Dress To Impress - If you took Ali's tip last week you should look great and feel great - dressing to impress is also about making you feel good. Get yourself an outfit for the interview that you look and feel a million dollars in!!

Think about all the preparation you have done - the interview is only a small part of the interview process. Take confidence from the thorough preparation you have done to put yourself in the best position on the day.

You must have done something right - think about it, you have been invited for an interview because the organisation has seen something in your CV/application that has interested them enough to find out more.

Think of the interview as a 2 way process - as well as you being asked questions on how suitable you will be for the role, remember to make sure you find out enough about the organisation to see if you want to work for them. Does the job suit your talents and values. Is this a job you can see yourself doing and enjoying.

Many interviewers are themselves quite nervous - in my experience many managers are dragged off departments to help with interviewing with little or no training. Try to take confidence from the fact that although the interviewer seems confident and calm they are quite likely to be feeling uncertain themselves.

See yourself doing the job - visualise yourself in the role doing the job.

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One way you can do this to great effect is to ask for feedback. You can ask for feedback from anyone, peers, managers, trainers etc.

If for example as part of your development you have been asked to support a new member of staff, showing them the ropes. Then why not ask for feedback from them. You can ask them verbally and to ensure you have evidence for your manager you can ask them to put it in writing. A quick email is perfectly acceptable.

To ensure the feedback is more relevant and hence valuable you can ask specific questions about your performance. So you might ask them to comment on your attitude, knowledge, skills, the pace of any training and relevance etc. Also what areas do they think you could improve on, this is important because if you are truly looking to develop and stretch yourself you need constructive feedback.

Another way to gain valuable feedback is to ask for someone to observe you in your task. Usually this would be your line manager, trainer or coach. By observing you and making notes someone can better evaluate your performance and feed into your development.

Many people take on an additional responsibility or training and never get any proper feedback. Often feedback is provided too far down the line, when it is less relevant. It also means that something you could have improved upon if told about early is left to become a bigger problem.

By being proactive and asking for regular feedback you are putting yourself in control of your development.

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I will email you directly in answer to your question unless I get a number of similar questions. In this case I cover the topic in a future issue.

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