 Welcome to yet another interesting video on our channel Arpita Karwa. Now in this video, I'm going to look at how you can improve your communication skills and confidently face the interview that is lined up somewhere next week. I'm pretty sure that all of you must be worried when you have to face any interview. Be it a job interview or be it an interview for PhD entrance. You all have goosebumps when you even think about the interview setup. But I'm telling you that by the end of this video, you will have a completely new outlook towards interview. It is very important for you to be very confident on the day of the interview. Your overall impression that you have on the people who are invigilating you is going to take you towards the final selection list. You need to be all positive, open, thoughtful, concise and professional when you are answering the questions. In this video, I'm going to take up a few questions which most of the time you have been asked on the interview. Be it a PhD entrance interview or a job interview for the post of assistant professor. But then there are a lot of other interview questions that you might find yourself stuck in. At the end of the video, I'm going to give you a bonus tip which will help you to address all the questions which you don't know the answers of. So if you're ready, we'll start right away. Most of the time the interview begins with a question. Tell us something about yourself. Now this seems to be a very easy question, but this is sometimes the most important and the most negatively answered question. Most of the time the students begin by taking out their name and then giving a lot of family background information, educational information, their interest, hobbies, everything. They try to just speak in front of the people, the interview panel. Now what you need to understand here is that they're not looking forward for something that they can read in your CV and get an idea of. This is an opportunity for you to make these people interested in you. So this is an opportunity where you can supply them some valuable and interesting information about yourself. This is the opportunity where you can tell about your enthusiasm and passion in the subject that you are in. For example, if I'm going forward for a job interview and they ask me, tell us something about yourself. I would rather say that my name is Arpita and I have always been interested in literature and language since childhood. I have been a good debater and I have also represented my school as a head girl and also as the literary president of the club. Now it is important for you to give all those important achievements that will help people to evaluate certain hidden traits of your personality. Also at the same time, you should also convey how passionate and enthusiastic you are about this particular job position. So I would rather continue my answer by saying that I always love languages and that is the reason why I took up teaching as a career. So you can see how confidently I can answer this question and make people interested in me and shortlist me. Another amazing kind of question that you might find coming up on your next interview is what are your strengths? Now this is a question that they generally ask in order to see your self-image. So they would like to see how confident you are about your own capabilities. There are people who might give a one-liner in such a situation saying that I am a very friendly person, I am hard working or they might say that I am an extrovert. Now this shows that you don't have enough confidence on your abilities. Neither you know how to market yourself. A person who doesn't have confidence on himself will never make it to the top level and a person would never be seen as a potential asset for an organization. So it is this moment that you have to practice a perfect answer and in order to do that you need to make sure that you tell your strengths in a manner that it should not even give an idea that you are a very self-centered person. You should tell about yourself in a manner that you can justify it with previous life examples. For example, I would rather say when a question is asked like this that I am a person who loves to take leadership roles. I always love working in teams and directing my team towards my goal in my previous organization or maybe during my school days. I have taken up leadership roles several times and it was always fun working with people. At the same time I am very hard working and dedicated. I make sure that whatever I have been given I do it to the best of my capabilities. I value the importance of time and also believe in the idea that good communication can lead to better relationships and also can lead to lesser conflicts. So you know how I have tried to talk about my strengths in a manner that it doesn't make me look like a self-centered person. I have also given a dose of my individuality, my ideologies so that people can understand what makes me so passionate and confident about this particular position. Next interesting question that you might find coming up your way is what are your weaknesses? Now we all have our share of weaknesses. I might find myself a lazy person sometimes or maybe I find myself introvert at other times. Some people get angry too soon or they are very impatient. Now you don't need to talk about these weaknesses. It is a question that asks you to talk about your weakness and then cover it up with a strength of yours. So I might say that I am too detail oriented at times. I am trying my level best to make things perfect and it is because of this habit of mine I sometimes find that I am losing out on time. So what I have done, I have given a weakness that sometimes I really have a hard way managing time but at the same time I have told them a very good thing about me that I am a perfectionist by nature. So you have to highlight your strength while you are answering this question. You should not be very brutal by saying that I am a very impatient and lazy person. Also at the same time it is never a good idea to say that I don't have any weakness because we all are humans and we have our own share of weaknesses. So accept it but present it in a sugar coated form. Present it in a manner that they might be surprised to find one of your weakness as your biggest strength. Another interesting question you might find yourself being asked if you go for a PhD entrance interview or even if you go for a job interview for the post of assistant professor. And the question would be why this particular university or why this particular college? Now it is important for you to note here is that you have to give them enough reasons to believe that