Accounting Job Interviews Tips

The night before the interview you diligently sit down and get ready. It might be the pay, the conditions or simply you hate your current role, but you are desperate for this new job.

Working through some of the advice on the internet you start practicing imagining the interviewer naked. This works for a while until you get the idea that they might do the same to you. Then your head is suddenly filled with thoughts of hundreds of people with better CVs, family connections or just being able to talk their way into the company. You read through your CV not taking anything in.

Your sleep is disturbed with dreams of turning up to the interview naked and forgetting everything on your CV. You sleep in and barely make it to the company on time. Out of breath, crumpled and flustered you wheeze your interviewer’s name at the receptionist. When she asks your name you go blank and you get the impression the receptionist thinks you are an idiot.

The wizened old hag that is your interviewer eventually comes to show you to the interview room. Every time she smiles you feel as if someone has died. In an attempt to build rapport you babble about traffic, the weather and strangely drift into the socio economic policies of Thailand. She looks confusedly at you and you let the subject drift.

You eventually make it to the interview room and the old crone offers you a coffee. After spending a few minutes wiping yourself down from the coffee you just spilt down your front the old crone asks if you are ready to start the interview proper. She then says something like, “Just as a nice gentle start, talk me through your CV.”

Realising you can’t remember anything on your CV and that you have not brought any spare copies you mutter things about how much you have enjoyed working for you last company. You are convinced she thinks the CV is a fake when you come to the conclusion that she said “gentle start” and that implies things are about to get worse.

The old crone decides to focus you in on some key areas by asking why you want to leave your current employment. You fumble around trying not to admit that you hate the company, the work and your boss and eventually hit on a “looking for fresh challenges” answer. Annoyingly she asks what sort of fresh challenges you think her company will give you.

Panicking for any answer you realise that she might be thinking of you as prey you try to calm your nerve by thinking of her as naked prey. But the only image you get is of you as naked prey. Now you have completely forgotten the question. The interview seem to go on for ever.

Just as you are losing the will to live the old cow informs you that this is your chance to ask questions as she has finished hers. Trying to appear still alive you ask her how soon will the company make a decision. Having answered your question she shows you out and you leave hoping beyond hope that they offer you the job.

Should you have experienced any of this, think about how different things could be. If only you could develop a persona of calm, focused authority, knew how to dramatically increase rapport and take control and could confidently answer any interview question naturally. How about the idea of being able to implant the idea of you being the best candidate for the role in to the interviewer’s head?

Sound impossible? May be not, many of these skills happen naturally and you have certainly seen others do this as part of their daily lives.

Some people just walk through life always getting what they want, including the best jobs. I am sure you have seen people like that. These are the people using these skills, sometimes naturally, sometimes they have been trained. In most situations these skills are quick and easy to learn.

Your CV will pull a lot more interviews if you just add some NLP and psychological techniques. Spending just a couple of hours CV Writing would pay you back dividends. Having the skill to be able to answer interview questions artfully only takes two hours to learn and you will keep that skill for life, as well as learn to apply it in many more situations.

Banishing interview nerves, building rapport, maintaining composure and taking control of the interview all seem like hard skills but they can be learnt in less than thirty minutes.The only question is how much people are prepared to devote to mastering these interview techniques because just a couple of hours is the difference between a great job and just the job you are doing now.