Finding Success In Your Interviews
By Simon Erlich
This article provides you with tips to succeed in your next interview.
First of all, congratulations! Hopefully, you are reading this because you have an upcoming interview. This means you have made it far in the hiring process, and that is something to be proud of (queue for back pat). However, it can be very disappointing to put in the hard work required to make it to the interview stage only to wind up not getting the job. So, if you want to ensure you are well prepared for your interview, consider booking an interview advising appointment with a career adviser to ensure you are well prepared. This small investment of your time and money could yield you a lifetime of exceptional interviewing! At the very least, keep reading along for some helpful tips!
So, You Have Made It To The Interview Stage
I always tell clients that if you have made it to the interview stage, you are deemed to be qualified and capable of doing the job, at least on paper, and that is a terrific sign. Now it is just a matter of ensuring you are as capable as you describe yourself to be on paper and, importantly, how well you are going to fit into the organization’s culture.
What Is The Purpose Of An Interview?
Before we get too far into our content, let us clarify something: what is the purpose of an interview? An interview is an opportunity for an employer to do a few things:
1. Vet the credibility of your skills and experiences as described in your resume and cover letter.
2. To get a sense of how you will act in situations that may commonly occur in the job.
3. Explore how you will fit in with the organization’s culture, the team, and the position’s manager.
How To Succeed In An Interview
We will break this down in two sections. The first section responds to points 1 & 2 above. The second section responds to point 3.
Section 1: You Are Going To Be A SuperSTAR
In order to succeed in an interview, you need to be prepared to provide anecdotes that discuss your past work experiences in specific and illustrative detail. This, in and of itself, requires considerable reflective effort. However, if you have an awful memory (like this writer), it can be quite difficult to recall specific details from past work experiences. As such, I recommend you take notes of any work experiences that positively illuminate your skills and abilities as you do them. This way, when you are preparing for an interview you will have specific details you can draw on. Without such notes, I recommend trying to extract your memories by writing them down. The worst thing you can do in an interview is to try to tell a story with generalized details and no specific outcome; this makes you look (and be) unprepared.
Okay, so how do we focus our reflective efforts? In our resumes and cover letters we claim to have specific skills, knowledge, and experiences that should reflect those required in a job description. So, I recommend reflecting on work experiences that illustrate these skills, knowledge, and experiences. Try to create at least one story for each skill, knowledge, and experience so that you are fully prepared to answer all possible interview questions. Once you have these stories written, save them for future interviews – short term pain for long term gain!
N.B The interviewers will be asking questions related to what is described in the job description, as well as other commonly asked interview questions – book an advising session to go through these other common questions – so you should not really be surprised in an interview.
I have reflected on my experiences, but how do I channel them into excellent interview responses? Great question, simple answer: use the STAR model.
By writing down and then rehearsing your anecdotes using the STAR model, you ensure that your interview responses are coherent, specific, and well-rounded. In my experience, most people that attempt to answer interview questions with little preparation forget to provide the R, as in, Results. Providing the result of your work is extremely important as it validates the quality of your actions or abilities. For advice on how to prepare exceptional interview responses using the STAR model, book an interview advising session. Becoming prolific with this kind of interview response structure is a high reward investment for future job-seeking.
Section 2: How Do I Fit In?
Ah… a lifelong question. Social commentary aside, you need to prove that you are a better fit with the organization, team, and manager than the other candidates selected for an interview. Of course, you may have read our article on cover letters and resumes, which briefly make mention of the importance of portraying yourself as a good ‘fit.’ This becomes more important in the context of an interview as the choices between candidates of similar qualifications often come down to this question of fitting in.
So, how do you show you are a good fit? Well, first, you need to conduct research to understand what it means to fit in to with the organization you are applying to. This can be a very informative job-seeking process as it can reveal to you whether the organization is actually one that you want to work for! How do you do this research? There are many ways. The first place to start is an online search where you can read about the organization’s mission, vision, and values. Perhaps the organization has been reviewed by past employees on websites like Glassdoor and LinkedIn. However, these are superficial. To truly understand whether or not you will fit in, you need to get in contact with someone who currently works or previously worked for the organization. Then, prepare a list of good questions to ask this person about the organization. This conversation might give you information about the organization or position (I.e. insider information about the job) that other candidates do not have access to. This allows you to create more tailored interview responses. If you ask bad questions, you might be proverbially shooting yourself in the foot. Should the person you talk to get in contact with your interviewers and tell them they have a bad impression of you, you can likely say goodbye to that job opportunity.
Once you understand what it means to be a good ‘fit.’ You need to weave elements of this into your interview answers. For example, “Understanding that the team at XXXXX appreciates collaboration, I want to tell you about a time I led a very successful collaborative project.”
If you have prepared correctly, your interview responses will:
1. Be well-rehearsed without many “ummms” and “uhhhs”
2. Speak directly to the skills, knowledge, and experiences they are looking for
3. Will illustrate in a more articulate way what you have shown in your application documents
4. Illuminate that you are the best fit for the organization
If you have done these four things, you will make it hard for an organization not to hire you rather than give them a reason to hire someone else.
Conclusion
Hopefully from reading this article you have a better idea as to how you can succeed in your next interview. However, to know how truly to deliver on your interview requires further practice, preparation, and a few more helpful tips. Consider booking an advising session and have one of our counsellors ensure you are well prepared for your next interview. It is an investment you will not regret!