Interview Tips (part 3). Final video outling key interview preparation tips!!

Interview Preparation (part 2)

Learn simple interview preparation tips that deliver impressive results. This video covers 2 key components for effective interview preparation – “identifying how you meet the job requirements” and “understanding your CV”.

I hope you find the video useful!! Feel free to post any comments below!!

Job Interview Preparation

Job Interview Preparation (part 1) is a short video outling essential job interview preparation tips.

Interview Skills Training Ireland

Many job interviews still fall into the traditional style. They are CV and job specification led. This makes it very important to know your CV inside out. I hear many of you saying that this all sounds a bit obvious. I agree, but I have yet to meet a job seeker who has mastered this point. Below I will help you understand and master 3 CV related interview questions.

Can you talk me through your CV?

Most job seekers struggle with this question. Where do I start? What do I talk about? How long to I talk for? Do I mention all my work experience/training? TIP!! Insert the words “relevant information” into the question. ANSWER “Can you talk me through the relevant information on your CV?” This action immediate cuts out a lot of the irrelevant information. It also helps redirect your focus towards the hiring manager and away from yourself.

Tell me about your current (or last) role?

TIP!! Talk about this role in terms of the job you are applying for. This requires a deep understanding of the job specification. Most job seekers outline the role in terms of how they see it. They give little consideration to the requirements outlined in the advertised job. Focus on relevant experience and achievements. Talk less about, or even ignore, irrelevant tasks and experience.

Why did you leave (or join) a company?

You have to prepare the story about how your career and personal development progressed to date. You must be able to explain the reasons for study choices and career moves (this includes redundancy). TIP!! Spend time perfecting this during preparation. A pause, a stumble or an uncomfortable moment can put a question mark over your application.

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They leave their thinking until the actual interview – Many job seekers wait for the bullets (interview questions) to start flying before they start thinking. Crazy! It’s extremely difficult to recall examples/scenarios at interview. This means waffle, padding, and answers that lack impact.

They deliver interview answers that lack focus – Many job seekers are inward thinking. They pay little attention to the company and job requirements.

They don’t sell themselves effectively – Most job seekers fail to sell themselves at interview. They provide little evidence of facts, figures, successes, or achievements.

“Fail to prepare, prepare to fail”. Roy Keane used this popular quote shortly before he hit the eject button from Saipan. These six words are critical for interview success. Effective interview preparation helps eliminate the above issues, helps increase confidence, and helps transform results.

Below are 6 core components for interview preparation ….

1. Access all the available information about the interview – Acquire as much information as you can before you jump into your preparation.

2. Understand what the employer requirements – Don’t just read the job spec. You need to surgically dissect it. If possible use your network to identify key challenges within the organisation. This will help you deliver more focus at interview.

3. Understand how you meet requirements – This is the process of sifting up all relevant information in advance of the interview. This removes most of the thinking during the interview. Remember the golden nuggets (Facts, figures, and achievements) to help sell yourself effectively.

4. Be familiar with my CV – I refer you back to point 2. You have to know your CV in terms of the role you are interviewing for. Be able to explain past job changes.

5. Research the company – Anyone can say they want to work for a company. BUT actions speak louder than words. Ensure you go beyond the company website!!

6. Identify questions to ask the employer – Do I need to explain?

I have noticed a significant increase in the number of requests for help with phone interview preparation. WHY the increase in use as a recruitment tool? Because there are higher volumes of job applicants in Ireland and because there is an increasing volume of people seeking work outside Ireland. There is a misguided view that phone interviews are easier than face to face interviews because the human contact is removed and they are generally shorter. As a result many interviewees cut corners. BIG MISTAKE!! As with the face to face interview – PREPARATION IS KEY!!

Below are some quick points to help you prepare for phone interviews ……

Normal preparation – Phone interviews are normally a quick sifting tool prior to face to face interview. Phone interviews are used as a quick sift to confirm you are the person you say on paper (skills and experience) and “Do you want to work for us?” BE WARNED!! Don’t assume it will be short and prepare as you would for a normal face to face interview. Prepare questions to ask the interviewer but you may not get an opportunity to ask them at this stage.

