Preparing for interview success
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If you’ve got an upcoming interview or are thinking of applying for a new role, you may be wondering what steps you can take to maximise your chances of success. Here are five top tips to help you gain interview success –
Don’t assume you can pass the interview without the right preparation. Sure it’s clichéd to do the groundwork – but it really makes a huge difference.
- Don’t rely on the advert and job description. There’s a real danger that the job description you’ve read is a hand-me-down from another department or manager and that it doesn’t accurately reflect the role you’re applying for. This makes it hard to gauge what the job is about and the exact skills/experiences the interviewer is looking for. Also, bear in mind most job descriptions list as many as 40 or 50 pieces of information. It’s impossible for all of those to be equally important, and in reality only 4 or 5 key priorities will matter (we’ll talk more about this next week).
- Think about how you can find common ground. The most challenging part of any interview is the first 3-5 minutes. It’s then that you’ll need to go from not knowing each other to having rapport and being able to enjoy the interview. This is easier to achieve if you have a plan for it, so ask yourself – is there anything you know about the interviewer? What have they done in the business? What information is available on their LinkedIn profile? But remember – at the same time, don’t make yourself look like a stalker!
- Don’t be over-confident. No matter how well matched you are for the role or how good you believe you are at interviews – don’t let over confidence ruin the interview. Be sure to do the necessary preparation – even if it’s just the answer to the first question “what do you know about us/the company/the role?”
- Skill beats knowledge in an interview. I recently did a survey of people who are consistently successful in interviews and asked them what they would have done differently/better if they were going through the interview again. The number one response was that they would have done more skills practice to become a better interviewee rather than spending time filling their heads with facts based knowledge. So think how you can become a better interviewee. Can you set up mock interviews with someone whose feedback you trust? Can you talk to people who are good at interviews and ask them for advice? Can you set practice questions, record your answers into your mobile phone and listen back to see how you’re coming across?
- Gather intelligence on the role. We mentioned above the need to get more information/clarity about a role, but there’s more to it than that. For example, you could take the time to visit the team you’ve applied to work with, search out existing customers and suppliers and find out more about how they work with the company you have applied to, or visit their front line stores or services and experience them from a customer perspective. The key is to get as rounded and deep a view as you can about the role and its place within the wider business.
- Make sure you know what you are being asked to do. Many people have told me that they thought they were going in only for ‘a chat’ to find that the interview was a formal one with two interviewers and a set of detailed competency based questions! It is a good idea to ask the person who has invited you to the interview what you’ll be facing. Don’t get unexpectedly caught out.
Don’t assume you can pass the interview without the right preparation. Sure it’s clichéd to do the groundwork – but it really makes a huge difference.