It’s perfectly natural to feel nervous and slightly uneasy in an
interview, after all, it’s an important process and one that could shape
your career prospects for years to come.
Getting a job,
as we all know, can change lives – particularly if it’s one you’re
desperately keen to get – so it’s hardly surprising that for many
people, interviewing can be highly stressful.
However, it helps to get inside the head of an interviewer and put
yourself in their shoes. If you were hiring for your own company, what
traits and skills would you look for?
Are they who they say they are?
This may sound obvious, but you’d be blown away by the number of people
who openly lie on their CV. It’s easy to make yourself sound employable
on your application if you just lie and any experienced hirer will
likely want to run through your
CV to
clarify that you are who you say you are and that you’ve done what
you’ve said you’ve done. They’ll probably want to throw a few open ended
questions at you to allow you to talk through your CV in your own time
and – as long as you are telling the truth – this should come naturally.
It’s important to remember to consider how your past experiences can
help you carry out the role. So rather than simply stating what you did,
try and use examples and make a link with what you’ve done in your past
and how it could help you in the position you’re applying for.
Cultural fit
One of the hardest things for an interviewer to gauge is whether the
person sitting opposite them will fit into their current line-up. There
are two distinct schools of thought. Some people like building teams
with ‘disruptive’ characters who can challenge the status quo and create
results and innovation by being different. Others recognise the value
of employing people who can get on with their current employees and
won’t upset the apple cart. Unfortunately, there’s no golden solution to
this and if the employer doesn’t think you’ll work at their company for
whatever reason, they’re unlikely to take you on. Your best bet is to
be yourself. Your true personality will reveal itself further down the
line and putting on a persona only raises the risk of you not actually
being well suited to the organisation.
Are you up to the job?
Finally – and perhaps most obviously – the interviewer will want to know
whether you’ve actually got the skills to do the job. This is where
pinning examples to things you’ve done in
your past really becomes valuable. If you can actually highlight times
when you’ve made a difference to your former employer it saves them the
task of linking your skills with the job specification and working out
whether you’re cut out for the role. Others will do it in their
interview and if a hiring manager has an obvious fit for a role, they’re
hardly likely to think about other candidates quite so much. It also
doesn’t come down to what you just say. If the role involves a lot of
interaction with senior partners or associates then you’ll want to
consider your speech patterns and ways of communicating. In addition,
you should consider any obvious reasons why the company wouldn’t hire
you and don’t let the interviewer jump to their own conclusions (which
they will). If your CV shows signs of job hopping, for example, then
provide reasons for why you’ve done so ahead of being asked.
For other tips, check out our
career advice pages