June 28, 2021
We’ve all been there. The soothing sounds of morning as you snooze peacefully in your bed. You roll over, lazily open your eyes, glance at the clock which reads 9:55 and— you’ve overslept for the most important interview of your professional life in five minutes! You rush out of bed, run a brush through your hair, hop around looking for both shoes, give up on breakfast and brushing your teeth and you’re out the door, in the car, onto the road and into—traffic. The clock ticks on. The interview start time passes. You let your head hang low on the steering wheel, feeling like you’ve blown it.
Or, you’re at the interview. You’ve just been welcomed in and sit down at the table. The interviewing team sits opposite, an intimidating bunch in suits and ties and solemn faces. You try for an opening joke. You nervously say that you’re excited to be here and work on “stuff,” and for the life of you, you cannot remember what you got your degree in, what your last job was, or, when the interviewer asks, what your last name is. Sweat pours down your face when they ask the dreaded question: “So, what’s your biggest weakness?” You wish you had stayed in bed.
Sound familiar? Friends, we’ve all been there. From a person who’s been on both sides of the table, I’m telling you, I get it, and I’m here to share how we can all get a little better at it. More embarrassing stories to come, as well as tips and tricks to be amazing at that big interview.
Because we’re talking interview strategies today, I’ve got an interview horror story of my own to get off my chest. I’d say my interview horror story—and this is me being interviewed, not giving the interview, though certainly I’ve seen my share of nervous wrecks—was in high school, and I was interviewing for my first-ever job, working at a local amusement park as a cashier.
I came in, they asked me what my biggest weakness was—don’t you just hate that question? —and I just…blanked. Like, white-walls, can’t-recall-what-year-it-is, did-I-turn-the-oven-off, kinda blank mind. I don’t think I could have recalled what two plus two equalled at that painful moment in time. Then, after an appropriately awkward period of time had elapsed, they rustled the papers in front of them, and that seemed to flip a switch inside me that blurted out, “Lifting weights!” I’m not sure what subconscious comedian in my brain thought, “I’ll come to work today, and yeah, let’s tell a ‘weakness weight-lifting joke!’” but there you have it.
I came across as a not-very-funny, kind-of-slow-on-the-uptake, do-we-really-want-her-handling-our-money kind of person. I managed to get the job, but I got the sense that I was a warm body to train, and definitely wasn’t getting hired to do stand-up comedy.
We’ve all heard the interview stories about asking about an interviewer’s due date for their baby when they are NOT pregnant—or putting that you can speak Spanish on your resume when you’d only taken half a semester of Beginning Spanish and the interviewer starts speaking rapidly in Spanish at you—and you have to respond with only “Si, si!” –Or having your interviewer fall asleep on you in the middle of an answer because you went on so long…each more horrific than the last.
But upon reflection—in the interviews and interviewing I’ve done, what has stood out as the most impressive thing a person can do, to really make themselves stand out in an important interview?
That’s the question, isn’t it? I mean, that’s the question that we stick into the Google search bar an hour before the interview—we’ve all done it, so much that it auto-fills in—and look for quick, easy answers. Do this and you will get the job. But I’ve found that while there isn’t one easy answer, there are a few strategies you can employ to paint yourself a picture of interviewing success.
And yes, we’re talking about more than being honest (here’s looking at you, inflated language or tech skills on our resumes), or displaying emotional intelligence and tact. Here are our top five interview strategies, culled from the combined years of experience being interviewed and doing the interviewing from our BYU College of Humanities Experiential Learning Team. Here they are, developing professional friends. Pencils, or at least listening ears, at the ready.
First one is simple, friends: you’ve got to know yourself before you go introducing yourself to others. Seriously, let’s just think. How would you feel if you were at a party, someone comes up to you with a total stranger in tow, and then asks you to introduce said total stranger to everyone at the party—their name, their interests, what makes them happy, where they hope to be in five years’ time. It’d be impossible to do well, right? Inevitably, you would end up introducing them incorrectly, people wouldn’t get to know the real Jimmy or Sally or whomever the stranger really was, and no real connection could be made because no real information was shared.
But we do this to ourselves in an interview when we walk in without doing personal preparation. And I’m not just talking about ironing your slacks and brushing your teeth. No, I’m talking about brainstorming with yourself what makes you happy, what makes you interested, where you hope to be in five years’ time. So, to quote the immortal Shia Labouf, “Just do it.” Sit down and spend five minutes—or even five hours—asking yourself these professional getting-to-know-you-questions. Have a sense of who you really are and what you really want, so that you can introduce yourself to others with confidence and with clarity. First step, fellow developing professionals. Know thyself, and everything else will follow.
Such as top five behavior number two: do your homework before the workplace equivalent of new student orientation. Don’t just go wandering into the interview with one of the top marketing firms in the city without knowing what has made them one of the top firms, who their competition is, what work they’ve recently done, and on and on.
