I have interviewed hundreds of individuals in the past couple of years for different positions, including; management, development, research, telecom and many more. I believe there are a few factors that lead to a successful job interview.

I usually compare a job interview with a sales meeting — they both have a lot of similarities. It should be pretty easy for a good salesperson to deal with a job interview and vise-versa. Below are a couple of tips to help you have a successful job interview anywhere, whether a small business or a corporate:

Talk to the point

I have seen many individuals taking more than five minutes to answer a simple question. If you are asked to explain “How many people have you supervised?” then only give them the number saying “I have supervised a team of 30 people during the last two years” and that should be enough for them to move on to another question. Do not provide additional information including examples of your management, unless you are asked to do so. So the first tip is to talk to the point, don’t make it difficult for the panelists to understand what you just said. Talking is good but talking too much can sometimes lead to making the panelists feel bored and make them want to end the interview as soon as possible.

Be Honest

I have seen candidates coming to job interviews with the ultimate goal to prove that they are the smartest among the candidates. I am not saying it’s a bad intention but sometimes some of the candidates begin to provide false information or answers out of the sky, no matter what you ask them. If you don’t know the answers to the questions asked from you during a job interview then you will probably not get the job but why would you damage your reputation and end up not getting the job? Therefore, it’s always best that you provide the honest possible answers.

Don’t Say

Whether you are making a sale impression or giving a job interview, you will some times face the panelists asking you the same question multiple times. They may do it intentionally to see your patience and to see if you would provide the same answer or maybe unintentionally but the mistake the candidates make is when they say in response “As earlier said….”. No matter how many times they ask you the question, always provide the same answer and never use “As earlier said” as a prefix to your answer. The interviewer may some time take it as if you are telling them that you’ve already responded to this question so why are you asking me this again? Be humble and patient.

Choose the right kind of a position

Sometimes businesses end up recruiting people that tend to be very smart but then after spending a couple of months — they begin to realize that the recruitment of the individual was nothing but just a mistake. The point I am trying to make here is that there are people good at talking but not so good at work and vise-versa.

Try to avoid the above, be confident or don’t attend the interview at all because otherwise, you will end up disappointing yourself. I have seen people applying to a telecom position from a business background which doesn’t match and wouldn’t work for you either even if you pass the interview.

Those were my tips from interviewing more than a hundred people. I hope it will help you next time you attend a job interview or a sales meeting.