Boost Your Interview IQ
How to become an interview genius and land the job of your dreams
If a job interview is an oral exam in which job seeker must give the right answers to a set of questions in order to get hired, then this is the ultimate guide to acing the exam. Written by The Interview Coach at Monster.com, Boost Your Interview IQ offers an enjoyable, interactive way to prepare for and succeed at any job interview.
Combining the features of a step-by-step guide and a skill-building workbook, it:
- Shows job seekers how to craft job-winning answers to the 50 key questions interviewers ask
- Features an Interview IQ Test, interview skill-building exercises, and other interview aptitude boosting tools
- Teaches candidates how to shape their experiences into stories that showcase their skills, knowledge, and personalities
- Offers proven techniques for acing the behavioral interview–the popular new wave interviewing strategy
User Ratings and Reviews
3 Stars Quick review, pre-interview
Didn’t find a lot of new info here, but do find Boost Your Interview IQ a useful quick read the night before an interview.
5 Stars With a little imagination, you can ace the interview
I worked at a Fortune 500 computer company that used behavioral interviewing (where the interviewer says “Tell me about a time . . .”).
If you read this book and Carole’s examples, you can see how to present your experience in a way that impresses. My wife is a book editor and although the book doesn’t cover this particular career, we went over her experiences and created a way to talk about them.
Unless you were a corporate drone who never though outside the box (or even much inside it) you can point out the ways where you added a little extra to the way you did the job. If you can’t think of such remarks you’re just appear to be a faceless job applicant who has no worthwhile features, no matter what your real experiences.
The way to use this book is to read all the examples, and especially take note of the best and second-best way of giving an answer. Eventually you’ll learn what to say for any interview.
I’d rather not have to say something like “Oh yes, I always worked hard at my last job” (which is not 100 percent true and sounds phoney). I’d rather use the behavioral technique and say that a co-worker went in on a Saturday to make up a couple of hours, found that a huge amount of work had been dumped on us, and split the work by e-mailing half of it to me at home, which took up most of my time on that weekend (which actually was true).
I know which one would impress an employer.
5 Stars Fantastic Behavioral Interview Book
I purchased this book after quite a bit of research. I knew my interview would involve what is referred to as Behavioral Style questions. These interviews are designed to invoke story telling. I can tell you this is a great book to prepare you for an interview. It will explain to you how to identify the style of question being asked and how you should frame your responses. Another key benefit is that it will get you thinking about your career and what stories you have to tell. It is a relatively quick read. I would suggest getting this book at least a week or two before your interview so you can start documenting your stories. Then re-read the book the day before to refresh yourself with the theory. It really made a difference in my confidence level going into the interview process.
There are many books out there on interviewing. This book does not try to “give you the answers” but tries to train you on how to respond and walks you through the process. Even though it doesn’t claim to be a “here’s the questions” book, the sample questions are very generic in nature and should really get you thinking.
5 Stars Read this before your behavioral interview
This book was superb. It specifically addresses traditional interviews and then behavioral interviews. It clearly gives you 50 questions to expect and the great, so-so and poor responses. The ROI on this book for the interviewee has to be very high.
4 Stars Helped me get a great job!
I picked up this book from the library after being called for an interview. I was laid off in early January but I had an interview in November that was disastrous. When I got called for this interview, I went to the library and picked up some books on interviewing. The organization I was interviewing with had selected 8 people out of 60 resumes. That alone was enough to be intimidating. I spent a whole weekend going thru just this one book reading and taking notes. What I liked is that it helped me learn how to give answers that highlighted my experience. I was having a hard time coming up with achievements and this really helped. In my mind, I had no achievements. I had simply done my job. I had no quantifiable results such as “increased sales by 15%” or things like that. I was able to turn my experience and skills into achievements. This was not the only book I used but I found this one to be the most helpful. I got called back for a 2nd interview and got a job offer 2 days later. I returned all the books to the library yesterday. I know that if it were not for these books, I would not have gotten that job. I think the most helpful thing this boook did for me was that it gave me confidence to go in there and say that I was the best person for the job. I would not hesitate to recommend it.
Filed under: Resume Writing Book Reviews