How Should I Prepare for a Job Interview?
Thorough interview preparation separates good candidates from great candidates. If you’re interviewing for a position where the other applicants all have similar skills and experience, standing out in the job interview will be the deciding factor in who lands the role. Kind Consultancy recommends the 3 Rs approach to job interview preparation –
1. Research.
Learn everything you can about the company, the role and the interviewer or panel. It’s important for candidates to ask questions in interviews, but asking about something that your potential employer thinks you should already know about will critically undermine your performance.
Thorough research enables you to have an informed conversation with the interviewer, rather than asking them for basic facts you could easily have read elsewhere.
Look at the company website and their pages on social media, find out about their values and ethos, what news they have recently issued and what company events they have coming up – work these naturally into the conversation.
If you only have the text of a job advert describing the role, ask in advance if you can see a full job description.
Check the LinkedIn profiles of your interviewers and have a look at their background and what career route they’ve taken to their current positions.
Having all of this information at your fingertips will allow you to ask more specific questions, and hold a more memorable conversation during the interview. In a competitive job market, being the most memorable candidate is crucial.
2. Revise.
It might sound silly to be asked to study up on your own CV – you’re the expert in what you’ve done, after all!
We recommend this because you should be fully tailoring your CV for the job you’re applying for – you might have pulled out details that you’ve not thought about in years and highlighted knowledge and tasks from past roles that aren’t part of your current job.
It’s worth really learning the CV you’ve submitted for this specific opportunity back to front before going into an interview. The CV contains all of the information that your prospective employer has about you, and you need to be ready for any questions they’ve formulated based on that document.
It doesn’t look good if you’re asked about a detail from your resume and have a moment of confusion or need to be reminded.
3. Rehearse.
Performing in interviews is a skill in itself – and one you can work on. Having a friend or partner run through a mock interview with you, using stock interview questions, can help you find current gaps in your preparation. Maybe you’ll realise that while you do have a good example of when you overcame a difficult work situation, you haven’t yet planned out a detailed STAR model answer for it.
If this is your first time encountering it – the STAR model is Situation, Task, Action, Result, and is a great way to organise anecdotal responses to make sure you include all of the necessary information. The Situation is the background of what happened, the Task is what you had to do, the Action is how you did it and the Result is the outcome.
We would also recommend rehearsing the practical side of the interview – if your meeting is taking place over video call, make sure you have a good set-up ready in your home with a tidy, clean background, good lighting and a stable internet connection.
Have a friend join a Teams or Zoom call with you and feedback to you on how it looks from their side. This will also allow you to test your microphone and speakers and make sure ahead of time that your interview won’t be held up by the interviewers not being able to hear you, or needing to change headphones or microphones at the last minute.
They can probably also be trusted to let you know if your planned interview outfit doesn’t look professional enough – which is a good reason to do this at least a few days before the actual call.
We also always tell candidates to have a back up plan in place and be ready to re-join fast – make sure the e-mail with the meeting link is readily available to you and that you can quickly switch to using your phone or a tablet if something goes wrong with your primary device at the last minute or during the interview.
For in-person interviews, we recommend doing a ‘practice run’ of your route to the office or meeting place in advance so you can be confident of when you’re going to arrive. Work out where you’re going to park or which exact public transport routes you’ll be using and time out a visit so that you can be certain you’ll arrive 10-15 minutes before the scheduled interview time.
Now You’re Ready
Once you’re in the room or on the call, all of that preparation will pay off. Thorough preparation helps combat nerves and should make it easier for you to be present, engaged and enthusiastic, with an answers quickly at your fingertips for any questions asked and array of interesting questions to ask your prospective employer.
Beyond the Interview
After harnessing the power of Three Rs, remember you also need to take care of Post-Interview Admin. A quick e-mail to express your thanks to the interviewer or panel, re-stating your enthusiasm for the organisation and the job opportunity is a small thing that can make a big difference in which candidates are positively remembered after a day of interviews.
If you’re working with a recruiter, contact them as soon as possible after the interview and share your feedback. Ask them to pass along a positive message to the client, as well as any follow up questions you may have.
Thorough interview preparation can ensure you get the job when you’re up against people with similar knowledge and experience. Investing the time and energy before an interview makes a big difference.
Another way to get an edge on other candidates is working with an excellent specialist recruiter – like Kind Consultancy. Get in touch today to discuss how we may be able to help advance your career within Financial Services.
