Do job interviews make you nervous? You are not alone! Interview coaching is the most popular service I provide to my clients. Many clients will tell me how nervous they are about their upcoming interview. How they are scared they will make a mistake or talk too much! I know that job interviews are a huge part of our career journey. They are something we all go through numerous times in our career, but very few people enjoy them! I recommend spending time researching and preparing before your job interview. Doing this can make all the difference to your confidence and ultimately to your success.
How To Prepare for your Job Interview
As well as knowing your answers to common interview questions such as, “Tell me about yourself?” you should also prepare your stories. Doing this will help you answer behavioural based interview questions.
An example of a behavioural based interview question may be, “Can you tell me about a time you managed a large complex project, what was it, who was involved and what was the outcome?”
It is very difficult to effectively answer a question like this, without doing some preparation work beforehand. Not preparing for these type of questions can make your job interview even more stressful! To prepare do this:
STEP 1 – Get a copy of the job advert or job description, and highlight the 5 main things they are looking for. You will often find this under “key or essential requirements” and “to be considered” or “your experience”.
STEP 2 – Find the key words they are asking for, these will be mentioned a few times throughout the advert. Key words are the most important things the job requires.
STEP 3 – Write down and summarise 5 stories where you have done these things. Focus on the last 5 to 7 years of your career. Each story can then be used as to answer each interview question.
Using the CARL Framework
To help you refine and summarise your stories, try using the CARL framework. This framework helps you use your stories, summarising and adapting them into an answer to an interview question.
Then, when you are asked an interview question such as “Tell me about a time you managed a major project and what your role in this was?”
Using the CARL Framework, your answer to that question might look like this:
CHALLENGE
In my current role at ABC company, 18 months ago there was a project that involved merging 5 divisions within Australia into one central team that would be based in Sydney. I was the project lead for the Sydney team. My main focus was to ensure all stakeholders were engaged on the project as I had to ensure that Sydney was up and running as a stand alone site by January 2021.
ACTION
The first thing I did was set up weekly daily and weekly meetings with all 10 stakeholders to ensure that we were all on the same page. I invited them to email me their top 3 concerns or challenges.
One of the managers in South Australia was not keen on the change and I knew that he might give some push back. I called him directly and we had a good chat, and he discussed his concerns. I assured him that I would keep him involved in all the steps of the project.
Additionally, I told him that he could call or text me at any time. I ensured him that all the main concerns that the stakeholders had were discussed and everyone was aware of them. I found that by keeping things very transparent they all felt included in the decision process. They were therefore more likely to help me and everyone else in the project.
RESULT
The result was that the project was delivered on time. All divisions were relocated into Sydney and running successfully from January this year. Having a clear communication plan upfront and including all the stakeholders really helped.
LEARNING (optional)
My main learning from running this project was to ensure I have all stakeholders on board from day one. If there is anyone who isn’t on board then I ensured I addressed this immediately. By doing this with the South Australia manager I feel that I averted a potential problem further down the track.
Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Remember to say “I” not “we” (a very common mistake!) This is important, the interviewers want to know what your role was. Constantly, answering with “we” can make them question how much influence you actually had. Therefore, always say “I”
Another common mistake is to answer the questions with a very general answer such as this: “in my previous company we had a lot of major projects and I was very involved in many of them. Because we were such a large company, things changed quickly. Sometimes we would start a project and then it would not be completed on time because things would change……………………”
Answering the question like this is not being specific and is not telling a story. You are not telling the interviewers anything about you and your skills and why they should hire you. They want to hear your stories and your previous experience.
Companies use this popular style of behavioural interviewing, because previous experience is often an indicator of future actions. In other words, if you have done this previously and can demonstrate how, why and the result or outcome, then you might do similar for their company.
Practice Makes Perfect
I recommend keeping your answers to 2 minutes or less. Ensure you sound relaxed and authentic. It should be a conversation, and not sound like you are too rehearsed and reading a script. This is really important. Practice all your answers, video yourself and time yourself.
Check out your own body language when you are speaking. Are you someone who constantly puts their hand through their hair, someone who always looks down or do you just look very tense!
All of these little things add up. Being aware of your body language and how you come across can be just as important as your actual answers. I worked with a client who was constantly pulling at her hair as if she was going to put her long hair into a ponytail, but she didn’t! It was very off putting (I politely told her. She was unaware how often she actually did this.)
- TOP TIP – unsure what stories to use? You can never go wrong having stories related to the following popular topics – difficult customer, difficult internal stakeholder or team member, communication, leadership, problem solving, tight deadlines and business transformation.
Finally
If you struggle with how to prepare for a job interview, then an interview coaching session will help you. I often find it is the small things that can be tweaked to encourage success.
Contact me to discuss how I can help you nail that job interview and get the job offer.
My client Garry had this to say:
“Angela helped me get really well prepared for interview. She gave me material to structure my thoughts and experiences, and through one-on-one coaching, refined my answers and interview technique, giving me confidence for an upcoming ‘dream job’ interview. Angela was kind, clear and intelligent throughout the process. I got the job!”
Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
- Career crossroads and need clarity? Click here
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- Nail that job interview and get the job offer, click here
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