Insights

to Supercharge your career

Give yourself the edge

Make sure you stand out from the crowd and tip the odds in your favour

If 50 people apply for your dream job, how will you stand out from the crowd? What can you do well before the interview to make a good impression?

The good news is, there are a few things you can do.

Make contact with the recruiter, meet them if you can. Find out what is important to them, what their values are and what keeps them awake a night. If you know someone else working there, quiz them too. If you can arrange a site visit, that is a great investment of time.

Use these opportunities to influence and inspire. View them as the interview before the interview and make a great impression. If you manage to meet face to face, treat it with respect and think about what you’ll wear and ensure you are punctual.

I don’t want an interview!!

Getting invited for an interview…delight to dread!!

It’s great news that you’ve made it through the application process and have bagged an interview…but knowing you will soon be grilled in front of an interview panel doesn’t feel like great news!

People often say to me that they hate interviews and just ‘freeze’. They dread the moment and are a bag of nerves. That’s because their body (subconsciously) views the interview as a threat, responding with the fight, flight or freeze reflex. That’s a useful response when faced with real danger, but not right here right now!

The issue is fighting is not an option and won’t look good on your CV! And unless there is a bear coming at you, flight isn’t a useful or necessary option either. Your body is left with the ‘freeze’ response. It’s an autonomic response triggered by the sympathetic nervous system and comes from a survival instinct. This means the body reacts to a perceived threat with a host of physiological changes in a survival mode approach. Not all that useful in an interview scenario when you want to feel calm and in control.

It comes down to our perspective and mindset. And here’s the issue. We see the moment as a threatening one and therefore our approach is to simply survive. We can’t help it, but it really doesn’t help us to manage the moment, stay in control and perform at our peak.

So how do you deal with this?

Here are 3 Ps that will help…

Preparation.

You need to prepare well for an interview, which means starting before you know you have an interview in anticipation of it. There will be a few ‘core questions’ that will appear in each interview, so prepare answers to these questions. Prepare specific examples so that you have something ready to give and don’t to delve too deeply into your memory in the moment. I remember an interview I went to where I was asked about learning from something that went wrong. This is a great question looking at learning, reflection, emotional intelligence and humility. I didn’t prepare for this question and ended up giving an average answer. As usual, driving home a great answer came to mind which is now the example that I use for such a question. Fortunately I got the job, but in a game of fine margins, that could have cost me!

Also prepare questions to ask the panel. Even if you’ve met them or the appointing officer and already found out a lot, still prepare 2 or 3 questions to ask. It’s shows interest and the questions people ask show a lot about them. Write 2 or 3 down ready for when they ask.

Practice

Don’t underestimate the power of practice. I’ve read books in the past that go as far as saying there is no such thing as talent, but it all comes down to practice – make your own mind up on that one! Practice answering questions with someone. If they know the subject matter, that’s great, but if they don’t you can prepare a few general topics/questions for them to quiz you on. The very act of answering questions aloud builds confidence and builds ‘memory’ that you can call upon in the moment. When you’re asked a similar question at interview, your brain recalls how you’d answered that in practice and you’re already on your way to giving a developed answer. Practice the content and also practice how you will deliver the content, the technical part. You don’t want to take 10 minutes on one question but you do want to articulate the key answers to the question and showcase what you can bring.

Plan

Plan for the big day before the night before! Barack Obama was known for his wardrobe of dark suits and light-coloured shirts, helping reduce the number of daily decisions he had to make. Plan ahead what you will wear and what you need to take. Leaving this to the night before or the morning of the interview adds further cognitive demand. What if you can’t find a shirt or have lost your ID? It’s added stress that you don’t need!

Work out the route and the time you need to leave. Plan where you will need to park and if you’ll need to pay. Eliminate unknowns so that you are calm and in control on the day. This all comes from planning well.

Preparing, practicing and planning will help you focus, be in control and enter the interview confident and ready. This reduces the ‘threat’ element and moves you away from freezing and helps you to improve your performance.

Edison never failed

Viewing 'failure' as feedback is a vital shift in mindset

Thomas Edison was an American innovator, inventing many things including the light bulb, the phonograph and the camera. A vital factor in his success was how overcame things going wrong. Edison once said “I have not failed 10,000 times – I have successfully found 10,00 ways that will not work”.

‘Failure’ is feedback and plays a significant role in helping us continually improve and grow. Let ‘failure’ shape and mould you, we learn the best lessons from when things don’t go to plan.

Write it down

Supercharge your goals by writing them down.

To really supercharge your career and give yourself the best chance of progressing and developing, you will need to identify some goals. These need to be realistic but create a stretch. Too tricky will demotivate you and too easy won’t stretch you.

Successful people write their goals down. There has been lots of studies on this, with some stating that people with written goals are over 40% more likely to achieve them, compared to those that don’t. There are other benefits too:

Every mile brings you closer...

What does success look like?

When you apply for a job and are called for interview, what does success look like? At this point, you have experienced an element of success by simply being invited for an interview…so far so good. But what about the interview itself – what does success look like?

This might sound like a silly question. You make the effort to complete an application, you carefully consider how you demonstrate that you meet the essential criteria and you spend hours swatting up ready for the grilling. But is getting the job the only measure of success? In other words, if you weren’t successful, is that a failure?

I think it is really important how we frame interviews and their outcomes. I have supported lots of people who have applied for multiple jobs over a significant period of time and either not been called for interview or the interview didn’t go well. Others have gone for interview and been ‘pipped at the post’ by an individual ‘stepping down’ from a higher banded role. In these examples, it would be too narrow thinking to consider the only worthy success as being offered the job.

I read a great quote recently posted by ‘The Running Week’ on Facebook that said this:

“Not every run will be your best, but every run makes you better…even the hardest runs serve a purpose…But every mile…brings you one step closer to your goals”

This is it! You want the new job and the promotion but success is bigger than that. Success is feeling as confident as ever, as you enter the room. Success is knowing that you have prepared thoroughly and left nothing to chance. Success is walking out of the room knowing that you gave it everything and managed what was in your control. Success is progress, when compared to the time before. Reframe your thinking!

Being offered the job is the ultimate success but don’t overlook the other successes on your way. Each interview brings you one step closer to your dream job.

Victory in vulnerability

Do you have any faults, any areas to improve and any gaps to address?!

If you have answered ‘no’ to that question, you are either lying or have never asked the right people the right questions! All of us have areas to improve, but very often we haven’t taken time to consider them or asked those that know us best for feedback. Asking for feedback makes us feel very vulnerable but is the gateway to rich information that we can use to set us on our way to victory. Find some trusted, honest people and ask them: