The inter­view is the most impor­tant part of the job appli­ca­tion process. It’s where the hir­ing man­ager makes the final deci­sion about who to hire and who to ignore. Unfor­tu­nately, many can­di­dates come to the inter­view not know­ing how to present them­selves or how the hir­ing man­ager will per­ceive their answers to com­mon inter­view ques­tions. Every hir­ing man­ager has seen highly qual­i­fied can­di­dates come to job interviews:

• Inap­pro­pri­ately dressed
• Unpre­pared
• Giv­ing answers to com­mon job inter­view ques­tions that left a very neg­a­tive impression
• No know­ing what aspects of their back­ground to empha­size dur­ing the interview

A inter­view coach­ing ses­sion will help you avoid these prob­lems and build an effec­tive inter­view­ing strat­egy that shows the hir­ing man­ager you have the skills, per­son­al­ity, and back­ground to do the job effec­tively. A sin­gle inter­view­ing coach­ing ses­sion can make the dif­fer­ence in your appli­ca­tion process and is well worth the price. Pay­ing for a job inter­view coach may be the best deci­sion you ever made.

Inter­view coach­ing can make a huge dif­fer­ence for grad­u­ate school appli­cants as well.

Absolutely, we have helped hun­dreds of clients over the phone and Skype.  A phone con­nec­tion is more than enough for your job inter­view coach to hear your answers to inter­view ques­tions, see the way you present your­self in an inter­view and pro­vide real time feed­back. Using Skype or video chat is a small advan­tage over phone because your job inter­view coach can see your facial expres­sions. Regard­less, both the phone and video chat are great ways to com­mu­ni­cate regard­ing inter­views. Even for Inter­view SOS’s Los Angeles-based clients, we sug­gest com­mu­ni­cat­ing over Skype to save com­muning time for the client. (Of course, we still meet many clients at our Los Ange­les offices as well.)

Prior to sched­ul­ing an inter­view, please make sure you have either:

• A reli­able tele­phone or
• A com­puter with video chat capa­bil­i­ties (Skype or Google Video Chat) and a reli­able high-speed inter­net connection

As long as you have one of the above two, you should be able to inter­act with your career coach suc­cess­fully and get the prac­ti­cal feed­back required for a suc­cess­ful job inter­view coach­ing session.

At Inter­view SOS, we feel that we shouldn’t be paid unless you are sat­is­fied with our services.

We offer a Money Back Guar­an­tee on our job inter­view coach­ing ser­vices. If at any time dur­ing your job inter­view coach­ing ses­sion you are not con­vinced that we can help improve your inter­view­ing skills and chances of get­ting a job, let your inter­view coach know and we will ter­mi­nate the ses­sion and give you a full refund. As a cour­tesy, we ask that you give an expla­na­tion for why you felt we did not meet your expec­ta­tions so we can improve for the future.

Please note we can­not guar­an­tee you will get the job. We can only guar­an­tee that our job inter­view coach will do every­thing he or she can to help you suc­ceed in the job inter­view process.

Your inter­view coach will spend time review­ing your resume and job descrip­tion before your inter­view coach­ing session. Therefore we can­not offer a money back guar­an­tee for no shows.

One of career coaches will con­tact you by phone or by Skype to ask you about your spe­cific cir­cum­stances and the job or grad­u­ate school you are apply­ing for. We will sug­gest a plan for your job inter­view prepa­ra­tion, often ref­er­enc­ing our The Defin­i­tive Guide to Ace Your Inter­view and Get the Job. This usu­ally takes 10 min­utes or less. If appro­pri­ate, our career coach will a sched­ule an inter­view coach­ing ses­sion with you at a mutu­ally agreed upon time.

Inter­view SOS coaches have helped appli­cants apply for posi­tions in many indus­tries, including:

• Account­ing and Finance
• Mar­ket­ing, Sales and Communications
• Engi­neer­ing, Com­put­ers and Infor­ma­tion Technology
• Oper­a­tions Management
• Human Resources
• Admin­is­tra­tion (Secretarial)
• Non­profit Management

We have also helped appli­cants inter­view­ing for busi­ness and med­ical school but that  requires addi­tional prepa­ra­tion. Please see our Ser­vices Sec­tion to learn more.

The best way to get over your anx­i­ety is being pre­pared. Spend as much time as you can to get ready for the inter­view both in research­ing the com­pany and prepar­ing answers to com­mon inter­view ques­tions. We can help you over­come your anxiety.

If you find that you are still ner­vous about job inter­view, than we sug­gest rehears­ing under less than ideal cir­cum­stances. Our sug­ges­tions are as follows:

Loud Music Strategy

Play some music you don’t like loud enough that it inter­feres with your thoughts but doesn’t wake the neigh­bors. Then rehearse your answers to com­mon job inter­view ques­tions. Don’t try to talk over the music just deal with it. Prac­tic­ing for your inter­view under less than ideal cir­cum­stances will help you do better.

Insult­ing Friend Strategy

Ask your friends to help you rehearse for you job inter­view. Tell them they can say any­thing mean or insult­ing they want to say to you (within rea­son), while they ask you com­mon job inter­view ques­tions. You can­not respond to their insults, only respond to the job inter­view ques­tion they are ask­ing you.

The con­ver­sa­tion should go some­thing like this:

Friend: “Why are you inter­ested in work­ing for com­pany x? By the way, I think your car is really ugly.”

You: “I really admire com­pany x for rea­son a, rea­son b and rea­son c. [do not respond to car comment]”

Friend: “Your room is always such a mess. You are such a slob. What is your great­est weakness?”

