How to train for job interviews

What is a practice job interview?

A practice job interview involves performing a realistic practice job interview as opposed to just reading articles and studying theories relating to job interviews.

How can practice job interviews be useful?

Practice job interviews can be extremely useful as they help you to:

• improve your general interview technique
• think about the way you formulate answers
• work on your body language
• increase your overall confidence in interview situations
• gain valuable feedback on your performance

How to conduct a practice job interview

First you need to find someone to act as the interviewer. This could be a friend, family member or teacher.  If you know someone with experience of conducting job interviews this would be even better. Once you have found someone to act as the interviewer try to make the practice interview as realistic as possible. This means thinking about how long the interview might last, what you should wear and how you greet the person interviewing you. In addition, it might be useful for you to provide a copy of the job description and a list of interview questions to whoever is performing the practice job interview. You can find a list of interview questions at:

• Top 10 interview questions and answers

You may also want to encourage the interviewer to ask other questions relevant to the job description but not included our top 10.

Once the interview has finished ask the person who acted as the interviewer to spend a few minutes talking about what you did well and what you might be able to improve on in the future.

What you can expect to get out of a practice job interview?

Many people find that performing a practice job interview helps them to relax when faced with real job interviews. This can be a result of some of the fear or the unknown being removed. A further benefit is simply answering interview questions aloud. It is one thing thinking about how you might answer an interview question in your head, it is a completely different thing answering a question aloud. The more you answer questions aloud the more you will think about how best to verbalise your answer and the more confident you will become.

For more tips on how to succeed during an interview check out the following articles: