Be Successful In A Job Interview

Across my career I have believe I must have interviewed several hundred people for a variety of roles. Throw in the twenty or thirty interviews I have had over my life and I do feel like I have gained some useful insights that I hope by sharing, it will allow you to achieve that dream role you have been seeking.

The greatest learning, I have had from my first job interview to my most recent is that it’s not a competition against other people; it’s a competition against yourself. I use to worry a lot about how many other candidates applied, how they were and what skills they brought. Now I could care less and don’t bother even asking, because I know that any energy I invest into this is energy and time I could be investing in to preparing myself.

Don’t focus on shit you can’t control, even if you nail the interview someone who has better qualifications, experience, connections or whatever can come in and get the job ahead of you. In this case accept the disappointment, breath and move on.

Carefully review the position description to fully understand the job requirements. Always review and update your CV to reflect and highlight relevant skills, experience and achievements. Don't be shy about including examples of your work accomplishments.

Try and pick key words from the job description and work them into your CV and Cover Letter.

Think about the intent of the role your going for, if you got it what would the expectations of you be? Try and highlight how you can meet these in your application.

I strongly recommend updating your CV every 3 to 6 months, you never know when a job you want to apply for is going to come up and if you only have to do a quick update rather than a whole rewrite it can make the process so much quicker.

If you’re not the greatest at putting together a CV, then get someone else to write it for you. There are lots of companies that offer this sort of service and its money well spent.

Research the company/organization that you’re applying for. Look for their vision/mission statement and read about their history. This gives you good insight into the type of place your applying to work at, as well as equipping you with the ability to demonstrate you have done your homework and are actually interested in the organization and not just a pay check.

Prepare before hand so answers to possible questions, make notes of key pieces of evidence that highlight your skills. When you go into the interview ask if you can refer to your notes, I have never been in a situation where I was told I couldn’t.

Its ok to be nervous, don’t try and fight it. Use that energy to focus on what you need to do. Before I go into an interview I always spend a few minutes doing some breathing mediating to easy away some of the butterflies.

Always arrive early, make sure you account for thinks like parking and getting to the interview venue. If you’re late the interviewers will notice and it could start to create the impression that your unreliable. By arriving early, it also gives you time to do some meditation and ease some of the nerves.

Dress smartly, research shows suggests that we only have a 7 second window to make a first impression. If someone turns up to an interview in jeans and a t shirt vs someone in a suit, tie and nice polished shoes interviewers notice.

It’s always a good idea to be able to identify and talk about areas of yourself that you want to develop. Its shows that you have insight into your own character and can be honest about your strengths and weaknesses. If you can highlight how you have/will go about developing your weaker areas, even better as it gives the interviewers a window into how you learn and how you manage yourself.

Always have a question or two to ask at the end it creates discussion with the interviewers and shows you have come prepared and have invested into the process. Its also a great way to see how your potential manager reacts and gives a small window into what sort of person they might be.

Overall the more prepared you can be for an interview the less stressful the process is. Just remember that regardless of the outcome, just by getting to interview you have already been successful. Some of the interview panels I have chaired have had 500 applicants, and from that I might only interview 10 depending on how many jobs I am looking to fill.

If you would like specific help around interviewing or would like to discuss any of the above then please feel free to drop me a message. If you have any tips that you have found useful I would love to hear about them. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I do hope it has some value for you.