As previously mentioned in my post on mindset needed to survive job hunting, just after I finished my study, I worked as a customer service assistant at a department store in Kuala Lumpur. Generally my task involved assisting customer’s query and complaints, help in membership registration, wedding gift registry and most importantly, wrapping present. 🙂

The work was very rewarding, and in a way had helped me greatly in my quest for job hunting. In fact it helped me a lot in my coming interview. Here’s how :

1) Interview = Communicate = English
There’s no way you can sell a product just by pointing, smile and giving a thumbs up. You need to speak comprehensible and confident English. Please notice that I didn’t use the word fluent and good English 🙂 I can testify that out of the years of learning English, these periods were the time I improved the most.

2) Know the product in and out
In my line of work (at the time), I need to know how to differentiate between red wine glass and a goblet. I need to know how to point out the reason why some bedsheet are expensive and some don’t. In general, I need to know how to sell everything there.

Let say I’m selling the expensive bedsheet, and the customer ask why is it more expensive than the other one. If all I can say is, “I’m not so sure”. Do you think the customer will buy it?

The same with interview, everyone is trying to sell themselves. They say that they are more special than the others. But when asked, they usually don’t know how to describe their strength.

Tip : Try to describe your strength with respect to what you can offer to the company, and not just by saying that you are this and that.

3) Don’t sell the wrong thing
When potential customer call me and ask for some information on a product, I was advised by my manager to avoid persuading them to buy. All I need to do is to provide all the information needed and help him in any way I can.

Most of the time, the customer will buy the product, simply because he is impressed by the attention given.

Similarly in an interview, the interviewer usually have read your resume and they were already impressed. The interview is just their way to see your attitude, confidence and passion for the job. Highlight these as often as you can. No need to worry about technical knowledge or your present perfect tense.

When they’ve already like you, the job is practically yours.

– I Wonder –
Any interesting stories on your experience undergoing interview? Please share

———- Personal Note ———
One of the thing I love the most about my job then is wrapping gift. I learnt there the actual art of wrapping gift. I really take pride of the work done.

Anybody want their gift wrapped? 🙂