learn about the REAPRICH strategy in the following lessons. REAPRICH is a proactive strategy and applies to anyone irrespective of the phase in their career. The strategy is extremely crucial in today's world, where several candidates compete for the same job and position. REAPRICH is more than mere guidelines; it is a science based on evidence and results. The REAPRICH formula will help you become an enlightened, advanced,