You can be the cleverest person in the world and still find it hard to get a decent job. The interview process that people have to go through to get into good jobs these days is both rigorous and difficult. There are often twenty plus people applying for one position which means that it doesn’t really come down to the qualifications that you have put on your C.V. but rather to the way you come across during your interview.

Take, for example, the story of one student applicant to Oxford University. It was a group interview, several decades ago now, and the professor took his students outside and presented them each with a coin. He then said that each student had to come up with the best and quickest way to get the coin back into his office. Students set about developing theories of how fast the coin would have to be thrown to break through the glass window to get into the office and for several minutes they all puzzled themselves on what they should do. Suddenly, one student got up, approached the window, and from the ledge managed to open it. He then neatly dropped his coin inside without breaking any glass or causing any problems. This approach won him his place at Oxford.

The point is, whilst you can have the brains of Britain and be able to accurately predict the movement speed of a flying coin and what its point of impact might be, it does not mean that this will translate into getting you the job position. The interviewer is looking for something else; some specific skills, many of them social, which allow you to come across in the right way.

There is a new programme being run by Total Jobs which aims to teach job applicants exactly how to get where they want to go. They are releasing a mini-series which highlights the problems the average person faces in an interview. How do we get across our skills? How do we look the part? How to we avoid making mistakes which will instantly cross our name of the list? The series is entertaining and may help you in your own interviewing process.

Episode one can be found below: