Improving your interview skills so you can clearly convey your skills and experience, and convince recruiters to hire you, is crucial when you want to secure a new role. This article provides top tips to help you to improve your interview skills.

Explain how your experience matches the job description

It’s important to read the job description thoroughly, particularly the person specification and role requirements, which provide the criteria which the recruiter will assess your skills, experience and qualifications against.

Use the criteria in the job description as a cheat-sheet, so you focus every answer on how your skills and experience match their requirements, enabling you to deliver the role requirements. When discussing your career history, most recent role, or questions like “what are your strengths” or “why should I hire you” shape your answer around the key skills from the job description, as this makes you look the closest possible fit for the role. This tip can transform your interview performance.

Practice using the STAR technique

The STAR technique is a story telling technique used to provide examples. This ensures your examples contain the required information. Your STAR based examples need to be specific examples, meaning they refer to a particular time, project or people. Often people give general examples saying what they usually do, or would do in a situation, which doesn’t provide the evidence the recruiter is looking for. A couple of low scoring answers, which may score no points, can hugely damage your interview score. You can find further information and tips on the STAR technique in this blog post.

Choose your best examples

Recruiters are looking for high achievers with a proven track record of success, the best way to demonstrate this is by choosing your stand-out examples which can be evidenced by metrics. Achievements can include revenue generation, cost savings, time savings, people helped, process efficiencies, key projects, awards and recognition etc.

These are typically the type of examples which are highlighted in performance reviews. Great examples will have had a wider impact on the business, customers, other departments or your colleagues. Some ideas may have been rolled out throughout your site or other sites. Choosing your best examples makes you stand out from other applicants. Your best examples clearly demonstrate the skill and show the biggest impact (or difference) between before and after your action.

Look at the job description and identify your key skills, experience and achievements in each area of the job description. Alternatively, you may find it easier to list your biggest achievements and link them to the role – do they show communication, leadership, organisational skills etc. This tip can increase your interview marks by one or two points per answer, making a huge difference to your total interview score.

Rehearse your answers to common interview questions

Practice answering some of the most common interview questions.

• “Tell me about yourself” – prepare a 2-3 minute introduction for people who may not have read your CV recently, briefly talking through your CV, focussing on how your experience relates to the role.
• “What are your strengths” Talk through three strengths (ideally from the job description) and how you will use them in this role.
• “Why are you interested in this role?” Talk about what attracts you to this specific role at this company.
• “Why are you looking for a new role?” Keep this positive and look at what you will bring to the role (avoid issues/problems)
• “What are your salary expectations?” Outline your current salary and what you’re hoping for in this role
• “What are your career aspirations?” Talk about how you would like to develop your career. It may be best to avoid specific timescales.

Rehearse role specific questions

Practice answering technical interview questions relating to your skills and experience, and competency based interview questions linked to the main competencies/areas of the job description. Competency based questions often start with “tell me about a time when you…” “give me a specific example of a time when you…”

Research the company

Thoroughly researching the company provides insight into their priorities, enables you to answer questions such as “what do you know about our company?” or “why you would like to work for us?” You can find out more about how to research the company in this blog post

Prepare questions to ask the interviewer

Towards the end of the interview, most interviewers ask if you have any questions you would like to ask them. Ask questions about things which genuinely interest you, relating to the company or the role. Asking several questions shows that you are interested in the role. You can find further information and tips on questions to ask the interviewer in this blog post.

Plan ahead

Prepare your outfit the day before the interview, there’s nothing worse than being late because you can’t find your favourite shirt, or need to clean your shoes. Plan your journey, allowing far more time than you think you will need, so you arrive at least five minutes early. If you need to bring any documentation such as your passport, education certificates or proof of address with you, prepare these the night before.

Listen to the question

During the interview, actively listen to the exact question they ask so you can precisely answer this. If you have prepared answers in advance, you will probably need to tweak these to directly answer the question, otherwise this will limit your interview scores. Providing a great example of teamwork for a question about communication skills will result in a low mark for that competency, potentially zero marks.

Be clear and concise

Focus on the key message you want to deliver, and use professional language. For questions such as “what are your strengths” try to keep to three main points per answer, order your answers logically, grouping similar information together and order your answer in order of importance to the interviewer.

Use common everyday language and say everything as simply as possible. Whilst it’s good to use well known industry specific terms it’s best to avoid abbreviations, jargon or anything which the interviewers may not understand (particularly the Recruiter/HR Manager who doesn’t have your technical expertise!)

Try not to waffle, avoid phrases which add length but don’t say anything “I placed myself front and centre,” “This was absolutely about…” “an example that readily comes to mind…” Try not to draw conclusions based on what you did, “I thought that this clearly shows…”

Phrase everything as positively as you can

Put a positive spin on everything, when you talk about challenges, ensure it sounds like you enjoyed overcoming them, rather than it being a struggle. Try not to mention anything which could give a negative impression phrases such as “they explained it better than I could” can be phrased as “They explained it very well, using specialist vocabulary”, or “I had insufficient knowledge on SharePoint” can be phrased as “As I hadn’t previously used SharePoint…”

I not We

One of the most common issues in interviews is candidates phrasing their answers as “we” rather than “I.” During interviews, it’s essential that the recruiter understands exactly what you did and what this achieved, as they are interested in hiring you, not your colleagues. Phrasing answers as “we” can also appear as if you are hiding behind your colleague’s work.

Be aware of your body language

Sit up straight, maintain eye contact, keep still and relaxed and try not to cross your arms in front of you. This will help you to look confident and relaxed (even if you’re feeling anxious!)

Don’t

• Talk about your personal life unless directly asked (which shouldn’t happen as this can be discriminatory) “tell me about yourself” means your career history, telling the recruiter that you’re married with three children, and love meeting friends for coffee isn’t what the question means.
• Draw conclusions on your performance, let the recruiter make their own judgement, a modest person will judge themselves much more harshly than the recruiter does, conversely a very confident person may rate themselves much higher (and look arrogant!)
• Don’t over practice and turn yourself into an interviewing robot! The recruiter wants to see your personality which tends to come out when you recover from making a mistake, they also want to know what you are passionate about and what motivates you.

Would you like to improve your interview skills and confidence? I provide interview skills help via mock interviews and interview coaching sessions, personally tailored to your needs. Please contact me, and I’ll be pleased to discuss your requirements and how I can plan a session or sessions to help you, whether you prefer a single mock interview session or to combine this with interview coaching.