The interview process: Tips to succeed

You’ve passed the audition, now it’s time for: The Interview

Let’s picture the scenario, a couple of weeks ago you had submitted an application for a cracking role, (of course, the CV you submitted was perfect if you followed my last articles tips) and you’re sitting at home after a hard days work… Suddenly the phone rings and you are being invited in for an interview! You are over the moon, potentially dancing around your front room and then suddenly the nerves kick in. On one hand – ‘yay! I have an interview!’ And on the other hand – ‘gulp! I have an interview!’

Unless you are the coolest cucumber on the planet, this is a common reaction in 99.87% of the population*. Take a seat, take a few deep breaths and let’s step through this.

*This is a completely made up statistic. But most people are exceptionally nervous pre interview, even the interviewer themselves.

Step 1: Taking the call to book you in for interview

When you receive that phone call, as much as there is a temptation to get over excited, while desperately scrambling for your diary to confirm you are free for the interview… think clearly about what you need to know. Who are you meeting with? Where? Will you be sent email confirmation? What are the most important aspects of the role? What skills are the most crucial to be successful in this role? How will success be measured in this role (think what KPI’s will you be working towards)? Ask to grab a pen and paper to take some notes, and make sure you capture this information as this will help with step 2.

Step 2: Research

The most effective way to ease those nerves is to over prepare through research. The most important thing you need to arm yourself with is the job description for the role, your notes from the interview booking call, LinkedIn and the company careers website.

Job description and notes

Read through the elements of the job description and think through examples of duties you have performed that were the same/similar. Then have a read through your notes from the call and focus on the: ‘how will success be measured’ and ‘most crucial skills’ sections. Think through how you demonstrate you are capable in those areas, what have you done – what did you achieve as a result and what did you learn? All your examples should have a common theme: a quantifiable or qualitative outcome.

LinkedIn

Once you have established who you are meeting with, look them up on LinkedIn and don’t do this anonymously, doing this without the ‘invisibility cloak’ shows genuine interest in the organisation and the people. Have a look through the profile of the person you will be working with – it gives a good insight into their background and also your line manager is an important factor in your decision making; you want to make sure they are someone you can learn from and work with.

Company Careers website

I made reference to this in my first article; you need to be finding out about the culture, the history and the future of the organisation. Where is this company going? Where did it come from? What is the lifeblood of this business? What are the values? What resonates in you in terms of your career and professional development? You don’t want to answer the, ‘what do you know about us question?’ in a vanilla way. You want to be able to say things like, ‘I loved the fact you have a strong corporate and social responsibility policy and recently helped with some gardening works outside the local hospital. This is something I would love to get involved in.’ It needs to come from a place of genuine interest.

Step 3: Examples

Most organisations tend to use competency based interviewing, they will be looking for you to demonstrate why you are a good match for their role. Each question will be looking for a specific skill or competency in relation to explicit examples, and the best way to prepare for this is to think through 5-6 examples from your career where you had a great outcome. This is something you owned – not ‘we’ or ‘the company’ – you. What did you do?

The reason I say to think of 5-6 examples is that each example will realistically cover 2-3 competencies (for example, one specific scenario could cover team work, leadership and dealing with a difficult customer). This should then cover most questions you could be asked and will help ease the nerves of the ‘unexpected’.

Step 4: STAR

You may have heard this before, but it is always worth a refresher. Nerves can make you do funny things – your mind can go blank, you can get over excited and either not provide enough information or waffle, losing track of what you were saying. I find the best way to keep yourself on track is to almost rehearse your examples from the section above using the STAR technique.

Situation: What was the situation? Where were you working? What was the background?

Task: What were you asked to do? Or what did you decide to do as a result of the situation?

Action: How did you decide to approach this? What actions did you then take?

Result: What was the outcome of your actions? Try to use statistics or something quantifiable to show understanding of your impact. Obviously, if you are going to use financial information please be respectful if it is not in the public domain and explain approximate percentages of improvements instead.

Step 5: Your strengths and your development areas

Be authentic with this, think through what you can bring to the role, what your colleagues have said about you and be humble with your successes, not arrogant. When it comes to your development areas – be honest. 'I see you are looking for X skill, I have not had exposure to this but my approach would be xxxx and I did something similar at xxxx where xxxx would be transferable.'

At the end of the day, if you lie or pretend you can do something at interview – it ultimately will stress you out and will not set you up for success if get the role. It’s best to be honest, so that all parties know whether this is the right role.

Step 6: On the day

Always dress to impress, first impressions count for a lot! Allow an extra 30 minutes to get to interview to allow time just in case you get lost. When you arrive give a firm but not knuckle crunching handshake, eye contact with the interviewers while listening to questions and while answering questions and make sure your phone is OFF not on silent.

Step 7: Make sure you have prepared questions

This is as much about you as it is about the organisation you are about to join. What is important to you about the role/company? Ask the interviewers about this. If career is important to you, then ask them for examples of where other people have moved from this role. If flexibility is important to you, ask them how flexibility works across the organisation – don’t be afraid to ask for examples of how people utilise flexibility. Remember you don’t just want lip service responses, you want to hear examples of how they work and if what is said actually happens in the organisation.

Conclusion

Interviews are so nerve racking, so let’s try to take the nerves out of it by preparing and having an open mind. You need to remember it is your decision too and remind yourself that your interviewer will also be nervous… they want to impress you too. Both parties should be selling themselves and both parties should be asking questions to ensure a good fit. If you go into an interview thinking it is the companies decision, you are not approaching it correctly – it is a mutual agreement that this role/future working relationship is a fantastic match all round.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine, and not necessarily representative of those of my employer or client.