How To excel In a Personal Interview
Personal Interview (PI) (a.k.a. HR round) is generally the concluding stage of any recruitment procedure. Candidates are suggested to prepare for and attend this round seriously as you final selection or rejection may very well depend on your performance in this round irrespective of the of how good or bad you performed in the previous rounds. If you made it to the HR round, it means you are just a step away from your goal and at this point you definitely don’t want to stumble and fall back to where you started from, so do take this round casually and make sure that you are fully prepared.
Here are some tips and general practices that you should follow in order to leave a good impression on the interviewer.
- Be confident. Interview is all about confidence, so be confident and do not hesitate to display it.
- Make sure you have healthy knowledge your subject and try to use it to your advantage wherever possible during interview.
- Work on your vocabulary and speaking fluency. Do not use fillers (e.g. do not use hindiwords in between while speaking in English) and expressions like ummm, ahhh, you know etc. while speaking.
- Dress formally and make sure you are looking decent. Remember you are going for an interview not for a fashion-show, so try to be presentable and not funk/over-stylish at the same time. Here are some tips
o Wear clean clothes.
o Boys, shave properly, comb your hair (avoid wearing funky hairstyles) and make sure your shoes are polished. Do not fold the sleeves for your shirt and keep them buttoned. Wear tie and keep zero-button closed.
o Girls, tie you hair properly and avoid wearing stylish and over-heeled foot-wears.
- Carry your resume and all the documents/certificates in a folder to the interview room.
- Read as much as you can about the organization for which you are facing interview.
- Keep your body language in check. In an interview your body language is as much important as your knowledge, so try to be gracious and decent with your body gestures. During interview, keep the physical movement as minimum as possible.
- Your interview starts the very moment you enter the interview hall, so make sure you start with a good impression. Follow these instructions on how to enter and settle down in the interview room:-
o Do not bang open/close the door.
o When entering open half the door and ask for permission to enter. If granted enter the room and close the door properly. if not, close the door and wait outside for further instructions. Be loud (do not shout) while asking for permission to enter.
- After entering the room, wish the panelist(s). If there aremore than one interviewer, wish the female panelist(s) first and then wish the male members.
- Walk to the chair and stand by it, until you are offered to sit. Do not sit on your own and never ask for permission to sit.
- When you sit make sure that you are comfortable in the seat because you may have to sit for long in that chair and once seated you won’t get a chance to settle again. When seating down, avoid dragging the chair but if space is less and dragging is unavoidable, try and make as much minimum sound as possible while dragging the chair.
- Avoid offering hand-shakes to interviewer(s). But if they offer, accept the offer gracefully.
- Be confident and audible while answering questions. Avoid getting into arguments as the interviewers might try to tangle you. Sometimes they might cross-question or rapid fire questions on you, keep your calm and answer each question patiently.
- Be expressive, but not over-expressive. Sometimes when people are asked something from their area of strength, they get carried away and start rambling. That is not a good thing to do, so avoid that. Explain what you know properly but do not ramble.
- After the interview is over, wish the interviewer(s) good day, walk to the door and close it properly (do not bang it).
Interview is all about confidence, so be confident, be presentable and speak reasonably in during interview.
If you have any questions, please comment them below and we will get back to you.
You can refer to following books for preparation.
