I won't bore you with the stuff you can google. I spent the summer interning in a Fortune 20 company in a national recruitment role. A good portion of my summer was dedicated to learning and enhancing the interview process from a corporate prospective. In doing this, I learned some incredibly useful things you can do to enhance your chances of getting an entry-level position. If you are looking for a "have a firm handshake and look your interviewer in the eye!" type of column, you aren't ready for this stuff yet. This research is based on interviewing 100's of hiring leaders and 25 national interns. If you do these few things well, and you are actually qualified for the position you are applying to, you will greatly enhance your chance of getting the job. Also know that most of these tricks of the trade do not work for IT positions. IT is all about what you have done and whom you have done it for.

Do not be afraid to ASK for the position:
One of the most memorable sit downs I had was with a VP in account management and he told me about an individual, who after the section of every interview where you are given a chance to ask questions, took an opportunity to sell himself again. The structure went something like this, "Mr. Smith, we have talked about the position having to A, B, and C and I have shown you that I have done D, E, and F. Is there any reason you don't believe I would be perfect for this job because it is something I really can see myself being great at." Think of all of the great qualities that are shown based on this closing statement; attention detail, interest in the position, self-awareness. There are plenty more. Go ahead and tell them why you’re right and give yourself an opportunity now to clear up anything that didn't go to well.

Talk in first person when describing a scenario and bask in others glory as if it was your own:
You can easily find SHARE or STAR or SARI models online on how to answer a behavioral interview based question but one fundamental mistake that is made during the interview is that people tend to slip into what the GROUP did instead of what YOU did. One question that you WILL get if you are interviewing for an entry-level position will go something like this. "Tell me about a time when you were working in a group and one member wasn't pulling their weight. What was the outcome?" And most of you will talk about an accounting or finance or chemistry project where Joe Pothead missed the most important meeting and WE still got an A. Wrong. Joe Pothead didn't show up so I tried one last time to get in touch with him to get him caught up but to no avail. So I decided to work with the other group members to delegate additional work so each member would feel comfortable presenting their new information. The project ended up being even better because of the great communication the rest of us shared. The best part was when Suzy Shypants took a really proactive role in finishing section A. The important thing to remember is that a company doesn't care how you did on your Accy 202 assignment. They want to know the steps YOU took to make the process work.

Put the interviewer in a position where they are the expert:
This is dependent on who you are interviewing with. If you are talking with potential direct reports or HR, this strategy becomes void. This is more complicated then I am willing to write too much about but this is insight on human nature. If you give you friendly people an opportunity to be friendly, they will feel stronger about themselves and that particular situation. If allow people who consider themselves leaders the ability to lead in the hour that you get, they will feel stronger about their ability to lead you and that can only bode well during an interview. I know this last point needs to be polished but if it is a concept you can grasp without a great explanation from me here, you are stacking the deck in your favor.

Please comment on this article if you have any comments or questions about an interview you have or the interviewing process in general. I'm always looking for new insight and the chance to help!

This post was originally written by Matt Zohn
University of Illinois · Industrial Psychology/Human Resources · 14 Aug 2007