Last week’s article was about interview preparation and now I’ll share my best advice on the interview itself.
Or rather the day of the interview, because that’s just as important as what’s in the interview.
This is mainly about in-person interviews; however, I’ll add a section on video interviewing at the end.
Today we’ll cover:
Moving from preparation to interview
Interview pre-flight checklist
How to give a good non-interview interview experience
Managing interview nerves
How to sell yourself, and why that’s the wrong way to think about it
STAR and CARL, why and why not
Answering questions through relevant stories
The questions you should ask and why they matter
On video interviews
Next week is on what happens after the interview.
Moving from preparation to interview
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” Mike Tyson
Preparation is key, for sure.
But as soon as the interview starts, you can only influence how you are perceived.
Sometimes a decision may have nothing to do with your efforts, and everything to do with what’s happening elsewhere in process.
There’s a lot stacked against job seekers, which is why it’s so important to focus on the steps and processes you do have control over.
That’s one reason why this series is called Jobseeker Basics.
As complex as it can be to find a job in this market if you get the basics right, you give yourself the best odds.
Interview pre-flight checklist
Set your clothes out the night before - use your smartest clothes, unless they’ve said otherwise, and have them presented as well as possible, whether ironed, cleaned, polished
Plan out your route to the interview allowing you to arrive 10-15 minutes early
Make sure you’ve read through all the documentation and done suitable preparation
Prepare killer questions (this gets its own section)
If possible, print them out with you, together with two copies of your CV (one for and one for them), and notes on where to go / who you are meeting
Good night’s sleep with little to no alcohol, and a healthy meal
Wake up at a normal time (unless the interview dictates otherwise)
Allow time for solitary activity, like a walk or Sudoku
Check traffic reports / public transport delays early and leave with plenty of time
How to give a good non-interview interview experience
When does the interview start?
Is it when you are greeted by your interviewer?
Perhaps; however, I’d treat the interview as starting the first time you engage with the employer.
How you apply, how you respond to invites, how you confirm your availability, all contribute to influencing a process in which flawed humans have biases caused by our experiences.
Perhaps not if it were fair and even, yet your responsiveness won’t work against you, and may help.
A key element in any interview is to understand what you are like to work with.
It goes to follow you should show your best self at interview.
Yet, interviewers are canny to this and will find ways to find out what they believe your real self to be.
This means you have to be canny to their canniness.
Where you can, win over:
The security guard who lets you in the gate
The receptionist
The HR admin team that arrange the interview
The person who brings you through to interview
The interviewer’s first impression of you
Their last as you say goodbye
The person who lets you out the door when you leave
Perhaps it’s unfair for employers to ask what the receptionist thinks of you, in their effort to find out the ‘things unsaid’ part of an interview.
But if you know it can happen, make it work for you.
Managing interview nerves
Nerves can be a problem for many at an interview, even affecting how you prep, your rest and your sustenance.
Now, I am not a medical professional and you should seek advice reflective of your circumstance, such as if you have high blood pressure.
However, I recommend reading into:
Mindfulness meditation for better sleep. Example.
Box breathing. A proven technique used by the Navy Seals to centre them in times of stress. It may even, over time, change how your body reacts to stress:
4 seconds in through your nose
hold for 4
4 seconds out through your mouth
hold for 4
rinse and repeat.
Take a breath, or a sip of water, to centre yourself before answering a question.
Regular exercise, if you can, to manage stress levels
I haven’t interviewed for some time, as a candidate, but I don’t mind saying that I sometimes have anxiety, occasionally panic attacks, and difficulty getting to sleep during times of stress.
The meditation technique is so effective at bedtime, when I need to use it, that I’m often out like a light moments after thinking I’ll never get to sleep. Really useful for ‘big day’ nerves.
These techniques have been helpful for me over the years, and I hear they help many job seekers too.
How to sell yourself, and why that’s the wrong way to think about it
Interviews are fundamentally a negotiation, where you propose your value in exchange for the value offered by a job.
The give and take of an interview has a large part in the outcome.
I mentioned Chris Voss, and ‘Never Split the Difference’ in last week’s article, which gives great insight into negotiation.
A key element of negotiation is deep listening. Listening to understand and respond, more than listening to answer.
Getting to the root of what an interviewer wants is key to giving them a suitable answer.
You can read more about this here.
While some employers do have tricky interview processes, most just want to find the most suited person for their role.
Most hiring managers are busy people who aren’t trained in recruitment, so flaws in their approach often aren’t down to intent, more down to habits and practice.
Think about when you were hiring - did you deliver the perfect interview? What were you looking for in your candidates?
It’s often said by jobseekers that “I don’t know how to sell myself.”
I suggest selling is not a skill you need at an interview (unless it’s a commercial role, of course) - mainly you need to be the version of yourself that is good at your job, and how you are at work. Professionally authentic, rather than your unvarnished self.
