How to drive an interview in your favor?

Businesses require skills - technical and communication. If a person is good in other soft skills - it's a good-to-have but not must-have. If you are skilled and are not borderline criminal case, company will hire you.

Totally agree with you @#-Link-Snipped-#

How does one go about preparing for a management/HR interview such that they ask you questions about the topics you love instead of topics they love?

For example - Highlighting the extra-curricular activities on your Resume that you can talk confidently about and avoiding mentioning the small workshop you attended that you have only little knowledge about.

Such kind of tips from engineers here can come in handy for freshers.

From my own experience - it's possible to do that; but you've to be extremely good at holding conversations! The safest strategy is to be calm and cool and be well informed. Ultimately, most hiring decisions are made on the basis of personal opinions of the interviewer about the candidate being interviewed.

There are ways to turn interviews in your favour:-

1. An interview is a discussion and not a 'question/answer' session, in my opinion. However, it's mostly conducted in "I ask - You answer" format. That's okay. The key here is to turn your answer into a discussion.

For example - if the interviewer is asking questions about your past project; you may begin answering and narrate a few incidences on how you did things differently or achieved success as a team or even talk about the mistakes you and your team did - and how you evolved. Most of the times, that may lead to the discussion.

2. Swiftly switching over to the areas which are your strong points. Of course, you should make it 'naturally' and obviously not overdo it. For example, if you are being grilled on a specific domain which is not your forte; you may use examples from your past projects or academics that connects with your strong points.

There's no clear or well set way to do this and you should only do it when you're confident of your conversation skills.

I've seen people do that on many occasions.

Smooth talkers will definitely have an edge over others. Freshers can practice doing that in groups. When you don't want them to talk about your low points, when they ask you about your low points - embed your high points in the answer in a way that they are curious and interested about knowing more about your forte from your mouth. 😀

Like Biggie said, there is no correct or easy method. But if you give a direction to your thinking process for an interview preparation, some good ideas will come to you.

Just be yourself and a true to yourself...😉

An interview is in already in your favor if you have the desired technical skills, analytic skills, interpersonal skills, social skills and leadership skills. The most efficient way of driving the interview in your favor is to know the company , do a little homework and know your company well, answer politely even if there is a clash of opinion, try to prove your point with examples instead of being violent and rude..

Great points all of you.
But I think my point of discussion is lost. Looks like, "driving an interview in your favor" isn't such a common phenomena after all.
Candidates tend to be guided by the interviewer all the time. 😀

Ankita KatdareGreat points all of you.
But I think my point of discussion is lost. Looks like, "driving an interview in your favor" isn't such a common phenomena after all.
Candidates tend to be guided by the interviewer all the time. 😀

The interviewer knows what he's looking for when he's hiring. So it's impossible for the candidate to drive the process.

"Driving an interview in your favor",
I would agree with moderators discussion..

In my exp.
First be aware for post and company that you're going for interview.
that will help a lot during interview. And BE PREPARED FOR QUESTIONS ON YOUR PROJECTS WRITTEN IN YOUR RESUME.

As Big-k Said that we should give hints of our strong points in answer.

I've also attended 5-6 technical interviews , I would say first 2 was not good( As I am thinking for my mistakes.. ) . But than I learned that some time interviewer may ask for questions where he/she is strong or will concentrate to points suitable with your profile. I've also did swiftly drawn interview to my strong points at some level.

like, If you were asked for your part or contribution in final project,

You can say , have handled coding( If you're coder, and going for coding job)
Or can say, Handled management, reports, Testing (Suitable with you ).

Your answer (in favor with your interest) will make interviewers ask more question on that.

As said, There is no rules written for sure shot success. As suggestion, Familiar with company background, post appearing, your strong points, will help you lot.

I think what you can do is selfconfident
believe in yourself then you can drive it