why you have made this decision to choose this particular university over others. You might say that I really admire this university and I would love to have the opportunity to work here. The academic environment is what really appeals to me and I am not here to have fun. I am here to study, research and explore. So when you say things like that it shows how much passionate you are to work here or to study here. At the same time make sure that you quote the names of few good professors who are reputed in your department and you might say that I am really looking forward to work with them or I am really looking forward to study under them. So this shows that you have done your own research and then have selected this particular university. Another interesting question that they might ask you is that where do you see yourself in next five years? Now this is a typical job interview question and you might be wondering that why do they even need to know where I am in next five years where I would see myself in next five years even I don't know that about myself. That is because they want to hire people who are determined and who have their end goals in their mind. So make sure that you avoid all the general answers like I want to make my family proud, I want to have a good job or maybe I want to become CEO of a particular company or maybe you can say I have no idea about it. These kind of answers are a big no. Make sure that you tell them the small baby steps that you might take. So you might tell them what exactly you would like to do next after you get this job. So maybe you can say that I would like to enhance myself in the skills and then become a professor in that particular institute. Maybe that can be a specific answer. So if you are in some small town you might say that I see myself being an assistant professor in Christ University or maybe teaching somewhere in Xavier's College, Mumbai. So when you are more specific they can actually say that you are determined enough and you have your end goals clear. The same question can be asked if you are doing research under them. So you might tell them your further research goals. That reminds me that if you are sitting for a PhD entrance interview they might ask you a lot of questions from your research proposal. Why have you chosen this topic? And they might also dig deeper into your research proposal and then ask questions from that. So make sure that you have gone through your research proposal thoroughly and you are super confident about what you have written. You should not copy paste it from somewhere. You should actually sit down, make an effort and write it yourself and you should also do background research. Now another interesting question that they would definitely ask you if you are sitting for PhD entrance interview is that why you have chosen this research topic. Now by asking this question they want to know what motivated you and how passionate you are for this research. Rather than saying that it just came in my mind or maybe one of my friends suggested this to me. It's better if you give them an answer that shows how important this topic is for you. So you might say that from the childhood itself I was extremely interested in mythology. I've been reading books of writers like Amish Tripathi, Devdutt Patnaaya, Mahabharat Ramayan and all these mythological characters have been a part of my life. When I chose to do my PhD I could not think of any other topic but anything related to mythology. And then I went through a few research papers and found out that there was a research gap. Nobody has ever researched on this particular writer or maybe this particular work of this writer and then it became very clear for me that this is what I would like to see myself working on in the next three years. So if you could form a story and then tell them that would look more genuine. That would also make you look a person who would put all he has to do that research and you would do it with sincerity, with dedication and you would definitely add something new to the body of knowledge. So these kind of research scholars every university would look forward to get into their university. So make sure that you form a good story, a good background and prepare this answer beforehand so that on the day of the interview you can tell it in a flow. Now that we have come to the end of the video as promised I am going to give you a bonus tip. A tip on how to answer questions which you have absolutely no idea of. So there would be times in every interview that they would ask you something which is absolutely new to you or something unexpected. They might ask you a question that you have no idea about and most of the time either I have seen candidates getting nervous and not saying anything or maybe they directly try to fake it. They try to you know showcase that they already know this topic. In both the case they have a very bad impression on the interview panellists. So it is important for you to remember that never fake it and never get nervous. Be very very sure about what you know and what you don't know and they would appreciate the fact but then there's a way to say it. Suppose you don't know answer of a question. You can say that I am not really sure about it but here is my best guess and then you can say whatever you think can be the possible answer for that question. Or else you can either say that I have made a note of it and I would definitely look research on it and look into the case. Or else you can say that this is not my area of expertise but thank you so much for bringing this up. I would definitely brush up upon the facts and we'll get back to you. So by saying these things you showcase that you are very confident about your own capabilities and yet at the same time you are looking forward to know new things. Every institution would like to take up people who are very enthusiastic about something they don't know. They would not take it as something which will damage their self image or which will damage their confidence. They would rather appreciate that they have an opportunity to learn something new. So make sure that you show that positive outlook towards life and you always confidently approach such situations. So that brings me to the end of this video. I hope that by talking about these questions I was able to ease that pressure down and I was able to give you more clarity about how to approach these kind of questions. I wish you all the best for the next interview that you are going to face. That's it for this video lecture. We'll meet very soon in the next video lecture. Till the time we meet next, happy learning, keep loving literature and stay tuned to arpitalkarwa.com.