In the first five minutes of an interview you start revealing your personality traits. These are really important minutes, from them hiring managers make their initial assessments and typically spend the rest of the interview working to confirm those assessments. So how do you convey job-winning personalities? Relax and be yourself, unless you’re kind of a jerk then we recommend projecting these traits:

Easy to Work with.

Most managers don’t want to insert a wild card into their workforce to “mix things up”. Every job comes with a learning curve and how well you relate to others generally correlates to how steep that curve will be. If people like to work with you, they’ll be more willing to mentor you and hiring managers understand this and want to stop tapping you for that value you promise.

Comfortable with Success (Positive).

It sounds so easy but it’s shocking how many people are afraid of sounding like a braggart in relating stories that demonstrate their skills and leadership abilities. Most hiring managers know that success starts with a person being able to envision it then move towards it, and being able to comfortably envision yourself succeeding is a big part.

Organized.

Interviews can range all over the place. Do your best to keep focused and stay within the script. The script is that story your resume and experience tell and seem to demand the next step along the way is within these walls where you’re interviewing. You have to follow their lead, and some questions could trip you up a bit. That’s OK, the story can have some subplots as long as you trace back to the important part (the part where you’re the hero that solves their problems).

Adaptable.

Today’s jobs don’t have rigid responsibilities. You’ll be expected to grow and change direction at times when that’s what the business needs to do. Can you handle that? It’s great if you can relate how your duties evolved at a past job, as long as that was portrayed as a good thing.

So the first five minutes you want to have these qualities, but no pressure. These qualities likely will come naturally to you.

About NextGen

NextGen is the brainchild of longtime telecom professionals with nearly 50 years of experience and millions of dollars in Telecom Recruiting Services. We focus on establishing long term relationships with our clients and candidates so we can recruit the best and the brightest in the telecom industry. This ‘quality over quantity’ approach is at the heart of everything we do and has resulted in successful job placements at Fortune 1000 firms worldwide.