Being interviewed for a new vacancy can be a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Perhaps the first thought is the happiness or for some the relief of having been invited for an interview and the knowledge that you have been considered as a potentially suitable candidate for the job. This can often give way to an overwhelming sense of anxiousness, self doubt, and fear of rejection should you not be deemed suitable.
Don’t worry help is at hand to ensure that you can excel when the day of the interview arrives.
As an Ex Recruiter here are my hot tips for interview success;
1. Look Smart.
It doesn’t matter what type of job you are applying for any potential employer wants to know that you have made an effort at your interview and presentation is important for a number of reasons A) It shows courteous to a prospective employer and reflects your respect to them for having been invited in the first place. B) Looking smart can also give you much needed confidence (not arrogance) in your own abilities.
2. Don’t tell them you’re nervous!
Many people with issues around self esteem seek to gain sympathy from a potential interviewer by stating just how they feel. Whilst most interviewers will politely tell you that it’s okay just take your time, it is often a sure put off and sends out a clear message that you have no confidence in your own abilities.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling nervous, with shaking, crying or even being sick just prior to your interview just as long as you are able to do this out of sight of your potential employer, perhaps in the nearest bathroom, but take time to compose yourself before it’s your turn.
Some tips for dealing with nerves
A) Take your IPOD and listen to some music whilst waiting
B) Take a magazine, newspaper or book with you to read whilst you wait.
3. Don’t lie or exaggerate
Whilst it can be tempting to exaggerate your skills or lie in order to get a job just don’t do it! I guarantee that you will be caught out at some point. I never forget interviewing a male in his late thirties for a programming position in a computer company. He was a very impressive candidate he knew all the technical language had an impressive CV , what he didn’t know was that he was required to undertake an impromptu technical test lasting 15 minutes following his face to face interview, which he duly failed spectacularly.
4. Disclosing a Criminal Conviction
In the UK it is a criminal offence to fail to disclose a previous conviction if you are requested to at any point. But there are way’s to do this. You will usually (but not always) be asked at application stage whether you have a criminal conviction and a good way to address this is simply to write yes, “will discuss at interview” This way you are being honest about the fact that you have a conviction but do not allow others to make assumptions about you before they have met you.
I can think of an example of a female who had been convicted of murder. Simply recording this information directly onto an application form would have been likely to result in people screening those applications to have dismissed her form out of hand based upon their own assumptions and prejudices. Whilst this was clearly a serious offence further exploration revealed that she had been the victim of domestic abuse for a number of years and that on the night in question her partner had again been physically assaulting her when she grabbed a knife from a work surface in the kitchen to defend herself and ended up stabbing him in the heart.
Princeton Executive Group
It is a moot point as to whether her actions were or were not defensible and a Court of Law found her guilty, but sometimes the context of an offences needs to be seen to allow a potential employer to make an informed decision. Clearly had she used the approach of disclosure that I have just described, she would be able to describe the factors surrounding her offence directly to the interviewer.
What about spent convictions? These are convictions that don’t have to be declared after a certain time period has elapsed. This can be a complex area and due to the changing nature of the subject it is impossible to give an exact timescale for which offences are considered spent at which time.
The best way to check this is to ask your solicitor how long your conviction will remain on your record until it is considered spent or check with a local Citizens Advice Beaureau or Job Centre Be aware that there are some offences such as Murder or Serious Sexual Offending for which convictions are never spent.
Above all do not rule yourself out of future employment because you have a criminal record, statistics show that one of the main stabilising factors in you avoiding committing further offences is stable employment.
As an employer please don’t dismiss without consideration those with a criminal record as this can further alienate individuals and force then further down the route of re-offending.
5. Criteria or Behavioural Interviews
Increasingly companies adopt a criteria or behavioural based approach towards interviewing. Briefly, this is based upon a Cognitive Behavioural and evidenced based approach, which looks to assess your thinking (hence the word cognitive) and behaviours (hence the term behavioural) by drawing on a real life example of how you have responded to a similar situation previously.
Typically these types of interviews will focus on certain aspects of the job or criteria that are essential for that job. Taking the example of a an accountant an essential criteria may be that they have excellent numeracy skills. In this instance criteria based interviewing might be based around asking a question such as “Can you give me an example of a time when you have had to solve a number based business problem?”
In a Managerial Position a key criteria might be good time management abilities, a typical question might then be posed “Can you give me a specific example of a time when you had to prioritise one task over another, what did you do?”
These questions are very open and designed to allow the individual to talk about their experience, their initial answers will also give the interviewer an insight into their level of ability, breadth and depth of experience, so pick a good example!
Criteria based interviewing differs to general interviewing in that you are looking for specific examples and skills that are directly applicable to the job and not just asking questions like “Tell me about your plans for the next 5 years” or “what do you do in your current job” which are too broad.