Beating Those Interview Nerves

When I was a new trainer, it used to bother me that I would get so sickly anxious before I gave any type of presentation. My knees and voice would shake and my mouth would go dry; I’d even get splotches all over my neck and face. For a while there I took to wearing turtleneck sweaters to cover up. I asked a friend whose presentation style I greatly admired, how he managed to be so smooth. He told me two things that I have always remembered; be prepared and be yourself.

The same advice can be used for preparing for most interviewing questions/scenarios and while they won't totally eliminate all of the jitters, they will go a long way in alleviating the stress.

Prepare: To prepare for any type of interviewing question, you must do some upfront legwork and here’s an easy way. Take a piece of paper and draw two columns. In the first column, write down the job wording and job responsibilities of the open position. In the second column, write out your accomplishments as they relate to these words and phrases.
Look at your resume for guidance (after all, there was something in your resume that interested the hiring manager or HR representative), refer to your prior work experience and also any outside or volunteer work. Also, look up the company website and read the sections entitled Home, About Us and Our Employees. These sections will provide additional information and boost your understanding of the company. Looking at your accomplishments, the company website and any other media articles will help you better understand your strengths, weaknesses, challenges and the corporate/job fit. Understanding these will prepare you to respond to many of the typical and atypical interview questions. This exercise will also make it easier to be yourself and feel comfortable with your responses.

Now for the Questions:

1. What's the biggest challenge you faced and how did you overcome it? Be prepared with a specific example of a work related challenge and be able to take the interviewer through the steps you followed to address it. Be sure that you include the final results and any lessons learned.

2. What's your biggest weakness? Relate this to a job related weaknesses only. After stating the weakness, immediately explain the steps you took to correct it. If, for example your weakness is disorganization, you might say the following, “After attending a time management class I realized that my disorganization stemmed from poor prioritization. I now prioritize my workload every morning and have learned to stay focused on the goals of the task, especially when solving complex problems.”

3. Tell me about yourself. This is a common introductory statement and a good place to insert your elevator speech. A general response might be, “I welcome the opportunity to talk to you today about the Editing Manager position. I have over 10 years of experience writing and editing communications in the global pharmaceutical industry at company name(s) and my work has been featured twice in the New York Medical Journal. I look forward to sharing that with you today.”
Because this is such an open question, many times the interviewee doesn’t know how to respond. Another response with an ending question to the interviewer might be, “I welcome the opportunity to talk to you today about the Editing Manager position. I have over 10 years of experience writing and editing communications in the global pharmaceutical industry at company name(s) and my work has been featured twice in the New York Medical Journal. Is that where you’d like me to begin?”

4. Give me an example of a time or situation where you had to….. If you wrote out your accomplishments as they relate to the open position, you will not be caught off guard with this question. This is a behavioral interview question and will most likely be the “meat and potatoes” part of the interview. For specific information on behavioral interviewing, please refer to STAR interviewing.

My friend told me one more thing about nerves; being nervous show that you care about the outcome of the presentation, interview, etc and is a good thing. He said that when I stopped being nervous about any presentations, that was the time to worry. I agree and still get butterflies and rocks in my stomach before any new presentation.