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 Maybe you've got a big interview coming up, or you're just trying to educate yourself on how to behave during an interview and this thought suddenly runs through your mind - What about interview power words? You know what I mean, the buzz words you need to say during an interview to impress the interviewer and lock in the job.
Unfortunately, it's not all that easy. The last thing you want to do is to start throwing around these "power words" to impress someone during an interview. It's going to sound very unnatural and even worse, trying to remember these words might add to your pre-interview anxiety.
But there are some techniques you can use to help you say the right thing during a job interview - for example, how you can sneak some power words into the conversation. You just need to know when and how to use these techniques.
Power Words and Behavioral Interviews
We've got several articles dedicated to behavioral interviews. If you've never been on this type of job interview before, then you should focus a lot of your energy on reviewing that information.
The entire technique of responding to behavioral interview questions is unnatural and you're even supposed to respond using a prescribed format known as a STAR response. In fact, even the way behavioral questions are asked is unique to this type of job interview.
The good news is that behavioral interviewing needs practice to perfect. That means you can weave in some of the power words you'd like to use and practice this technique ahead of time. This will make it sound only somewhat rehearsed. But that's not a big deal during a behavioral interview.
If you're called in for a job interview and you know it's a behavioral interview, it will be helpful to remember these two things:
- Review all the information you can on the technique itself so that you understand the types of questions that you'll be asked and how to respond to behavioral questions during an interview.
- Take a look at our article on resume power words. There you will find hundreds of examples of power words that you can use during an interview.
Practice using these words with your STAR response and you're all set for this type of job interview.
Power Words and Traditional Interviews
Your approach for using power words during a traditional job interview is going to be a bit different than during a behavioral interview. That's because traditional interview questions are less intellectually demanding and your response will be far less structured.
For that very reason, attempting to insert buzz words into your responses or conversations with the person conducting the interview is going to sound "forced" or "scripted." Inserting power words into your conversation may sound deliberate and that may arouse the suspicions of the interviewer.
All warnings aside, it's still possible to use power words during this type of interview. But rather than memorize a specific list of words you'd like to use, a better approach is to understand what exactly makes a power word so powerful during conversation.
Power Word Examples
Power words are usually action words or simply verbs. Some interviewees believe it's important to insert these words into their responses because these words are more powerful in expressing what was accomplished. For example, take a look at the following statement pairings:
Example 1
- I kept accounting records for company XYZ.
- I maintained accounting records for company XYZ.
Example 2
- I got a great deal on the software used at our call center.
- I negotiated a great deal on the software utilized at our call center.
Example 3
- I used to figure out business cases so our company could create new products.
- I was responsible for developing business cases to support our company's launch of new products.
Get the idea? In each of these pairings, we've used power word in the second statement - hopefully demonstrating how to use them during an interview. If you're not used to talking in this fashion, then you'll want to practice before the actual interview. If speaking this way is completely unnatural, even after practicing, then this approach may do you more harm than good.
About the Author - Interview Power Words
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