I read a fascinating article posted on LinkedIn today by Shane Snow entitled ‘This Post Will Make You A More Effective Communicator In 90 Seconds‘, which of course grabbed my attention immediately; but what I read did make me a more effective communicator – talk about ‘it does exactly what it says on the tin’!
It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking with your best friend, your colleague, an important client or someone you bump into at the coffee shop, verbal communication is, for the most part, the most effective way of communicating with them. Asking questions is something that we all do, in fact we ask more questions than we think; most of the time we’re asking one form of question or another. But have you ever stopped to think ‘am I asking the right questions’ and, if so (like I do the whole time), have you tried to learn what kind of questions you should have asked?
One of the topics I’m constantly being asked about and hear the Client Relationship Managers and Executive Coaches talk about is interview techniques. We all naturally feel submissive in an interview situation, some more than others, and some situations more than others, but essentially when someone is interviewing you, regardless of whom they are, they make you feel as though you’re being put on the spot, that they’re looking for you to screw-up and sometimes they make you feel like you did when you got told off at school! But understanding why you feel like this is the key, and it comes down to the impression you make: no one wants to leave an interview feeling like they came across in a bad light or that they said the wrong things; or didn’t say enough. Knowing how to ask questions will not only help you in your interview, but it will allow you to see the interview from the interviewers point-of-view too. This is, of course, a game changer.
If you do one thing today, regardless of who you are, whether or not you’re looking for a job, how good you think you are in tough situations such as interviews, read this article! I promise you, you’ll rethink the way you speak to everyone!
The article can be read in full via LinkedIn here.
