How to Ace Your Final Interview with Executive Presence | Athena Executive Virtual Assistant

executive presence is one of the most common reasons why an applicant fails a final interview this is probably all across the board and not just here in Athena where I also work stay up until the end of this video because I'm going to tell you the quickest and easiest way for you to show your executive Presence at the first 5 to 10 seconds of your final interview so make sure to stay tuned for that hi everyone my name is and I am an operations manager here in Athena I handle a team of executive virtual assistance

prior to being an operations manager I was also an executive virtual assistant in Athena for more than two years before being an executive VA I did not have any prior experience in remote work or freelancing or the position itself my previous experience revolves around having an own business as a wedding and events planner as well as being an agent in the call center industry as an operations manager here in Athena um I handle final interviews for applicants for the executive virtual assistant position and one of the most important factor that we look at or important

characteristic that we look at in each applicant is executive presence no matter how amazing your resume is even if you have the best English communication skills most most people fail in executive or showing their executive presence so you're going to ask me what is executive presence I am going to quote a Forbes article regarding the definition of executive presence executive presence is your ability to inspire confidence inspiring confidence in your subordinates that you are the type of leader that they want to follow inspiring confidence among your peers or colleagues that you are capable and reliable

and most importantly inspiring confidence among senior leaders that you have the potential for great achievements knowing what executive presence is or the definition of it you're going to ask me again how am I going to show that in a 30 minute or a 45 minute final interview well here are some shortcuts that you can practice so that once you have or once you reach the final interview process here in Athena or in any company that you are applying at you can definitely show executive Presence at a short amount of time during your initial or your

final interview first thing that you're going to do is Polish your image meaning you have to make sure that you look the part you have to make sure that what you're wearing is definitely not like this it should be more smart casual than this one it should be a corporate attire especially if you are applying for a higher position or a non-entry level position since we're talking about virtual final interviews you have to make sure that of course you're wearing a smart casual attire polishing your image also includes your camera the lighting where you're going

to conduct or where you you plan to conduct that final interview or attend the final interview your microphone the surroundings should not be noisy you should be in a private location with little to know distraction you have to make sure that you can hear your interviewer clearly so you should either use an earphones or your equipment should have good sound and microphone if you are applying for Athena it's very important that you align your outfit to the company's values or company's culture so here in Athena our uniform is black so if you are applying for

the position of an executive virtual assistant or any other position you have to make sure that you are wearing black this shows that you have done your research and you really want to be part of the company NeXT tip or technique for for you to be able to show executive presence is for you to perfect your body language how will you be able to show your body language in a virtual setting or in a zoom room or a Google meet room it is very very obvious in Google meet or Zoom or in any virtual video

conferencing tool that you are slouching or you are lying back or you are humped down so it's very very obvious that um you are not sitting up straight another way to show a good body language during a virtual interview is of course the dimensions of your camera you shouldn't be too close like your head is Right smack in the middle of your monitor it shouldn't also be wherein there are a lot of spaces on top of your head um when you are having your interview it should always be you right in the middle of the

camera when wherein you are showing a little bit of your shoulders and showing what you are wearing and that you're showing that your attire is smart casual or corporate that is very very important or that's the easiest way for you to show good body language even in a virtual setting another way to show good body language is to make sure that you are looking at the interviewer eye to eye how will you do that when you are in a virtual setting wherein the cameras are sometimes down here or maybe to the side so you have

to make sure that you set up the monitor or the image of your interviewer right beside where your camera is so you can look directly to the camera while you are answering any questions looking straight into the camera will actually also help you to lessen the nerves because when you're looking at your camera during a virtual interview you don't really see your interviewer but it's very very important to also have a view of your interviewer during this time so that you can take note of her body language of how he or she reacts to your

messages or if you can see that she's trying to talk you have to make sure that you take a pause and let your interviewer talk that's a technique of how you can maintain eye contact during the interview another way is to make sure that you use little hand gestures when talking or when answering questions it's you showing that in some way what you're discussing is not memorized or that you're not reading through a script having those hand gestures also lessens the nerves or adds on to your confidence so make sure that you practice a little

