The Two Minute Drill That Will Make a Difference in Your Interviews | JobSearchTV.com

I want to talk with you today about the 2 minute drill that is going to make a big difference your interviewing. Most of you have heard me talk about practice and the importance of practice in so many situations, particularly interviewing. Like I’ve said many times, there is a principle that Malcolm Gladwell popularized all the 10,000 hour rule. Basically, it says that it takes 10,000 hours of focused or deliberate practice in order to become expert at something.

To give you a perspective, in my career, I have 10,000 hours times 9 from my time in job search. For most of you with interviewing or job hunting, may be you have 100 hours . . . 200 hundred hours . . . 400 hours . . . Maybe you are a consultant who has interviewed a lot and you been doing it for 35 years so you 400 hours of experience, but you don’t have 10,000 hours so you tend to make mistakes.

So, here's a practice I want you to do as part of your interview preparation. Initially, it involves dressing as you would for the interview. You are not going to wear the outfit for very long so don't worry about dry cleaning or what have you. Dress as you would for the interview. Here is what I’d like you to do.

I'd like someone to be sitting opposite you and asking you questions. Now, that that isn’t very different. But what I also want them to do is take a phone and start doing video with you so that, in this way, the 2 of you can look back and see how you appear to someone else and then observe how you will look to someone else when they were answering questions.

It's funny but until you have that perspective of how others see you, you're running on imagination and your phone (or iPad or whatever device you use to video yourself) will help you see what others see. Now, you may say, “Well, my voice is terrible.” That's the way they hear it so, get used to it. That is the way your voice sounds.

“I look fat.” Well, that means you do look fat and maybe there is a different outfit that you should wear rather than distract people with your appearance. I happened to be wearing pinstripe today which you can't really see but in this color of sweater vest, in this shirt, I come across with blue which, I'm told from different places, is an ideal color for interviewing.

However, I don't know your skin tones. You may look better in different colors. See how you look on camera because, in much the same way as people who are in PR, people who do media training our training people or being coaching then to wear certain things. Well, I am going to tell you that you have to see what you look like in your outfits. Don't assume that they look well. See yourself on camera. Listen to yourself. Observe your mannerisms and it will help you . . . two minutes. That's also it is going to take. 2 Minutes.