Relocation Relocation – Phone interviews are often used to check out candidates prior to paying to fly them over for face to face. You have to convince that you are committed to relocate!! I have many examples where commitment to relocate was the key element of the phone interview.

Ensure you cheat – Have a copy of your CV, the job description, relevant notes and a pen/paper to take notes. You don’t have this luxury at a face to face interview but you do during a phone interview.

Communication – Phone interviews remove body language from the equation. This means you need to work harder with voice and actual words to communicate your message across. And try smiling before you pick up the phone.

General – Ensure you take the call in a location where you will not be disturbed – free from animals or crying children. Ideally take the call from a landline as mobiles can have a coverage issue. Ensure you are by the phone and have everything set up prior to taking the call!!

Good luck!!

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When I mention “interview cheats” it is automatically assumed that I am talking about lying at interview. I don’t promote lying at interview and I actually think it is a pointless exercise. If you want to get an edge over the competition then invest your energy in what I call “Investigative Googling” prior to interview.

The explosion of social media has enabled recruiters/employers do more research on applicants throughout the recruitment process. When you apply for a job you will be Googled or checked out on LinkedIn by the recruiter/interviewer. Have you ever thought about using this strategy to give you an edge during your job search? Perhaps you should start doing some “Investigative Googling”. Rather than researching the company (which is obviously important too) I am talking about researching the interviewers, recruiters or hiring managers.

I am a firm believer that people hire people and not skills and qualifications. The ability to do a job is important but so is the ability to fit into a team and get on with management. This makes your ability to build rapport with the interviewer during interview very important. How do you build rapport at interview? Research the interviewer and find common interests, experience, education, associations and memberships prior to your interview. Much of this information is freely available on a LinkedIn profile. The subtly bring this up during interview.

Start turning the tables at interview today. Check out interviewers online prior to interview and access powerful information to help give you an edge at interview. For more useful advice on INTERVIEWING join Measurability Careers & Jobs Clubon Linkedin or follow me on Twitter.

Feel free to post any additional interview advice or comments below!!

I didn’t watch much of this year’s Dragons Den but did catch the very last show on the 15/04 which featured the successful online Hurley venture pitched by Daithi O’Regan. This was an inspirational story how Daithi turned the low of redundancy into a positive and bright opportunity.

When watching these shows we must accept that they can be staged for TV to attract higher viewer numbers and don’t always reflect reality. Having said this when you look beyond the unreality and harsh put-downs there can be very valuable lessons to take away especially for jobseekers.

People hire people not ideas, skills or qualifications

You may remember the Dragons stating a number of occasions that they liked an idea but not the individual or they liked the individual but not the idea. There is much more to success on the show than having a good idea and the person behind the idea is probably more important. If we bring this back to job hunting. I often preach that there is more to landing a new job than skills and qualifications. Skills and qualifications improve your chances of getting to the interview table but it takes more than this to land the job. The person behind the skills and qualifications is more essential. It is important to remember this when you are meeting potential employers at networking events or at interview.

Energy & Passion – If you don’t bring energy and passion to the table you will struggle. This doesn’t always mean extrovert and Daithi O’Regan highlights this on the show. He wasn’t jumping around the room but you could still see his passion and energy through his eyes and tremble in the voice.

Sales & Presentation Skills – Some of the pitches received over the top TV put-downs but they were weak. The weakness can be attributed to my previous point (lack of energy and passion) but also to a lack of understanding/knowledge about the product/service or unique selling points.

Lesson for jobseekers

When engaging with potential employer’s wether at networking events or at interview you cannot rely on qualifications and experience alone. You must understand yourself (strengths, skills and competencies), you must be able to sell yourself and you must present your message with conviction, energy and passion.

Final point

I was interested to read an article in the Irish Independent yesterday with the heading – “Interview Techniques should be taught at third level”. The general gist of the article was that college students should be taught interview techniques to bridge the “major gap” between academic qualifications and their ability to get a job. Talk about stating the obvious!!