bit of hand gestures but not too much another way to show executive presence during your interview is to improve or master your communication skills when you're applying for a position such as an executive virtual assistant English communication skills is very important I can definitely say that English communication skills is one of my weaknesses that's because my vocabulary is very basic I'm continuously learning and upgrading the vocabulary that I have especially in the current position wherein I'm an operations manager I try to improve the words that I'm using on a daily basis I want to be

able to use more business type of words and not just your basic conversational type of English skills if you are someone like me who's in the basic level of your English communication skills both in grammar and vocabulary you have to make sure that you improve the other side of English communication skills or communication skills itself which is changing the volume of your voice having a louder volume of your voice especially when you're speaking you have to make sure that you enunciate your words more don't eat your words that's what they they usually say don't eat

your words because it's very hard to understand so you have to make make sure that you open your mouth and you enunciate every syllable that you say so that you can sound very very clear and you are able to modulate the tone of your voice properly just like what I am doing right now and how I do all of my other content if you try to really look at how I talk or the words that I use you will realize that I have a lot of grammatical mistakes and my vocabulary is very very basic but

I try to make it sound like I have higher standard of English communication skills with the way I annunciate my words the volume of my voice and my hand gestures and of course my body language I always sit up straight to make sure that I am able to talk clearly and properly even if I have grammatical mistakes and very basic vocabulary mastering the art of communication is also not just about you talking this is a two-way street for you to master communication you have to make sure that you also are a great listener or you

practice your active listening skills you cannot just be talking or being able to talk properly or even if you have amazing English communication skills you will not be able to master good art of communication if you don't know how to listen so during an interview avoid asking your interviewer to repeat themselves you have to make sure that you are really able to listen properly and it's usually a challenge during the final interview because of all the nerves that we're feeling we're thinking too much of the answers that we want to say to the interviewer so

you have to make sure that you are able to balance your thinking brain with your listening brain so that you can at least do two things at the same time that's quite hard but during the final interview you need to be able to listen clearly to your interviewer a very important way for you to be able to really listen to your interviewer is to make sure that you have prepared your answers already in advance so that you don't have to actually think of the answers right there during the interview you have to already have practiced

doing mock interviews with yourself in the mirror and answering different type of questions because final interview questions is usually the same all across the board so you have to make sure that you are able to answer any challenges how will you highlight your leadership skills any type of questions you should already have practice them prior to your final interview so that you will be able to listen listen clearly to your interviewer and then just pull those answers from your repository of answers that you have already practiced and that's one way of mastering your communication skills

for your final interview another way for you to be able to show executive presence is to create a really compelling elevator pitch now you might say what's an elevator pitch this is the first time I'm hearing this so elevator pitch is actually a scenario wherein it's like a question if you are in an elevator with your interviewer and you have three levels of um to go and you have your interviewer tells you okay tell me this question blah blah you only have up until the third floor to be able to answer and then I'm leaving

so you have to be able to make sure that in a short amount of time you are able to already answer the questions of your um interviewer you should be able to create different elevator pitches for different types of questions one of the most common questions of course is to tell me something about yourself or tell me something that I wouldn't find in your resume so you talk about your something personal about you your hobbies your likes what you're doing outside of work another question would be talking about your previous work experience so you have

to make sure that you are able to summarize everything try to bullet point your previous work experience and make sure that those are detailed previous work experiences and not just a general idea of what you're doing you have to make sure that you will be able to highlight all of the skills the to tools that you were using how your day looks like in your previous work and you are able to Showcase all of the relevant things that you were doing before that you can transfer to the position that you're currently applying for so that's

what an elevator pitch is especially in Athena you only have 30 to 45 minutes to be able to sell yourself during the final interview and there are a lot of questions that you're going to answer so for the interviewer to be able to answer or to ask you all of those questions you have to make sure that you are able to answer them as detailed concise but but with a lot lot of information a lot of important information that will benefit you for you to be able to get that job next way for you to

