Conducting successful job interviews
The importance of interview preparation
The key to a successful interview is often in the preparation. No matter what position you are applying for and how qualified and experienced you are – you should not underestimate the importance of interview preparation. Being well prepared for the interview will significantly improve your chances to succeed. It will also boost your confidence and lower your anxiety in the interview.
How much preparation time is required?
The time required for interview preparation would vary depending on the position, your relevant experience and your existing knowledge of the company. As a general rule, experts recommend that you spend at least three hours preparing for each interview.
How to prepare for an interview?
There are a number of steps in the interview preparation process: Learn as much as you can about the organisation’s interview process
Firstly, you need to establish the key facts about how will the interview be conducted. Your recruitment consultant will be more than happy to provide you all the necessary information about the following:
- When and where will the interview take place
- Who will be present at the interview - is it going to be a single interviewer, or an interviewing panel. Find out what are their roles within the organisation and any other relevant information you can possibly get about them and their background. The more you know about those who are interviewing you and what they are looking for, the more you will be able to build rapport with them and highlight your relevant strengths.
- What is the organisation’s culture and what are they looking for in the candidate? Ideally most organisations would like to get a candidate with the exact experience and competencies to match the position and the right personality and attitude.
However, it is not always possible to find that, and they may need to compromise one or the other. For some organisations the relevant technical skills and competencies are a ‘must have’; others look for candidates that have the right personality fit for their organisation and are prepared to help the candidate to develop their technical and product skills on the job.
- How will the interview and the selection process be structured. Does the organisation follow a structured interview process – or is the interview going to be more informal and unstructured? Are they going to be multiple interviews? Do they typically put their candidates through a testing process? If so, what tests will they ask you to sit? Some analytical positions even require the candidate to do a case study.
- What are the most critical parts of the interview process – is it the tests or the face-to-face interview. How and when are they intending to shortlist the candidates?
- What type of interview questions do they use? What are the most difficult questions they are going to ask?
Practice the interview
You should read through the following common interview questions and develop your own answers. Make sure that you can support all your achievements and competencies with a relevant example from your past – these are very important, as they demonstrate to the interviewer that you have relevant experience.
Once you have drafted your answers to the most common interview question, you should practice speaking them out loud. Remember practice makes perfect. Nothing impresses a potential employer like being ready for whatever is thrown your way.
Prepare questions of your own
You also should research the company with which you will be interviewing and prepare some questions of your own. This lets the interviewer know that you are truly interested in the company and the position.
Get directions
As a final step in your preparation, make sure you have good directions to the interview site. Some job seekers make a dry run to the interview site to ensure the directions are correct and to estimate the amount of time they will need to get to the interview on time.