You: “My great­est weak­ness is my math skills. I over­came this weak­ness by study­ing extra hard for my math final exams. [Do not respond to slob comment.]”

Both of these strate­gies are very child­ish, which is why they are so effec­tive at get­ting rid of anx­i­ety. The real job inter­view will never be as bad as the arti­fi­cial sit­u­a­tion you cre­ated when you were prac­tic­ing for it.

Inter­view SOS career coaches have helped appli­cants with many dif­fer­ent back­grounds get jobs. Past clients have included:

• Expe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­als seek­ing new employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in their field
• Career chang­ers enter­ing a new field in midlife
• Recent high school and col­lege grad­u­ates seek­ing a first job
• For­mer retirees and house­wives reen­ter­ing the job market
• Unem­ployed work­ers try­ing to improve their chances of get­ting a job

We also have some expe­ri­ence help­ing can­di­dates with spe­cial sit­u­a­tions such as:

• Shy­ness
• Anx­i­ety
• Speech Dis­or­ders
• Eng­lish as a Sec­ond Language

We strongly sug­gest that the appli­cant send us their resume, cover let­ter (if rel­e­vant) and a copy of the job descrip­tion prior to the inter­view coach­ing ses­sions so the coach can review these doc­u­ments and sug­gest an appro­pri­ate inter­view­ing strategy.It’s optional, but we sug­gest that the appli­cant come to the coach­ing ses­sion pre­pared to answer the fol­low­ing com­mon inter­view questions:

• Tell me about your­self? [Hint: Give a 2–3 minute per­sonal sales pitch]
• Why are you leav­ing your cur­rent or pre­vi­ous job?
• What is your great­est strength? What are your strengths?
• What is your great­est weak­ness? What are your weaknesses?
• Why are you inter­ested in this posi­tion or company?
• Tell me about your great­est achievement.

Please con­sult our Inter­view SOS Prac­ti­cal Guide to Job Inter­view Prepa­ra­tion for addi­tional hints on how to answer these ques­tions successfully.

The job appli­cant can also bring a list of ques­tions and con­cerns about the inter­view process for his or her coach to answer.

No one can guar­an­tee you will get a job or get into grad­u­ate school, even after a suc­cess­ful inter­view. There are always fac­tors beyond your con­trol in the appli­ca­tion process such as nepo­tism or the qual­ity of the other appli­cants. We pro­vide an edu­ca­tional ser­vice to help our clients suc­ceed in the inter­view process. We strive to give the best pos­si­ble advice and prepa­ra­tion. The inter­view­ing skills you develop as part of your coach­ing ses­sion are com­plete trans­fer­able. The time you spend prepar­ing for one inter­view will help you pre­pare for the next.

When it comes to the job appli­ca­tion process, no news is (usu­ally) bad news. Not all com­pa­nies bother to send let­ters to unsuc­cess­ful job appli­cants. If you don’t hear back from your con­tact in Human resources or the hir­ing man­ager two weeks after a job inter­view, we sug­gest you write to your con­tacts in the com­pany express­ing your con­tin­ued inter­est in the posi­tion. Com­pa­nies are noto­ri­ously inde­ci­sive about giv­ing out offers for some posi­tions and the can­di­date who con­tin­ues to (politely) express inter­est in the posi­tion may receive an offer at a later date or be called back to inter­view for another sim­i­lar posi­tion if one opens up. If you have not heard back from the com­pany two weeks after the inter­view, send­ing the fol­low­ing let­ter (or some vari­ant of it) is appropriate:

Dear [Hir­ing Manager/HR Con­tact name],

I had not heard back from you and I wanted to express my con­tin­ued inter­est in [posi­tion xx].

I was very impressed by your [busi­ness, non­profit, etc.]. Let me know if there is any­thing I can do to move for­ward with my candidacy.

Sin­cerely,

[you]

Until you receive a con­crete job offer, we sug­gest that you assume you did not receive the job and con­tinue your appli­ca­tion process at other companies.

At Inter­view SOS, we are con­cerned career coaches who do our best to pro­tect the pri­vacy and con­fi­den­tial­ity of our clients. Our pri­vacy pol­icy is enclosed. We will not sell your name and infor­ma­tion to any third party.

Pri­vacy Policy

It is impor­tant for can­di­dates to rec­og­nize that “no” usu­ally means “not now.” Many Inter­view SOS clients have been called back at a later date to inter­view again for posi­tions sim­i­lar to what they inter­viewed for in the past as addi­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties opened up in those com­pa­nies. You should accept the rejec­tion with grace and express con­tin­ued inter­est in the posi­tion. Accept­ing rejec­tion with grace is a sign of matu­rity that is highly respected by many com­pa­nies, employ­ers, and edu­ca­tional institutions.After receiv­ing news that you did not receive an offer, send­ing the fol­low­ing let­ter (or some vari­ant of it) is appropriate:

Dear [Hir­ing Manager/HR Con­tact name],

I am sorry to hear that I did not receive an offer for [posi­tion xx]. Thank you for tak­ing the time to con­sider me for the position.

I was very impressed by your [busi­ness, non­profit, etc.] and I would like to express my con­tin­ued inter­est in the posi­tion. If this posi­tion or a sim­i­lar one opens up at a later date, I hope you will con­sider my candidacy.

Sin­cerely

[you]

You should con­tinue your job search but be ready to respond to a job inquiry if you are called back to inter­view for another position.

Our job inter­view coaches are focused on pro­vid­ing prac­ti­cal inter­view advice and help­ing you get the job. There­fore, all billing issues should be han­dled before the coach­ing ses­sion in order to avoid wast­ing valu­able time. Billing is han­dled by our third party pay­ment proces­sor WePay or by Paypal.