7 Interview Tips on How to Sell Yourself

The modern work environment is competitive and demanding, meaning you will need to confidently sell yourself. We’ve put together some interview tips on how to sell your experience and specific skills to achieve interview success.

Finding the right role means pitting yourself against other well-qualified and experienced candidates, so the ability to sell yourself to employers gives you the edge over other applicants with “paper” qualifications as good or better than yours. The key to ensuring you’re the prime job candidate is your verbal communications.

Ultimately, ensuring you’re the ideal candidate for jobs at any level means impressing your interviewer(s) in the right way to suit the role at hand. For example, you need to talk about previous experience, with appropriate links to the job on offer so that your valuable skills are seen to be a perfect match for the role.

Time spent researching the job, company and workplace ethos is invaluable. We have produced a variety of common interview questions and answers to guide you in preparing your sales pitch, which needs to be geared to the role and highlight your strengths and experiences.

Simple Tips for Selling Yourself at a Job Interview

Research

After researching the employer and role, you’ll understand the level of responsibilities and tasks/responsibilities involved. Browse the tips and useful advice on the Interview Skills Consulting website to figure out the best approach to adopt. Your strategy may involve practising the STAR technique so your answers and responses at any form of interview are just “what” the recruiters are expecting.

Being well-prepared means you won’t ramble or go off topic at interview. Try to prepare short snippets or “sound bites” to illustrate just how very wonderful you are, these can be used in different ways to answer a number of questions once you become adept at targeting your pitch to the levels required to impress.

Solve Problems

Companies will open up new roles to address problems they wish to solve – so if you can show that you are the person to solve that problem, then you have a good chance of success. Selling your own skills to address specific problems that may be mentioned in the job ad can have a big impact. Explain how you’ve solved similar issues in the past, and practice telling these stories in your own time.

Avoid clichés

Back up claims about your skills or experience, but avoid mentioning clichés that every candidate will mention. Instead of stating how you have achieved results, explain the results you’ve accomplished, and how you went about achieving them.

Practice

Take time to polish your responses. If this means carrying out “dummy” or rehearsal runs with friends, you’re far more likely to succeed in the stressful interview environment. Your answers will be far more polished. If you’re asked questions you don’t quite understand, ask your interviewers to repeat the question and say why you don’t quite grasp the meaning or intention of the query.

Be Attentive

Panel interviews are commonplace, so don’t neglect to display an attentive appearance throughout the ordeal and establish eye contact with every member of the interviewing panel at the very start. Nonverbal communication can play a huge role in how you come across, so ensure your posture and facial expressions aren’t negative. Paying attention to what your interviewer has to say is critical, and you will need to practice your handshake.

Build rapport

If you’re attending selection or role play format interviews, it’s a good idea to arrive early and attempt to establish rapport with fellow interviewees. This way, any scenario/role play games will kick off on a slightly more relaxed footing.

Be Yourself

Finally, relax as much as possible, don’t forget to smile, allow your interviewer to see something of the “real” you and get a grasp of just how you will fit into the team.

In the modern environment, employers often drill candidates down via initial telephone or Skype selection, global employers may not even take the time to call you for personal interviews. So, it’s important that if you are being interviewed in this fashion, you research and prepare answers/sound bites to likely pertinent questions.

Interviews can be scary, particularly if you’re new to the jobs’ market or returning to the workplace.Don’t sell yourself short. Take time to prepare thoroughly and source the right job. You’ll find the more interviews you attend, the higher your levels of confidence and delivery. So make the most of each and every interview situation as you will learn from mistakes and begin to hone and adapt your sales pitch to suit the employer.

Learn more about how to sell yourself at interviews or get in touch with Interview Skills Consulting direct.