Anticipating interview questions and the answers you are supposed to give is one of the most challenging aspects of landing a job. The fear of the unknown is what makes people nervous, stressed and anxious.
One of the greatest anxieties about interview questions for people is that they will be asked something they have no idea how to answer. This will lead to them stuttering, choking and ending up in an embarrassing situation.
This is amplified by the fact that there are an unknown quantity and complexity to interview questions. Therefore people feel that they simply cannot anticipate or prepare their answers to all of them.
Finding Employment In 2021:
In a tough 2020 and 2021 job market, you may feel there is even more scrutiny because of the increase in the amount and calibre of other candidates. Moreover, if you are currently out of work, it can add extra pressure to perform highly in your interviews.
Having been through this twice in 2020 and over 5 times since starting my career in 2013. I feel qualified to give advice on performing well in interviews in periods of high unemployment. Especially when your back is against the wall and you are feeling the pressure.
These are the tips and tricks I have learned from landing jobs at leading UK companies. They’ve helped me prepare effectively and deliver strong responses in interviews. Even under intense scrutiny and interrogation styled interviewers.
One Method For Overcoming All Interview Questions And Answers
The truth is that you don’t have to know how to answer every interview question ever created. So you don’t have to anticipate every possible question.
There is a simple and straightforward way to deconstruct all interview questions to their root so that you will have an answer lined up for every single one.
You can essentially deconstruct all interview questions to core competency that you will have built a framework of answers for. However, there are three critical and very questions you should learn to answer too.
By applying the information in this article you will not just be prepared for one interview, you will have done 90% of the work required for any interviews you might have.
1. “Can You Tell Us About Yourself?”
This is a foundational step for the preparation of an interview. Even if you don’t get asked this question it will likely contribute to your success, so knowing how to answer it concisely and with a punch is key.
It’s the starting point for creating an authentic narrative that the interviewer can relate to. In just a few sentences you need to be able to summarise your employment history, your key technical and interpersonal skills and how you ended up at this interview.
It’s important for an employer to understand how you got to the place where you are, even if you’re unemployed. If you can make your story engaging then it shows that you can still deliver. You wouldn’t continue reading a novel if you couldn’t understand the main characters perspective, motivations or history.
Therefore you need to include:
- When your career started what year and if and what you studied beforehand.
- Your previous employers and what you gained from the experiences (e.g. skills).
- The aspects of the roles that you enjoyed.
- The reasons you left such as career development or opportunity to learn new skills.
- What is it about these experiences that directed you to the current role i.e. you enjoy working for innovative companies?
- Consequently the direction you want your future to go.
Even if you don’t get asked this specific question, it’s highly likely they will become talking or even conversational points in your interview.
Therefore, constructing an authentic success story is key to showcasing your great personality and background.
2. “What Are Your Strengths & Weaknesses?”
Listing your strengths should be the easiest part of the interview, but if you are modest then self-promotion can feel disingenuous. However, this doesn’t necessarily need to feel deeply personal.
List your skills and practice listing your achievements and tie them to credible experiences at each company.
Anyone can simply say they are good at something, so ground your answers in reality and this will help you with any follow up questions.
It will also link your answers later in the interview back to this initial starting point and give the interview a more fluid feel.
How To Put A Positive Spin On Your Weaknesses
You may also feel that outlining your weaknesses will expose you. However, do not shy away from your weakness, everybody has them and this is an opportunity to explore how you have worked on them, or if not compensated for them.
For example, if you are not necessarily a leader or manager, then you can still demonstrate where you have taken steps to ask for opportunities to take the lead. For example, have you ever communicated out information to a wide audience?
Alternatively, how you compensate with visual information to compensate for natural verbal presentation skills. Try to pick something that many people can relate to, at some point they will likely have had to develop skills and experiences themselves.
3. “Why Do You Want To Work For Us?”
It’s essential to look at this from the employer’s point of view, how to benefit them to take you on and what you can bring to the role. In order to do this, you should research the company and if possible read any of the publications e.g. annual financial reports.
These reports will contain the strategic direction they are trying to move in, along with any challenges and successes. This will:
- Help you tailor your interview questions and answers
- Impress them with your commercial awareness and insight.
- Demonstrate considerable effort and enthusiasm with a low effort task.
- Company values and goals
How To Score Bonus Points With Your Interviewer
You will definitely gain an advantage over your competition if you can throw out a couple of statistics or facts that even the hiring manager does not know about.
These can also often be found in the annual report or credible news sources. For example:
- Year on year revenue growth
- Company trajectory and strategic approach
- Business challenges and limitations
Having researched the company website, this can feed into your answers about why you want to join the company:
- “I want to work for a company that is experiencing rapid growth as I find that exciting”
- “I want a role within a business that promotes innovation”.
