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.

Interviewing Question: Why You?

Interviewers ask all types of questions; some that make sense and others that may leave you scratching your head. In the past we’ve talked about some of the more common ones such as “Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses” or “Tell me about yourself”. I wrote about some of the ways that you can respond to these questions here.

Another question that you may be asked is “Why are you the right person for this job?” or “Why should I select you?” With this question, the interviewer wants to know if you are the right fit for the position and the organization and it is the time to sell yourself. Preparing for this question by reviewing the job posting and researching the company website and other publications will allow you to understand the company’s needs and direction. Make sure that you click the tabs in the website that will allow you to read about the company mission, history and philosophy about employee growth. In addition, during the interview you will learn more about the organization’s specific needs and the job requirements. Your goal in answering this question is to align your past accomplishments with their key needs and general values.

Your Questions During an Interview

Last night a friend asked me if I could suggest some dynamic questions that she might comfortably ask a Vice President on her second job interview. She did the leg work and studied up on the company and had some questions of her own but just wanted to bounce some ideas off of me.

As we got to talking, we went over the three major areas that a company wants to learn about you. If there is a good match, you are that much closer to getting the job!

1.   Can you do the job?

2.   Do you fit into the company culture?

3.   Do you want this job?

Can you do this job?

This is the regular interviewing discussion about your skill sets and measurable accomplishments.  We’ve talked about these before; you’ll need to review the key words in the job description and tie them to your accomplishments. Be prepared with specific examples of your past behaviors and accomplishments.

Can you fit into the company culture?

Your knowledge of the company, major competitors, recent news articles, key executives and company values will show that you have done your homework and have an understanding of the company. Your responses and questions will help solidify your fit into the organization. 

Do you want this job?

This is obvious but your punctuality, attire, preparation, motivation and body language along with your knowledge of the company and your responses to the interviewer’s questions will convey your desire to do the job. These, along with your specific questions for them can help translate your enthusiasm and eagerness to work for this organization.  

Don’t save your questions for the end of the interview.  An interview is a two-way conversation and your questions may naturally come up in the interview.  Here is a sample list of questions that I gave to my friend.  Like her, you may want to tailor them to your needs.  You can change them to suit the level of the person with whom you are interviewing.  For example:

1.    What are the short and long term goals of this department?

2.    What are the short and long term goals of the organization?

These questions along with more detail on interviewing techniques can be found in my book, Job Search for Moms.

a. What are the short and long term goals of the company?
b. What is the vision of the department?
c. What is the company environment like?
d. What concerns need to be addressed immediately?
e. What do you see happening with this position for the next 3 to 6 months?
f. What are the particular attributes needed to succeed in this job?
g. What are the challenges a person coming to this job will face?

What's the Purpose Behind Weird Interview Questions?

I don't know what else to call them - weird, odd, strange, distorted interview questions.  What I also don't know is why interviewers even need to ask them. I understand that there are certain interviewing techniques and I research, teach and write about them all of the time. It's those weird questions that I just don't get.  What does, "How many pages does a newspaper have?" got to do with an open position unless you are applying for a job with the newspaper? How about, "What kind of car or bird or animal are you?" or "When you pay the toll on the parkway, what lane do you immediately head towards?" (I kind of get this one.)

I personally see no purpose for these questioning techniques especially for the average open positions. Questions should be focused on the position and the skills required for getting the job done.  There should be a dialog to see if the applicant can do the job, fit into the organization and if he or she wants the job. An interviewee usually prepares for the interview by:
a. Researching the company and matching his or her skills and experience to the needs of the organization.
b. Preparing a list of questions to ask the interviewer based again upon the needs of the organization or for general information.
c. Generating strengths, weaknesses and even the "Tell me about yourself " responses.

If an interviewer is trying to throw someone off their game, I can see how a question such as "How many pages in a newspaper" could do it.  If you are a recruiter or hiring manager, what’s the reasoning behind these types of questions?   If we weren't in the economic or unemployment straits we are in it would be comical for the interviewee to take a pass on this job and move on to the next more professional interview. 

