Imagine an interviewer asking you questions such as “Are you a good team player?” or “How would you rate yourself as a manager?”

It’s all very well answering by saying “Yes, I’m a good team player” or “I rate myself as a very inspiring and motivating manager.” But if you really want to impress an interviewer, you should answer by providing an example – a short story – explaining why… Read more

I coach quite a few people who want to find new jobs. I’ve been doing a lot of this recently and it made me think of some of the commonest mistakes I’ve been seeing people make when job hunting.

1. Sending the same CV out to multiple employers
Do you have considerable, directly-relevant experience on your CV? If the answer to that question is ‘yes’, then by all means just … Read more

A lot of my work involves job interviews. I have observed and trained literally hundreds of managers in how to interview properly. I also coach individual candidates to make a better impression during interviews. Here are four questions that candidates often struggle to answer well – as well as my advice on how to beat them:

“To begin with, could you tell us a bit about you please?”
Technically, this … Read more

I’ve been coaching so many job hunters recently. They have been men and women ranging from recent graduates in their early 20s to experienced executives and workers in their late 50s. In most cases, they had good experience that they could talk about. However, they weren’t selling themselves and coming across as capable and credible.

If you want to improve your interview performance, work through the following five steps:

1. … Read more

Over the years, I’ve trained a lot of interviewers in how to interview. I’ve interviewed candidates myself too.

But I’m also a gamekeeper turned poacher as I’ve coached job hunters who want to present themselves better at interview. Unfortunately, it still amazes me how badly most candidates come across – even though they may actually have great experience and skills. Thankfully, I’ve seen many candidates go from merely adequate at … Read more

I spend a fair amount of my time coaching job hunters on how to present themselves more effectively in order to get the jobs they want. Progressive employers want to hire the very best people for the vacancies they have to fill. Unfortunately, many employers are not progressive – too many employers do discriminate unfairly against candidates from what those employers see as unsuitable backgrounds.

Here are some recent research … Read more

Are you job hunting?  Going for interviews?  Need to come across as more articulate, persuasive or perhaps confident?

A few years ago, the BBC asked me to present a TV show helping job hunters to boost their confidence, improve their interpersonal skills and get the jobs they wanted.  I filmed two seasons of the show.  The first season was titled Who Would Hire You? while the second was retitled … Read more

A few years ago, the BBC asked me to present a TV show called How to Get Your Dream Job, in which I helped struggling job hunters to boost their skills and confidence in order to get their dream jobs.

I think that getting a job requires a combination of:

• knowledge
• confidence and
• influence and persuasion skills.

The job hunter in this episode had the knowledge, but lacked confidence … Read more