show executive presence and this is I think maybe one of the most important ones is for you to be able to demonstrate your leadership abilities or your leadership [Music] skills now you're going to ask Mia I'm applying for an entry-level position which is an executive virtual assistant or Mia I'm applying for this position but I've never had any leadership position before how will I be able to Showcase or show my leadership abilities or capabilities during the final interview this is where your preparation comes in you have to think you have to really think about the

experience that you had before in your current or previous work that you were able to showcase um a leadership skill for example your team manager was out for a vacation leave and you help your teammates to make sure that everybody's doing okay another way to show leadership abilities if you don't have experience in the leadership role is to is to think of ways that you were able to help someone else at work so it doesn't have to be you being assigned as the point person when your team manager is out you can also be actually

helping those who are new in the team helping people from training planning your a team building activity so I definitely believe that anyone was able to Showcase a little bit of leadership skill one point in their career if you are a fresh graduate try to think of activities that you led during school during your school or during your OJT that you can definitely highlight as a leadership ability if you really didn't have any opportunity to be the leader for an activity or an event at work you can highlight your leadership ability by showing your willingness

to collaborate with others the type that you are a team player that's one thing that would show that you have leadership capabilities in the future because you know how to work with your colleagues you know how to harmoniously work with other people in your team or even in different departments now those are two ways for you to show leadership actually being able to have a leadership experience from your previous work or if you don't have any showing that you are a good team player is a way for you to highlight your leadership skills or that

you have the ability to be a good leader in the future like I promised at the beginning of this video this is the quickest way for you to show executive Presence at the first 5 to 10 seconds of your interview this tip is to always call your interviewer by their first name here in Athena you would know who your interviewer is in advance based on the calendar their invite or the email that you will receive so make sure that you are in the interview room 15 to 10 minutes prior to your scheduled interview and then

once your interviewer comes in wait for them to be on camera and that their audio is ready and then when they say hello you can say hello first also and just call them by their first name something like this for example your interviewer's name is Mia you can say hi Mia good afternoon how are you and then they'll answer and then you say oh that's great to hear um I would just like to take this opportunity before we start to say thank you for being here for giving me your time for this final interview I

really appreciate that don't use any titles make sure that you just call them by their first name that is the quickest way for you to be able to show executive Presence at the first 5 to 10 seconds of your final interview another bonus is of course make sure that you are able to build rapport at the beginning of the call just like what I did by asking them how they are thanking them for this opportunity and for their time and maybe if it's already afternoon you can tell them that I hope you aren't too tired

because I'm sure you've been interviewing a lot of people the whole day already again I'm very appreciative of your time and I'm very excited to get this final interview going saying that or showing or talking that way at the beginning of your interview will already give you an edge at the beginning because you started strong all you have to do is just maintain it all throughout your final interview and I'm sure you're going to ace that interview and there you have it the tips that I have for you to practice your executive presence remember that

that executive presence is not all just about communication skills having the good body language calling them by their first name but you also have to make sure that you have prepared for your final interview you can check out my video about Athena final interview tips that will definitely help you in your preparation for your final interview and then combine it with the tips that you learned in this video I'm sure you're going to ace that final interview and grab that job that you've always been wanting for if you're new here and you're interested in becoming

an executive virtual assistant and you don't have experience or any idea you can check out all of my other videos here on YouTube and hit that subscribe Button as well if you want to go through an in-depth course about how to be an executive virtual assistant I do have a paid online course everything will be in the link down below my online course executive virtual assistant Basics is a complete course talking about how to become an executive virtual assistant it is self-based it has 16 modules and I'm adding more it has 16 hours of video

tutorials and I'm adding more as well and you also have downloadable templates that you can use as an executive VA for your own client or for you to be able to practice and gain that experience that you need to be an Eva again please don't forget to hit that subscribe button to learn more about how to succeed in the remote work industry especially as an executive virtual assistant everything will be detailed or all of the L L will be in the caption down below don't forget to hit that like button if you enjoyed this video

and of course check out my other videos as well have a great day everyone bye I'll see you on the next video