TRUSTING IN WHAT YOU KNOW

The things you are most worried about the night before an interview may not be the most important problems. You worry about having the right skills and experience, but if you didn’t, you wouldn’t have got this far. You worry about being up to the job, despite your solid experience. You worry about the questions, knowing that most are predictable. Trust in what you know, and trust in what you have done.

If you’re reading a book like this you probably have some ideas about what you’ll be talking about at interview, and you may know how to do the right research. You may however wonder how you transform a good interview into a great one. The big issue then is not content, but packaging: how you get your evidence across. This means thinking less in intellectual terms (knowledge, facts, information) and more in terms of personal impact (mood, rapport, interaction) – how you will be at interview.

GETTING YOUR HEAD IN THE RIGHT PLACE

Career coach Stuart McIntosh says: ‘If you’ve got an interview then the job is yours (why interview someone who you believe isn’t capable of doing the job?). If you are not invited back or offered the job then something happened at the interview to change the employer’s mind.’

In other words, good candidates make sure that they don’t talk themselves out of the job.

If you are up for an interview tomorrow it may be glaringly obvious to your friends that you will come home without a job offer, even though they know nothing about the role. If even members of your family know this in advance, the issue is most probably about your frame of mind.

My colleague, JLA’s Managing Consultant Gill Best, captures this well:

What we think influences how we feel, which then influences how we behave. We routinely reflect on past and future events with ‘self-talk’; that voice in our head that is often our worst critic. We’re more than ready to believe it without question, but we don’t need to.

Instead of telling yourself what is wrong with you and why you won’t land the job, tell yourself what is right with you. Remind yourself what you do well, your achievements and your skills; focus on what you have to offer, and why you will be an asset to the company.

Our self-talk and feelings are much more malleable than we recognise. Need a confidence boost? Borrow one from the past. Think of a time you felt really confident then imagine you are back in that place and remember what you saw, heard and how you felt. Can’t remember a time? Just imagine what it would be like. Or look at a photograph of a happy time – and pay attention to how you feel as a result. Do everything you can to feel good about the coming interview.

There are two ground rules here:

1. Thinking about your mindset is not an excuse for failing to do thorough preparation on the role and the organisation – see Chapter 7.
2. Look seriously at the way that being nervous gets in the way of a solid interview – see Chapter 5.

YOUR TELL-TALE HEART

When you have an interview coming up, look at the way you talk about it. The language you use gives away your underlying approach:

NOT GETTING IN THE WAY OF YOURSELF

Many of the above statements are self-justifying and self-fulfilling. They set limits on what you can do. It’s all too easy to take a jaded view about positive thinking, especially in a tough market; telling yourself you are a winner will not guarantee a job offer – an interview isn’t just about boundless confidence. But confidence does matter – Chapter 10 shows how candidates who are open and positive make a better initial impact.

A big part of confidence is learning how to achieve your goals without getting in your own way. Self-limiting descriptions do exactly this. They say ‘I can’t ...’ when ‘I might ...’ is perfectly possible. They say ‘I never achieve X’ when the truth is often ‘in the right circumstances I can achieve XXX’.

What this really shows is that we avoid thinking about how we do things. Either that, or we believe we need to change everything. You don’t, of course. This is equally true about workplace performance or being a better parent or partner. You just need to learn from experiences, work hard on new approaches, and do your best to make small changes to the things that matter most.

The first big obstacle is believing you aren’t going to get the job. It’s the perfect, self-fulfilling prophecy. So, part of the work you do before an interview is staying positive. This does not mean believing you’re invincible or you can do anything – it’s simply recognising that you’re already close to a job offer and therefore are beginning from a position of strength.

What do you normally say about the experience of being interviewed? Take a friend out for coffee (the same friend whose ear you bend before and after interviews). Ask for feedback about the words you normally use – how have you described yourself, the event, the interviewer? Write the phrases down, and then use highlighter pens in two different colours to categorise them into ‘anti’ and ‘pro’:

ANTI – where you said negative things about the process or those interviewing you, or negative things about yourself.

PRO – where you described things that went well, including the relationship in the room, your preparation, and the questions you answered.

Naturally, the ‘anti’ list is much more fun and emotionally rewarding to talk about. This is interview as melodrama, with goodies and baddies, intrigue and disaster. Good entertaining stuff, so get that out of the way first. Over your second cup of coffee, talk about (and add to) the ‘pro’ list. This area of reflection is more likely to help things go differently.

GOING TO INTERVIEWS ‘FOR THE PRACTICE’

You may be planning to apply for a job you don’t really want. You say you’re applying for interview practice, or ‘testing the water’. You could do the job in your sleep, but it would do your ego good to be offered it anyway so you could decline gracefully.