Focus on listening to understand, then talk about how you can help solve their problems like you would in a constructive meeting at work.
Which is good sales, ha!
STAR and CARL, why and why not
You’ve no doubt read about STAR (situation task action result) and CARL (context action result learning).
They are helpful to understand, especially for competency questions, because they allow you to convey your answer in a way that has meaning for an interviewer.
Situation: the background to the example you are sharing, as it relates to the question you are asked (similar to context)
Task: what you had to do to solve the problem alluded to in the question
Action: the steps you took to achieve this
Result: what actually happened
(Learning: how you’d improve next time)
However, it’s a mode of thinking, NOT a framework to apply rehearsed, monotonous answers to every question.
The words have to be balanced with how you say them naturally.
A robotic, over-practiced answer will only be memorable for how you said it, not for what you said.
Indeed, these are better described as storytelling frameworks, than interview answer frameworks.
Learn how to tell your story with STAR and CARL.
Listen to what the interviewer wants, and give them what they need to see you as a viable future colleague.
Oh and if they go bananas and ask what fruit you’d be, forgive them and play the game.
I’d be an orange because nothing rhymes with orange.
Answering questions through relevant stories
Ensure you understand how your skills, achievements and experience will fulfil the role you have applied for.
Something talked about in last week’s article - here’s the link again
Often the criteria to demonstrate are set out in the job descriptions.
Often by the challenges facing a business, which you might glean through research.
Often through the gaps in between - context that may be missing from visible evidence, but you might understand through the listening principles above.
If you’ve prepared fully, understand what they are looking for and know how to access the knowledge you have: answering questions is simply about interpreting how you can help, in a way that has meaning to your audience.
This is where STAR is useful, as a way of interpreting your story. If you don’t have sufficient information to convey answers clearly, make sure to clarify.
Think of your story as a short snappy tale.
To the point and told in under a couple of minutes.
Audiences remember good stories; few remember dry statements, told through waffle.
Tell your story in the right way.
The questions you should ask and why they matter
If you were to ask me the one common element that I find memorable in candidates, it’s the questions they ask me.
If you are allowed to ask questions, it’s a chance for you to change the narrative.
You can do so at the start of an interview:
before we start, may I ask what outcomes you want from this role? I’d love to hear your priorities, so I can show you how I can help
You can do so at the end of a question:
could I confirm my understanding? Do you mean….
You can do so at the end of an answer:
does that answer your question?
You can do so at the end of an interview, by asking questions to help learn if the role is right for you.
If employers aren’t willing to answer questions, there’s a snapshot of their culture.
What I wouldn’t ask is questions that leave you memorable for the wrong reasons.
[Try not to put interviewers on the back foot with questions like “Do you have any concerns about my candidacy?”]
The benefit of questions, for me, is that it moves the interview to more of an unrehearsed conversation.
Interviewers know the questions they want to ask, and if they work to a robust framework, you’ll be measured fairly from your answers against other interviewees.
But you can stand out through how you take control of the interview, appropriately with questions.
When I think back on most of my business wins, from client meetings, it’s been from the questions I’ve asked - not how I’ve pitched my services.
What kind of questions would I ask?
I’d want to know about the outcomes they want to reach, the problems they want to solve.
The structure of the team, and how the role has come about.
Their culture and how their teams experience it.
What challenges the hiring manager has, and how this role might help.
How this role might develop over time, and what my future might look like.
How they measure and reward success.
The challenges the company has, or any recent wins.
How things are changing, and how that might affect the role.
I’d want to understand their time frames and who else they are interviewing.
Everything that would help me make an objective decision.
On video interviews
Many companies rely solely on video interviewing, especially since the pandemic. Convenient, easy to arrange, people can interview from different locations. Great!
They do invite a more casual approach to interviewing for better or worse, and while your interview might reveal things they didn’t mean to through their background, that’s not something in your control.
Consider:
check you have good, stable connectivity, where you intend to make the call. Any issues? How about interviewing from a friend’s if your internet access is poor?
try out their system beforehand. Make sure you won't have access issues on the day
practise with friends. See how you come across on a call, where interviewers are more reliant on the tone of voice than body language to gauge your personality
ensure your lighting is adequate with a suitable background
frame your head and shoulders centrally on-camera
look at the camera for a semblance of eye contact
use sticky note reminders around your screen - your interviewer can’t see them
treat it as a formal interview. Attend as you would in person, with a suitable dress code and presentation
That’s it for this week. No doubt I’ve missed something - feel free to reply if you have any questions, and I can work on improving the article.
Note - I haven’t included elements like presentations and tasks. These are so contextual, that you are better off researching elsewhere on the internet for specific preparation.
Thanks for reading.
Regards,
Greg