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MATT ABRAHAMS: Job interviews are a crucible of public speaking skills and question and
answering skills and many of the things that apply to effective Q&A and effective public
speaking apply in the job interview.
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DEBBIE MILLMAN: Mostly, we go to school and we learn the skill of whatever it is we're
going to do.
But, we're very rarely taught how to get that job to do what we want to do.
You have to sell yourself.
PADDY KENNEDY: There are some tips that I think are very important for you to consider
before you go into a job interview.
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MATT ABRAHAMS: Absolute preparation is key.
You really need to understand what it is you're up for and know your material.
DANIEL PINK: The single best predictor question in job interviews is this, "What do you know
about this company?"
It's the proxy for conscientiousness and it shows the interviewer that you're not just
trying to find a job, you want to work for them.
So, my best advice is do your due diligence.
PADDY KENNEDY: Many of the questions are going to be behavioral.
They're not going to ask you so much about what did you do at this job, but give me an
example when you had a crisis, how did you manage it.
So be prepared to answer those questions.
MATT ABRAHAMS: Many people will think of answers to questions, but they won't actually practice
verbalizing and we really need to practice verbalizing answers.
[MUSIC]
MATT ABRAHAMS: When you answer questions you wanna do three key things.
You wanna answer the question asked.
You wanna give an example so people remember the…the answer.
And you wanna tell them why your answer is important for them and for the job.
Because quite frankly, the person interviewing you is often not the person who gets the final
decision on if you're hired or not so they have to turn around and sell you to whoever
it is who makes the final decision.
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DANIEL PINK: See the job interview from their perspective.
I've done interviews myself where I'm interviewing someone for a particular position and they
talk about how awesome it would be for them to do the work and I don't really care.
Think about it from my perspective.
I basically put all human beings into two categories: people who make my life harder
and people who make my life easier and I think that any job interview where you can go and
put yourself in that second category is gonna be very appealing.
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PADDY KENNEDY: If you have a kind of messy past, don't apologize and don't lie because
in this modern age they can find out about you in a second.
If you've had to quit your last job or you were fired at your last job, be prepared to
talk about values.
For example, if you were fired from the job you can't say "well the boss was an idiot"
but you can say that perhaps you had a value clash with your boss.
MATT ABRAHAMS: Non-verbal communication is absolutely important and in fact there's a
tremendous amount of research that says people believe non-verbals much more than they believe
verbals.
What people will often do because they're nervous is they'll retreat.
They'll make themselves small.
So the hands come up, they cover their face, sometimes they cross their legs.
They become very small and that makes them look nervous and in some cases disingenuous.
So what we want is we want to project enthusiasm and openness so we sit forward, our hands
are out and up, we make good eye contact.
That shows we're engaged and we're interested.
PADDY KENNEDY: Be authentic.
Be true.
Be honest.
If they don't hire you, you weren't the fit.
There's something better coming your way.
[DING]
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Fear of speaking is a common thing that everyone goes through and so I decided that Toastmasters…give
it a shot and teach myself to speak in public.
My club, they said, "why don't you go in competitions?"
and I didn't even know there were such a thing as competitions for public speaking, but then
the bug sort of bit and I really liked the sport of competing.
It's 30,000 people from all over the world who all have a message, who all have a speech
and it goes from the club then the area, then the division, then the district, then the
semi-finals, and now it's the top 9 speakers, best speakers in the world.
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