The interview skills required by a left brained individual such as an IT contractor or engineering professional must be learned..
It is a global phenomenon that most professionals trained in IT and Engineering are significantly left-brained due to their typical, predominantly left-brained education, and the intense practical training that is required to become a qualified professional in these fields. Therefore, the imaginative, creative, discerning and communicative right side of the brain – in these individuals especially, if not in almost all educated adults, has not been developed to be used to its full potential.

In order to understand this fully, let’s explore a bit further: A significant imbalance in the implementation of left and right brain functions will drastically affect one’s overall abilities. Predominantly left-brained individuals, in particular, are significantly challenged in the area of communication. They have difficulty communicating effectively and with confidence; especially during stressful encounters with others, like in interviews, in presentations, or when caught off guard by the boss (and we’ve all been THERE before, haven’t we?!)

This is usually the case with highly intelligent, capable IT contractors and Engineering professionals, as they are repeatedly faced with the daunting challenge of job interviews with potential employers or recruiter interviews that require them to use right-brained attributes. More often than not, they are not even aware that they possess or require these skills to be successful in an interview. A fully expressed or ‘actualized’ individual is accessing both brain hemispheres; is tapping into their analytical, deductive capabilities and is simultaneously working intuitively and creatively. Such a person has become a Balanced Individual. It is only by balancing the left and right hemispheres of the brain, by becoming aware of and accepting one’s innate and abundant capabilities, that one can achieve the ultimate goal. What’s that, you ask? Let me put it this way: the ultimate goal is to become both ‘effective’ and ‘receptive’ at the same time during the interview process.

NOW what am I talking about? Well, if you boil it all down to one thing, that’s exactly what a successful interview is made up of: a job candidate that is communicates ‘effectively’: that includes their visual appearance, manner of speaking, confidence, and preparedness for the technical aspects of the interview, while also being ‘receptive’: meaning that the job candidate must also be successfully ‘receptive’ to the interviewer – to their questions, their manner of communicating, their vocal intonations, and their comportment or body language. If either of these aspects (namely being ‘effective’ and ‘receptive’) are lacking, communication cannot be successful, and one cannot expect to have a successful interview. At the end of the day, there can be no yin without a yang.

The new ideal employee or contractor is balanced-brained, capable of being analytical and conceptual, able to work independently and to co-create with co-workers effectively. We’ll be looking at this in depth in upcoming episodes, but in the mean time, don’t dismay – help is on the way. There is a secret which I’ll share with you later on how you can achieve becoming this ideal employee or contractor just by following some guidelines and doing some exercises that will help you to become more receptive to others and greatly improve your interactive facility. But let’s take it one step at a time and build from the foundation up: to use a metaphor, you want to build a solid edifice – not a shoddy makeshift shack.

To view other videos in the “Marketing You” Video Series about marketing yourself to employers and recruiters please view Introduction to Marketing You, Success and Creative Visualization, 60 Second Pitch,  Job Interview Tips, Resume Writing and Resume Cover Letters videos. The next video in this series is Interview Tips- Interview Success is a Skill-set Video 7.

You may also want to download one of our Marketing You FREE E-books or visit our vast Resources Section including Tax Tip Videos and the Interview Coach articles.