Take some hard advice on this one. Don’t do it. The chances are that you will get a rejection, either because of the randomness of selection, or more probably your evident lack of enthusiasm. What you won’t be prepared for is the impact of being rejected – ‘no’ will be just as off-putting here as a ‘no’ at any stage in the job search process. You’ve applied for a role that repeats past experience or would be a drop in status, and you didn’t even get short listed. What did you expect that to do for your self-confidence? Find opportunities to practise outside the decision-making process.

FEEL IT, SAY IT, SHOW IT – ADVICE FOR INTROVERTS

In an August 2010 survey, the website Gumtree asked employers what qualities they looked for in new staff. Sixty-five per cent rated relevant experience, with higher ratings given to ‘skills and competencies’, but a substantial 91 per cent rated ‘attitude’ as the most important factor.

At the beginning of an interview, introverts often send out weaker signals about being confident and personable, and it takes them longer than extroverts to establish relationships. Introverts tend to be more reflective before speaking, and selectors often say introverts often appear to lack enthusiasm, either about the job or their work history. Some introverts are more reluctant to disclose information, and because they reflect when dealing with detailed questions, they can ‘close down’, which makes them sound detached; the interviewer’s snap reaction is often ‘seems uninterested – not sure if he wants the job’.

Quieter people need to do a lot more in terms of looking and sounding excited about the role. The good news for introverts is that this is about behaviours you can manage and language you can consciously adopt. Practise using phrases that convey energy: ‘I am excited about this ... What really fires me up ... I just love ...’. Learn to sound as if you mean it. Practise your stories not just for plot but for engagement (see also Chapter 13 on getting your story across) – create a picture of a specific occasion when you did something important.

Get someone who knows you well to give you feedback on positive body language so it all fits together. You don’t have to transform yourself into the life and soul of the party, simply show what you are like on a good day.

STEP BACK A LITTLE – ADVICE FOR EXTROVERTS

Extroverts are often more comfortable talking about themselves and naturally open up quickly, tell animated stories and ‘broadcast’ energy, so as a result they often have a headstart at interview. Sometimes this appearance is overwhelming for the quieter interviewer and can easily be misread as over-confidence or someone who is likely to be too loud or too dominant in the workplace.

Introverts are inclined to think and then speak, whereas extroverts often don’t know what they think until they say it out loud, so it pays to be slightly more thoughtful about your answers rather than jumping in with the first thing you think of. Don’t overwhelm the interviewer by being ‘in your face’ – try to be in sync. Gill Best advises ‘match your energy level to the energy in the room’.

PLAYING THE INTERVIEW GAME BY THE PROPER RULES

An interview is not an exam paper with right and wrong answers – an idea we reinforce by talking about ‘homework’ and ‘predicting questions’. Careers expert Claire Coldwell says: ‘An interview is not really a “test” – interviewers are genuinely seeking to have a relaxed and open enough dialogue to get closer to that decision about whether the person sitting in front of them can solve their vacancy problem. So that means engaging with the process, doing proper research and preparation and thinking hard about what the interviewer might need to know. Spending a day interviewing can be hard work, and it’s much easier if someone is engaged in the process!’ Be flexible: attune yourself carefully to the interviewer’s needs in terms of content and communication style.

An interview is in fact a kind of half-understood game, where the winner walks away with the prize, while fellow contestants scratch their heads because they were playing by different rules. This game is also an audition, so it helps to get in role. Some candidates have achieved great results by imagining they are a colleague they admire or a particular film star. If it helps reveal a stronger version of you, it’s an appropriate form of preparation.

When career coaches and recruitment consultants send clients off to job interviews they often know in advance who will get an offer and who won’t. The reason is rarely about experience, skills or knowledge. It’s about the intangibles – the initial impression you make, the way you start talking, your ability to establish relationships and look confident even if your heart is racing.

Having some influence over this ‘chemistry’ means learning to see yourself as others see you. But there’s no point doing this just to beat yourself up, reinforcing the idea ‘I don’t interview well’. Awareness must lead to change – not total transformation or ‘faking it’, but learning to project the best version of you, time after time. Chapter 8 recommends a range of positive outcomes you can achieve from using video, but you can also get good feedback by talking to a friend or colleague who is capable of telling you, objectively, what you do well, and what needs improving. Ask specifically about the energy levels in your answers. Do you sound positive, enthusiastic and motivated by what you are talking about? Conveying energy in the interview room communicates real interest in the job, but also shows you’ll be an enthusiastic member of the team.