You talking to ME? Three Tips to “BE PRESENT” at your interview!

Last week I offered techniques to practice verbalizing your capabilities, experience and what you can do for this company WHEN you get this logistics job. Were you honest with yourself practicing in front of a mirror and putting it all into conversational words OUT LOUD?

GOOD, I’m glad you followed up. (I’m taking your word for it!)

You have just invested time and self evaluation into the new language of you! This is an important beginning. I’ve used this technique for almost 20 years. I not only use it for interviews and meeting new clients, but before any kind of meeting I’ll need to speak at. If you’re the leader it’s best to appear to be the leader. Stumbling over an unexpected question means you are human, but it does not exude confidence or expertise. Recovering from a stumble takes practice, but can be handled wisely.

How do we use this? One thing you probably learned from this exercise is that although you are an expert in what you do for a living, it’s probably been a very long time since you needed to put it into words . . . OUT LOUD. I keep using that term because of the mind-body connection forcing you to process thoughts into words in order to make your brain send the right “file content” out of your mouth.

Think of something like the “Pledge of Allegiance” or the “Lord’s Prayer”. Most of us who have recited either piece uncounted times can be watching the morning news, drinking coffee, getting dressed while blow-drying our hair and still recite these without missing a syllable! Why? Practice and repetition make these thoughts a “permanent file”. Something put into words OUT LOUD, repeatedly, just becomes natural.

You are well on your way to new interviews, now get prepared to BE PRESENT!

• The more you practice versions of answers (not a script) to every potential question you can think of, the more natural and expert you will appear. You will find that your repertoire of industry verbiage and phrases will develop to the point where your brain will “mix and match” what you’ve practiced when those between-the-lines queries arise. You can answer anything



• Nerves? Of course, we all have them if we’re still breathing. It relates to the old “Butterflies in the Stomach” remedy of “Getting them to fly in formation!” When you not only “know your stuff”, but you KNOW you can readily articulate it, that’s one butterfly to check off of your list. Confidence in your verbal communication ability allows concentration on greeting, remembering names and paying attention!



• The third tip is BE PRESENT. Few things are more distracting or less professional than an interviewer trying to engage a candidate in an important conversation only to see they are preoccupied somewhere else. If you are desperately compiling a potential answer in your head to a question that might come next, blank faced with no eye contact and a lag time between what was ACTUALLY asked and your stumbling answer . . . you are not PRESENT. You will leave the impression that you have concentration problems and are not really that interested in the job!

Combine all of this with the personal research on the company and the position and you WILL make an impression. This technique is very powerful. Your confidence will soar with each practice, and hey, I’ve heard that you’ve been short-listed for that new job!

Now prepare to manage your own comfortable show. You’re in charge now!
 

K.B. Elliott is a Detroit area contributing writer for Nexxt. Having worked seats on both sides of the logistics process for over 30 years gives unique perspective to the supply chain process and the varieties of successes to be had.

Use your new fluency to land that next position in professional logistics!
Go to: http://www.LogisticsJobSite.com/