Over the course of my career I have interviewed hundreds of candidates for employment positions in higher education. While I have no formal background in career counseling or human resources, interviewing this many people has given me some key insights on what it takes to successfully interview for a position. I believe the lessons below could be applied to most occupations.
The number one priority in an interview is to be your best authentic self. There is no benefit to getting a position playing the part of someone or something you are not. That said, your objective is to put forward a narrative of the best possible version of yourself. I can assure you after years of watching great people interview poorly that this is not something that one can generally pull off without some serious planning, thought, and practice.
I am sure there are many good ways to prepare for an interview, but here is a process I recommend candidates that I am coaching go through in order to deliver a top notch version of themselves to an employer:
1. Generate a list of the seven best examples of the excellence and high quality in your current or previous work. It can be fewer than seven, but not more, your mind can only remember so much information. These examples need to be your best of the best. It could be the biggest or best project you completed, the best team you lead or were a part of, the most important responsibility you were given, the biggest problem you solved, your best idea that you were able to follow through on, a person who you helped be successful, or a difficult skill or task that you were able to learn.
2. Build a detailed story around each of your examples. What talents and attributes helped you achieve that success? What skills or knowledge did you demonstrate or acquire during the process? What parts of the story involve you learning or teaching something important, overcoming a challenge, or working well in a team setting? When you are done with this step you should have seven robust stories that highlight the best what you have accomplished, how you did it, and what about who you are made it possible.
3. Each story also needs to answer the question "so what?" So many people start a good interview story and forget to finish it. Do not leave it to the employer to draw a connection between your story and what that says about you or what you would bring to the job. You need to finish each example or story by drawing a direct connection from what you did previously to what you could do in this new role.
4. You need to become a politician. The number one mistake candidates make in an interview is to simply answer the question they are asked. Politicians have talking points for a reason, because they repeatedly focus the attention where it benefits them most. Also, they work. This does not mean you are selling your soul or need to be inauthentic, but your goal in the interview should be to lead as many questions as possible back to contents of the seven stories that demonstrate what you can do when you are at your best. You are creating and weaving a narrative of who you are and what you bring at your best. When asked a question your mind should quickly sort through your seven stories and find an element of at least one story that best fits the question. Be sure to actually answer the question you were asked, but if you can surround the answer with a fuller example of you at your best, you are doubling the mileage of your efforts.
5. You need to practice. You need to practice telling all aspects of your seven stories over and over again. These examples need to be fresh in your memory and every aspect of your talents, knowledge, and skills should be fully explored and refined. You need to take the position description or employment posting and make connections between each qualification and responsibility and one or more of your seven stories. It is also possible that this process will cause you to rethink one or more of your stories and select another accomplishment to keep in your top seven. Another mistake candidates make is that they never make a case that they meet the core qualifications or that their knowledge, skills, talents, and experience will result in them being highly successful in the key responsibilities and tasks of the position.
The goal of an interview is to let the employer know what you would bring to that organization and the position. Your stories of past accomplishments and successes are the best proof of your knowledge, skills, and talents. Your interview answers should stay focused on what you can do for them in the position. If there are things that you are not great at, do not lie, but keep the focus on where you are great. So many candidates defeat themselves by over mentioning or showing insecurity about what they cannot do instead of always doubling back to what they do bring.
Having a great interview does not assure you of getting a job because someone else at their best might simply be better than you. What it does is give the employer a chance to consider who you are at your best in making their decisions. That is all you can hope for and once you have completed the interview, the process is out of your hands.
Here is one of my favorite interview scenes of all time...
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