Advice on Interview!

Ivana_Tinkle

This might sound a bit daft, but if you do decide to take notes or a CV in with you, make sure that you practise the whole process of how you're going to come into the room, shake hands, sit down and get the notes out of your bag. I only suggest this because if you're a bit flustered and nervous you don't want to be scrabbling about in your bag halfway through answering a question. Also bear in mind that if your hands tend to shake at all when you're nervous then holding a sheet of paper will make this far more noticeable. Oh, and the interviewer will definitely try have a sneaky peek at what you've got written in your notes!

Good luck!

Edna_Bucket_2

Baby_A wrote:

Another dilemma I have is that the agent asked me what my salary expectations are and I told him figure A, the job advert for the interview I am going for has a salary band for figure A - plus 5k.

In the interview when they ask me my salary expectations should I say higher than I told the agent, or should I leave it and I hope I get the job then ask for a pay rise.

I have nursery costs to cover and they dont come cheap in London (£50 a day!) so every penny helps!

It's always the most difficult question to answer in an interview - the balance between sounding confident and sounding money-grabbing!

My advice, when and if asked, is to turn it around - something like this:

"Well, the job is the most important thing to me, and as the salary follows on from that, I'd like to think that any employer who makes me an offer - as I hope you will - will decide what they think I am worth to the company.

As you know, I gave the agency an idea of the salary range I was looking at, and I know you gave them the salary range you were considering, and from what I've seen the two seem to be in around the same range.

Obviously the one thing I need to be aware of now is that my outgoings are different - for example nursery costs of..."

You get the idea. Note my use of the word "range" 3 times - if you get an offer and it's less than anticipated that then always gives you scope to negotiate, because you are not contradicting what you said before.

If you are going through an agent, that can also be helpful if it comes to that - easier to sort these things out through an intermediary!

It's also worth mentioning those outgoings (though not at too much length) - you might be meeting people who have absolutely no idea of these costs, so showing it's not "you" who is wanting more.

Justicia

Ivana_Tinkle wrote:

I only suggest this because if you're a bit flustered and nervous you don't want to be scrabbling about in your bag halfway through answering a question.

Too true!

Also and further to the above, file any documents that you are taking into an organised order; all certificates together and arranged (ie. GCSE certificates together, A level certificates together, etc., etc.), CV and any other documents that you may be referring to near the top so that they are easily obtainable as necessary during the interview without having to look through the whole lot and delaying.

If there is more than one person interviewing you (occassionally two interviewers share the questions or one takes notes from the other questions), be sure to give them both shared attention; shake both of their hands and when talking be sure to give them both a share of your eye contact.

Savvy_Sue

On salaries, the range is often from what you could expect to start on to what you could expect to have after several years of annual increments. Some organisations won't start you anywhere other than on the bottom, some will be more flexible for a good candidate and start you one increment up. Some will be VERY flexible for an outstanding candidate or if they're sufficiently desperate. But remember that if you start high on the range, you may not be able to get out of the range once you reach the top, so minimal annual increments - maybe none at all!