After landing the interview date and time, don’t turn off your search engines. Fire up Google. Scroll through the company’s landing page, their staff bios and their most recent successes. And take notes. This doesn’t have to be anything exhaustive but jotting down things that impress you on a Post-It note or two is a great way to help make sure the information sticks with you.
Pro tip: don’t just note what impresses you—write down what puzzles you, too. What are questions that arise as you look through their materials? Where are places that you can see yourself adding to their work, and how? Jot down possibilities, write down your inquisitive thoughts. Taking a notebook with notes and prepared questions will demonstrate to your hopeful employers that you are serious about this interview, and serious about them.
Top five behavior number three, and here we’re pivoting into the actual interview, friends: in the interview itself, show and tell. Don’t just say, “I’m a really hard worker.” Everyone does this. If your interviewer had a dollar for every time they heard this, they could retire and move to the Cayman Islands, far away from people who claim they’re “hard-working go-getters” and never back it up. Instead, go beyond. Show that you are by narrating your resume lines. For example, if your resume line reads, “Worked well with others in a team setting…” and your interviewer asks, “We see lots of team players. Why should we hire you?”
Don’t sweat it. Answer with a story rather than a LinkedIn buzzword line. You can say something like, “I’ve actually worked in a challenging team setting in the past. We found ourselves facing this kind of challenge, and through effective communication skills and establishing clear expectations and shared purpose with my team members, I was able to lead my team to this solution. As a result of this experience, I can offer this skill that is unique and goes beyond only saying I’m a hard worker.”
Don’t know how to translate your resume lines into experience-centered narratives? Use the Experiential Learning Cycle as your story structure. What did you intend at the beginning of the experience? After going through the experience, including its associated challenges, what did you learn through meaningful reflection about your behaviors, yourself as a professional, and your team or organization? And then, how can you integrate what you learned in the past with who you now are in the present, so that you can access professional opportunities in the future?
So remember, top five tip number three: show and tell. Begin with saying, “I’m a hard worker,” yes, but then continue to sell it—and you—by saying, “and I actually have a story that shows that.” You’ll give more in the interview than other candidates, and, as a result, you’ll get more back.
Top five tip number four: do the Two-Step Tango. What’s the most dreaded question in the interview process? Probably, “What’s your biggest weakness?” closely followed by, “Do you have any questions for us?” (which is usually closely followed by crickets and the sound of your demonstrated curiosity slowly dying). With this Two-Step Tango, you can tackle both questions with finesse and take control of what’s behind the questions. These types of questions are meant to evaluate your ability to self-assess and to take initiative. So, you can take control by asking the self-assessment questions on your own!
The order’s important: towards the close of the interview, or when you’re directly asked, “Do you have any questions for us?” you can ask first, “Yes, what, to you, is the weakest part of my application?” This gives them the opportunity to show their cards, and you the chance to speak to their lingering questions about you. Perhaps there is a gap in your resume that they find concerning, or something in one of your answers that still gives them pause. You have the chance to then say, “Oh, I’m actually glad you brought this up. You see, I…” and then you can speak to their concerns! You can be your own best advocate in the fourth quarter of the game!
And then—this is the most important step in the Two-Step Tango we play at the close of interviews: you can then ask—because it is still your time to ask questions and demonstrate initiative—you can ask, “What, to you, is the strongest part of my application or interview today?” It is crucial that this be one of the last things discussed in the interview, after your question-and-answer about weaknesses.
You want to leave them with the opportunity to put into words what they like about you, what they find memorable, what they were impressed with. They’ll remember you as they last talked about you—in a positive light, in light of your strengths. Do this, and you’re upping your chances of being remembered, and being remembered well.
Top five tip number five—the final one: keep the interview in perspective. Yes, it is important that they like you and see you as a good fit—but you’ve got to like them and see them as a good fit, too. Remember, this is a two-way street. We sometimes forget that just as much as they are looking for someone with particular qualifications and characteristics to enrich their professional life, you are doing the same. You are interviewing the interviewers just as much as they are interviewing you, and if you don’t feel like that’s what’s going on in your interviews, take a step back and reevaluate who you are and what you want from your professional life.
Keeping the interview in perspective—that you are both there, interviewer and interviewee, to find out if you are good fits for each other—can help take away whatever stress you may have about the interview itself and whether or not they’ll like you. Know yourself, show and tell your professional relevance. Do your research so that you’ll know whether this place is a good fit for you, if this is what will help you just as much as you will help them if hired. Ask questions that allow you to address the problematic and emphasize your professional strengths. Look for a good fit for you, and you’ll find things line up.
See each interview as a chance to get a little better at being your own best advocate. You’ll find you’ll be better at answering tough questions, better at talking about yourself in assertive statements, better at knowing where you’d best fit—and better at landing that dream position after an amazing interview.