- “The reviews on Glassdoor indicate that there is a positive culture and that’s important for my productivity”.
It will also help you to tailor your questions to the perspective on the employer by tailoring it towards any problems they might be facing.
Showing them that you can help resolve their pain points and this is exactly what every potential employer wants to hear.
You should also remember to tailor aspects of the role and job advert to the things you enjoy doing as this will show genuine enthusiasm.
“Can You Tell Us About A Time When? (All Other Questions)
This is the most crucial step in your interview preparation and this goes back to my method for deconstructing all potential interview questions.
All questions no matter how varied they may seem will have a root in just 7 to 12 core key competencies. I say 7 to 12 because some of them overlap pretty strongly e.g. communication and teamwork.
You can build a framework of answers mapped around the following competencies.
- adaptability
- commercial awareness
- communication
- conflict resolution
- decisiveness
- independence
- flexibility
- leadership
- problem solving
- organisation
- resilience
- teamwork.
These are also words you should definitely include in your CV.
These will be structured into interview questions with openings such as ‘Tell us about a time when you…’, ‘Give an example of…’ or ‘Describe how you…’. These will develop into more fully formed competency questions such as:
- Describe a situation in which you led a team.
- How do you maintain good working relationships with your colleagues?
- Tell me about a big decision you’ve made recently. How did you go about it?
- What has been your biggest achievement to date?
- Tell me about a time when your communication skills improved a situation.
- Give an example of a time when you made a difficult decision.
- Give me an example of a challenge you faced in the workplace and tell me how you overcame it.
- Tell me about a time when you showed integrity and professionalism.
- How do you influence people in a situation with conflicting agendas?
- Give an example of a situation where you solved a problem in a creative way.
- Tell me about a time that you made a decision and then changed your mind.
- Describe a situation where you were asked to do something that you’d never attempted previously.
- Tell me about a time when you achieved success in a difficult environment or situation.
Create A Mind Map Of Your Competencies
You can use a regular pen or paper to do this or an app such as miMind – Easy Mind Mapping to map out each of your experiences and competencies. This will give you a visual way to access and connect your answers to the questions asked.
Interview questions will always contain and core competency, which you can then embed in your answers by choosing a relevant experience from your mind map.
Use the STAR Method
When thinking about your answers you should structure each of your answers in a specific format. This will help you to communicate your experiences in a concise format that outlines the problem and how you solved it.
This structure will also help your interviewer easily pick out the aspects of your answer they need to know.
- S – Situation: The problem, situation or relevant time action was required
- T – Task: Outline the required steps that were needed to solve the problem.
- A – Action: How you implemented and actioned the above steps in more detail.
- R – Response: What was the end result, was it positive or negative? How did it solve the problem? What did you learn and what were people’s reactions?
You should focus particular attention on the response as you will likely get follow up questions focused on this aspect.
“If you can define the problem better than your target customer, then they will assume you have the solution.”
Dane Maxwell.: EP 46 of the SPI Podcast
Interviews That Don’t Go Your Way
If you do have an interview that did not go the way you expect then this isn’t all on you. Sometimes you will be faced with interviewers, who do not ask good interview questions and therefore there are no good answers to give.
There are rigid interviewers that simply work off a list of questions, many of which are supplied by HR and are tick-box exercises. This either restricts the interviewer from building a report or provides them with an excuse not to.
Either way, do you really want to work for an organisation or person like this? In my experience, the answer is no. In my opinion, we spend a great deal of time preparing for an interview, so the interviewer should take the time to ask optimal interview questions that will extract the best answers.
“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
Nelson Mandela
Better Interviewers Are Often Better Colleagues
If you have a tough and stern-faced interviewer, then the chances are it will be a challenging work environment. If you have a conversational and interesting conversation, then you will likely end up in a relaxed and fun role with good people.
The best interviewers build rapport with you and even have a joke and a laugh with you.
They will seek ways to relieve the tension and get to know you and this gives you an indication of the work environment you will work in. Although I do appreciate that interviewing can be as stressful for interviewers as it is for interviewees.
If Your Interview Goes Badly
If your interview goes badly, I could be that the role was not designed for you. Perhaps because you don’t match the company or team’s goals and values. It may be that your experience or personality result in a difficult experience in the potential role, so avoiding it is not a negative thing.
However, you may be making some crucial interview blunders, so take this quick assessment to find out if you are interview ready.
Try not to dwell on any negative experiences but continue to build up and refine your interview answers to be even more prepared for the next one. It will happen for you, sometimes it just takes a few interviews and many questions for you to perfect your answers.
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