Preparing for an Interview
I have a client preparing for an interview soon.
Here’s what I want them to think about, practice, appreciate, and communicate. Hopefully, this helps you too.
The way I think about it, there are 4 main areas for preparation.
The content. How well do you know the actual technical material?
How well can you communicate the technical material (trimming, organizing ideas, walking your listener through your answer)?
How well can you interview (pauses, eye contact, body language, charisma, rapport, lasting impression)?
The extra little things - Tips and tricks. Logistics. Critical Thinking.
Now obviously it’s a significant undertaking and you need to figure out for yourself how much time you can dedicate to each area but depending on the job and your qualifications, that will differ.
If you are familiar with the industry, have years of experience, and know the specific organization, you can focus more on the latter issues. If you are pivoting industries, well then, you might need to know the content better.
Let’s start at the ending though.
You are a successful candidate. What made you a better choice than the rest?
You were likely among the top candidates in answers, you were memorable in some positive way, and you gave the impression that you would fit well with their team.
If it’s an entry-level job, then you either carry some experience or distinguish yourself from other entry-level expectations.
If it’s a senior-level job, then you have demonstrated your competency and experience to an advanced degree.
If it’s a management role, then you have shown the capacity to lead a team, foster development, and navigated hardship or challenging human-to-human relations.
Knowing the type of successful candidate attributes lets you know the type of language, the adjectives, the keywords, and the prioritized needs that you should be highlighting.
The content. How well do you know the actual technical material?
This is an area of expertise that I will not have for you. You must know the technical material whether that be laws, technical skills, operating skills, and the rest. If you’re applying for a software engineering role, accent modification consulting isn’t going to help in this area. So you’re on your own for this one.
How well can you communicate the technical material (trimming, organizing ideas, walking your listener through your answer)?
This is an area to express yourself.
During the interview, you will be asked questions and if you are unable to process what the question is or frame your answer in a clear, concise, and organized way, even if you understand the content, you may not communicate that understanding well.
For example, if someone asks you to explain basketball, you cannot simply jump in and tell people that it’s about running and jumping and dunking and blocking and stealing and passing and dribbling. This will come across as rambling and scattered.
Instead, you need to answer the question with structure. What should someone know about basketball? The objective, the terrain, the time limit, etc.
There are two teams of 5 players on a court with two small hoops with a backboard on either end. Teams must move the ball toward their opposing team’s hoop and place it into the hoop for points. Games are less than an hour in duration.
Then you can speak about the details regarding the need to dribble, 1-point, 2-point, and 3-point scores and so forth.
But there is organization and structure to the answer.
This is especially important for long, complicated or lengthy answers. Being able to use adverbs to meaningfully connect your speech can help you organize this thinking more easily. Enumerating, ordinal, and conjunctive adverbs highlight this connectedness but the framework of organization and structure must be your starting point.
So when asked an interview question that is more complex, I’d typically frame an answer via:
Make an Assertion
Support Rationale with 3 claims, focusing directly on the company and team benefit from your involvement.
I would limit it to 3 claims or 3 examples or 3 arguments (unless they specifically ask for ALL). The reason is it forces you to organize your answer, forces you to think about the top 3 examples, and lets you avoid distractions, rambling, and afterthoughts.
Make a list of the keywords you know are relevant. Make sure you use them when answering questions and talking about yourself because these are the types of words that interviewers want to hear. Remember? You need to be the most outstanding and memorable interviewee in this process.
How well can you interview (pauses, eye contact, body language, charisma, rapport, lasting impression)?
How do you present yourself during your interview? Do you look confident, dress confident, sit or stand confidently and act confident? Does your eye contact or body language communicate confidence or do they suggest uncertainty and doubt? Regardless of whether you are knowledgeable or experienced, if you present yourself as unconfident or are not able to communicate your knowledge effectively, your presentation may be unmemorable or unremarkable to interviewers.
Are you able to smile, develop rapport, laugh, and feel comfortable in the environment? These types of things can communicate whether you can negotiate in a stressful situation, whether you are warm or personable, and whether you can command a room.
How effective are you at using your voice?
What about your comfort with pauses and silence?
What about your um’s and ah’s?
These types of skills, particularly in the interview setting, present a unique challenge because these are the times when they are scrutinized to this degree.
The extra little things.
There are little things you can do to smooth over your interview - things that are neither knowledge nor communication based but can set you up for success.
1. Use a paper to jot down ideas.
I always try to have a paper and pen to jot down ideas and notes for myself. Typically interviewers will provide you with paper and this is invaluable to write down the keywords or ideas to organize your mind. You cannot rely on these things. You cannot look down and write an entire essay. But you can write down a 1, 2, 3, simple keyword, keyword, keyword and that can be the basic structure of an answer.
2. Know how to buy yourself time.
In order to naturally give yourself some time, using repetition and common phrases can give you a few extra seconds to think and organize your thoughts. Repeat the question asked of you slowly aloud with the intention that you are communicating it again to confirm you understood the question clearly.
Interviewer: Tell us about a time you struggled in providing feedback to a direct report.
Interviewee: A time I struggled to provide feedback to a direct report…..Well, one time…
Another way you can give yourself time is by having common phrases in response.
“That’s a good question”, “That’s an interesting question!”, “I’ve never been asked that before”, are all appropriate responses. They work because they can be used as a natural response and sometimes that casual banter can build rapport, disarm the situation to feel more casual and might relax the mood into more of a conversation rather than an interview.
Be aware that you cannot use this type of phrase in response to every question because it will sound inauthentic, repetitive, and unnatural, but using it on rare occasions will help you
3. Bring water.
Bringing either a bottle of water or something to drink is not only accepted and reasonable, but a good reminder to pace yourself. The tendency when you are nervous is to speak faster and rush. This can be interpreted as nervousness and anxiety. Stopping to comfortably take a sip of water, take pause, and catch your breath, is an effective tool to reset yourself and can give you time to organize your thoughts.
4. Have Examples.
Build a repertoire of examples for yourself to have strong examples displaying your skill and experience. Some examples may be suitable for multiple characteristics like leadership, managing a difficult situation, implementing a new protocol or process at work and so forth. Having these examples prepared in advance for easy recall makes it easier for you to think about them at the moment when the interview question is asked. This also lets you prepare your answers in advance in a structured and organized way.
Practice, Practice, Practice.
Practice is a massively important aspect of your preparedness for an interview. It can impact your confidence, and your understanding of the industry and work, as well as prepare you with a variety of examples to highlight your individual skills, experience, and qualities that are relevant to the job.