I wrote an article for RecruitIreland’s March E-zine titled “Job Hunting – The Fear Factor”. Basically this article discussed some fears jobseekers faced while job hunting. I must say I received many interesting emails about the article and one particular fear outlined below.

If you mention “fear” and “job hunting” most people will automatically assume you are talking about interviews. However there is another fear that limits jobseekers ability to land an interview and performance at interview – the fear of communicating strengths and achievements.

Many jobseekers can’t communicate career successes or achievements because they fear that they will be perceived as big headed or arrogant. This means jobseekers struggle to sell themselves through written communication (CV) and verbal communication (Interviews). It is important to address this fear. Failure to do so will have a direct impact on your new job prospects but also impacts promotion prospects and progression within an organisation.

Defeating fear and developing an impact CV.

You need to understand that a CV is a sales and marketing document. The purpose of the document is to tell the reader what you did but more importantly how well you did it. Hiring Managers expect this on a CV and believe me when I tell you that they will get excited rather than turned off.

It is important to revisit your successes. A common statement I hear from jobseekers “I can sell my friends but I can’t sell myself”. If this is true you should seek assistant from work colleagues or friends to help you brainstorm.

List these successes and state them out load. Can you confidently state your achievements and take 100% ownership. If the answer is “yes” then keep them and integrate them into your CV.

Finally successes and achievements are the stardust that can help bring your CV to life and help it stand out from the competition. If you keep successes hidden for fear of coming across boastful you are only limiting your prospects on the job market. Start communicating your successes today!!

I have not completed any formal research on “The World’s Greatest Fears” but I would guesstimate the greatest fears are in the following order – Death, Public Speaking and then Competency Based Interviews. There is normally a greater fear of Competency Based Interviews over the traditional interview (glorified chat about anything other than the job) but this is really down to lack of knowledge and understanding. Personally I love Competency Based Interviews.

You can learn to love them too …..

As with anything in life knowledge and preparation can help reduce fear/nerves. This article goes beyond the STAR Technique as you can get this information on any of a million websites. I am assuming that you know how to structure your answers using the STAR Technique and want to highlight some other key pointers to help you prepare and deliver …..

Your examples – Most jobseekers do not put enough time into example selection and quite often use the first example that comes to mind. I find when I brainstorm with my clients that they have many other hidden gems which are often more relevant. Put more effort into the example choices. Ensure that your examples highlight evidence of the behaviours underpinning the competency. And finally ensure that you have backup examples for each competency just in case.

Forget friendly smiles – On the day expect a cold experience with little small talk (Competency Interviews can seem a bit like the scary interview pictures we visualise). The whole nature of Competency Interviews is to remove subjectivity from decision-making. Therefore it really is a case of get the candidate in, grill the candidate, getting candidate back out again and repeat. The interviewers really are genuinely nice people in disguise for the duration of the interview. You should also expect the interviewers to be writing frantically during interview. This is very much part of the assessment process. Lack of smiles and writing may throw the other candidates and impact their performance but you have been forewarned.

It is not about the “X Factor” – When doing a competency interview it is all about the “I Factor”. Many jobseekers find it difficult to use the word I. Why? This could be because throughout our early development we were continually told that talking about ourselves was being big headed and boastful. You have to get over this!! If the interviewer hears the word “we” they can’t assess your contribution/behaviour.

Probing questions – The interviewers may ask probing questions during the Competency Based Interview. Embrace them. The interviewer is not being difficult or trying to trick you out. The opposite is true and the interviewer is actually being helpful. Probing questions mean the interviewer has not heard evidence and is giving you another chance to deliver. For example you may have been using “We” during your answer instead of “I”.

Then end of the road – Expect to be asked about results at the end of your examples BUT the interviewer may probe further with questions like “What went wrong?” or “What you would do differently next time?” Ensure you prepare for these questions too.

Final point – As with most areas in life some interviewers are not fully trained to execute Competency Interviews and therefore can dilute the objectivity of the interview. With this in mind concentrate on delivering your answers with energy and enthusiasm during the interview.

This really is the final point – Expect the unexpected. I have many examples where jobseekers prepared for Competency Based Interviews as they were told to expect this and guess what ….