What types of weird questions have been asked? Why do you think you were asked these questions?

Preparing for the Behavioral Interview

They are called SAR, TAR, STAR and other names but they all mean the same thing. The acronyms stand for a type of behavior interviewing. What is behavioral interviewing? It is a questioning technique used to learn how you will perform on the job based upon your past experience.

SAR stands for Situation, Actions, and Results. TAR means Task, Actions, Results and STAR is Specific Situation or Task, Actions and Results.

To prepare for behavioral interview questions it helps to:

1. Review the position description and highlight the required skills and competencies.

2. Create a four column chart with the following information. Column one should list the skills and competencies required of the open position (easiest part). In column two, write down a Task or Situation that you had either on the job or with an outside activity that specifically relates to these requirements. For example, if the job description states, “Work with outside venues to plan conferences and events”, write down the tasks that you completed that relate to this description. You could write, “Pharmaceutical Sales Meeting in Florida at the Miami Convention Center in 2009.” Write an example or two for each of the required skills or competencies listed.

Column three should be labeled Actions. In this area, write down everything you did to support the task mentioned in the previous column. Using the same example as before, your Actions list can contain information such as working with the Convention Center to secure conference rooms and equipment, making hotel and meal arrangements for 300 pharmaceutical sales representatives, ensuring the materials arrive at least four days prior to the event, arranging for transportation, etc. Your final column should contain measurable accomplishments or Results. As a result of all of your hard work, what happened? Again, using the same example, you would state that 95% of the event participants listed attention to detail as “Excellent” on the evaluation sheet.

This form can serve as a Cheat Sheet for preparing for your interview and you should review and revise it as necessary. What is important about this sheet is that it states the actions and results of your activities. It doesn’t (and should never) answer how you would do something. Rather it answers what you actually did.

The next time we meet, I will share some behavioral interviewing questions that may be asked on an interview. If you complete this worksheet, you will be better able to answer those inevitable questions with certainty and confidence.

Those Common Interviewing Questions and How To Respond

After many years in HR I found that most managers don’t like to interview. We scheduled classes and those who bothered to show up didn’t jump in and want to participate. They were there to hear about the law and make sure they weren’t asking anything that could get them or the company into trouble. I personally think that since many managers are promoted based upon their subject matter expertise, the majority just don’t like to do it.
No matter how hard we stress behavioral interviewing; those questions that focus on how an applicant actually did something, most interviewing managers will return to the more familiar questions such as:
1. Tell me about yourself.
2. What are your strengths?
3. What are your weaknesses?
4. Why do you want to work here?

Why these questions? Because they are familiar, comfortable and don’t take a lot of effort. How can you use them to your benefit?

Tell me about yourself is a general introductory statement and a good place to insert your elevator speech. Depending on a number of reasons including your age, or if you just graduated your responses will vary. An example can be, “I am thrilled to be with you today to talk 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.”
Make sure to include how your experience relates to the opening wording in the job description.
Tip – Align your wording to their business needs.

What are your strengths? Relate your strengths to the open position. If the first few descriptors in the job posting state¸ “Respond to requests for information and communicate with other departments with minimal supervision” and “Work independently with minimal supervision", how would you respond? You could explain your ability to proactively respond to requests for information from department members and customers without any disruption in the workflow. Another response that relates to the position is to mention how you have been recognized by your manager for your ability to work under pressure and without direct supervision.
NOTE: Only state the truth. Review the job description and create real examples of how your accomplishments align to these.

What are your weaknesses? 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.”

Why do you want to work here? If you thoroughly do your homework about a company and learn about their products, services, customer base and work environment, you are prepared to answer this question. (Your LinkedIn research can help you here.) Be prepared to talk about one or two of those items found in your research. Is it their renowned customer service, the way they give back to the community, their cutting edge research and development? You might want to state something you recently read in a news article to support this.

Additional interviewing information can found in Job Search for Moms. I look forward to hearing from you. What types of questions have you come across?