The PCS Job-Seeker’s Guide: Interviewing: The Importance of Listening

An insightful person once said that “most people do not listen; they merely wait their turn to speak.”

Listening skills are essential to being an effective interviewee. You need to know what prospective employers want to hear.

Often, interviewers will tell you the skills they are looking for.

Further, the interview is the time to find out if you really want to work for an employer. By listening carefully, you can decide if you want the job and what’s required to get it.

It is good to think of an interview both as a dialogue as well as a performance.

When all you can think of are your answers to the interviewer’s questions, you miss a premium opportunity to garner information about the situation you will enter if you take the job.

Just as importantly, you miss an opportunity to impress interviewers in a way few people do. Listening tells the interviewer you have heard what was said — and sometimes what was not said.

The best questions you can ask come from listening.

There are few better ways to make an impact with a prospective employer than by catching the details of what the interviewer is saying, and then spinning those points into observations or well-crafted questions.

Smart employers see curiosity as a valuable trait, and you accentuate your curiosity by listening intently.

Good sales people understand that a key ingredient in making a sale is establishing a rapport with the prospective buyer.

Think of the interviewer as a buyer of your services and skills. Active listening will enable you to react and respond to the interviewer as a person and contribute to establishing a more personal “connection”.

Listening Techniques

Maintain eye contact with the interviewer. Eye contact keeps you focused on the job at hand and keeps you involved in the interview.

Focus on content, not delivery. Have you ever counted the number of times an individual clears his throat in a fifteen minute period? If so, you weren’t focusing on content.

Avoid emotional involvement.

When you are too emotionally involved in listening, you tend to hear what you want to hear–not what is actually being said. Try to remain objective and open-minded.

Avoid distractions.

Don’t let your mind wander or be distracted.

Treat listening as a challenging mental task.

Listening during an interview is not a passive act–at least it shouldn’t be.

You need to concentrate on what is said so that you can process the information.

Stay active by asking mental questions.

Active listening keeps you on your toes. Here are some questions you can ask yourself as you listen. What key point is the interviewer making? What are his/her goals and/or concerns?

Use the gap between the rate of speech and your rate of thought.

You can think faster than the interviewer can talk. That’s one reason your mind may tend to wander. All the above suggestions will help you keep your mind occupied and focused on what being said.

You can actually begin to anticipate what the interviewer is going to say as a way to keep your mind from straying. Your mind does have the capacity to listen, think, and ponder at the same time, but it does take practice.

This article first appeared in the Hamodia.

If you know of a job opening please contact Professional Career Services at 732.905.9700 or Lakewood@nj.pcsjobs.org

Yoel Tolwinski, Director of Placements

Shoshana Smulowitz, Director of Placements

Daniel Soloff, Director

Comments are closed.