Job Interviews: Taking Control

If you're thinking of arriving at your job interview and letting the interviewer call all the shots, think again. Job interview success often means taking the initiative.

You may think job interviews are a situation in which you're supposed to toe the line and answer what's asked of you. But that doesn't mean you should remain passive throughout the whole process. Successful job interviews happen when candidates tell recruiters about their competencies, even if they haven't been explicitly asked about them, and fire back a few questions of their own.

A good recruiter will have a specific agenda during a job interview, and that agenda will be to find out whether you're the best person for the job. As a potential employee, your agenda during the job interview is to demonstrate the right competencies to the recruiter.

Good job interview questions should draw out a candidate's skills, but there's an increasing trend for job interviewers to ask obscure, job interview questions that test the confidence and poise of candidates, such as: name five members of the cabinet, Tell me a secret or what questions did you hope we wouldn't ask? Interviewers are also increasingly using more informal, or open questions, such as: what do you like about our company?, which don't offer an obvious pathway for talking about yourself.

If, once you've answered the question, you don't feel you've demonstrated a competency, you can take a more active role in the job interview. If you don't feel you've been given an opportunity to demonstrate your competencies during an employer's line of questioning, you should offer additional information, as long as you keep it short and don't take up too much of the interviewer's time.

However, there's a fine line between taking the initiative, and severely hindering your employment chances by taking over the job interview.

Job interviews are a two way process. Just as you need to interest employers in you, you also need to show them you're interested in their organisation.

This means thoroughly researching the role and organisation before the job interview. If you want to actively show an employer you're interested in them, it's vital to prepare for your job interview. You need to do your homework beforehand finding out as much as you can about the company; their objectives, competitors and what challenges they may be facing. Many people approach a job interview without having done any preparation, and therefore can't demonstrate in their interview answers that they're interested in the recruiter's organisation.

Showing an interest also means asking good questions at the end of the job interview. You should always plan a few questions of your own for the end of the job interview to demonstrate your interest in the company. You can also ask questions during the job interview, if they're relevant. Questions should show that you want to know more about the role and the organisation. Ideally, questions should be focused on how you can help the employer solve problems as long as these topics haven't been explicitly covered already. For example, candidates might ask something like: what sort of goals does the organisation have over the next six months? or how will my role help the company move forward?

As long as candidates approach the job interview with a view to how they can help the company, rather than thinking about proving themselves, they should get the right balance between following the job interviewer's lead and showing initiative.