Checklist: prepare for a winning interview

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

— Benjamin Franklin

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

After sending out more resumes than you ever expected, you finally receive that much-anticipated call to an interview. Though this an exciting moment, job searchers often tell me that they worry about being unprepared for this critical step in the job search process.

To help allay your anxiety, we have gathered some tips to help prepare for this important moment:

1. Location – figure out the exact address of the interview and make sure you know how to get there.  It would be best to try and visit the interview location in advance, so you know how to get there and locate the parking or the closest public transit stop.  Otherwise, call and ask the Receptionist for the exact address and directions.

2. Clothes – dress to impress.  Don’t assume the dress is the same across all industries. Your clothes should convey the message that you are a good match to the company. Ideally, visit the office before the interview to check out the dress code. You can also call and ask – explain that you are attending an interview and wanted to know the dress code at the company. Once you have figured out the dress code, take it up a notch and dress a bit better than everyone else, if you can. When staff members see you waiting at the Reception, they should be able to tell that you are there for the interview.

3. Answers – prepare your answers to the interviewer’s questions; be ready to talk about yourself, prepare examples about your work and skills, be ready to discuss difficulties in your work history (such as a bad ending to a job), as well as your weaknesses and strengths. Know how to deal with questions about your salary expectations. Practice answering questions with a friend or job search professional (such as those at our Employment Source Centres).

4. Questions – prepare questions that you will ask an interviewer. Choose questions that present you as someone who is genuinely interested in the job and the employer. For tips on asking questions, check out this article from Monster.ca’s Career Advice site.

5. Portfolio – have a professional binder that showcases your professional background, including examples and evidence of your work, skills, education and accomplishments. For good advice on preparing an effective portfolio, check out the post on Job Hunting Portfolios on our blog.

6. References – bring a list of three references which you can share with employers, if they request it. Also on our blog, you will find excellent tips for Collecting and Presenting References, presented by our Employment Specialist, Joanna.

7. Company research – prepare your research on the company, gathering information about its history, mission and work. You will find information on the Internet, including the company website and newspaper articles, as well as the company’s LinkedIn page (which is my favourite source of company information). Print out the “about us” section of the company website and bring it.

8. Find the original job posting, as well as the resume and cover letter you sent for this position. Read them through with care and make sure to bring them to the interview. I recommend bringing at least 3 copies of your cover letter and resume, to hand out to interviewer(s), if needed.

Organise all the papers neatly in a professional folder, together with a pen, pencil (in case the pen fails) and note paper (if necessary, you can take brief notes during the interview).

Remember to switch off your cell phone before the interview. Take a big breath, put on your best smile and be ready for success!

Ask the Employment Specialist: Answering difficult interview questions — discussing weaknesses

Dear Joanna,

I am an inventory manager with over 10 years experience in purchasing and inventory management in a manufacturing company.

I am happy to report that I am getting lots of interviews for relevant positions, but have always been stumped on the question from the hiring Human Resources staff which requires me to identify and present my weakness. Sometimes I’m asked for a couple of examples even!  It can be asked in numerous ways, but the most popular question I have experienced is “What is your biggest weakness?” or “What would you like to improve about yourself”? But, Joanna – I HAVE NO WEAKNESSES!!! How can I respond to this crazy question so that I won’t look bad in the eyes of the interviewer. I know that I must have an answer ready to go.

Please could you give me suggestions as to how to respond to this question in a professional, yet honest fashion. Thanks so much.

Signed by: Worried about my Weakness (WAW)

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Dear WAW,

Great question. I get asked this all the time from our job seekers at JVS Toronto.

According to Cynthia Shapiro in her fantastic book, What Does Somebody Have to Do to Get a Job Around Here?: 44 Insider Secrets That Will Get You Hired (2008), “interviewers will trick you into sharing information that is not in your best interest”. Gone are the days of the straight-forward interview that allow you to talk about your skills and qualifications, she continues. Shapiro clarifies that for a higher paying position, the interviewer might even ask for your three biggest weaknesses. For your question, I will stick with one weakness question and response which Shapiro defines as a “classic trick question”.

The best approach is to share an issue which you have become aware of, one that you’re already began improving. Share how you did it. Your response should show the interviewer that you are willing to accept feedback and criticism, as well as always looking to learn from it. You want to indicate that you are committed to improving your workplace skills. Focus on a skill you have successfully improved; share an example with a happy ending, Shapiro recommends.

Fellow blogger and Employment Counsellor, Karin Lewis and I recommend the following 3-step structure to creating and presenting a response to this question:

Part 1 – identify a specific experience in your past work history and a skill with which you needed help

Example: I’m always looking to improve, learn and grow. About 6 years ago, when I first started working as a job developer at JVS Toronto with people with disabilities, my manager told me that I needed help with organizing my time, to find a balance between my job coaching and job development duties, as well as all the administration work I needed to do. I appreciated my manager telling me about this. Her feedback really helped me.

Part 2 – Explain a concrete solution, strategy or technique which helped you overcome this weakness (i.e. organizational skills or time management – you could use both)

Example: So, after brainstorming solutions with my manager, she recommended that I learn how to use Microsoft Outlook, which is an effective system to organize my time. I learned to input all my activities with the clients. It has been a very useful tool, which has helped me work so much more efficiently.

Part 3 – Describe the impact of the solution (to show a positive ending to the story)

Example:  Now in my work and in any of my future work situations, I know that I can always be organized, and stay on top of my work so that the clients don’t fall between the cracks. I have a lot less stress balancing the different parts of my job.

So, WAW, I strongly advise you to prepare and practice your answers to this and all the other typical general, situational and behavioural questions which interviewers might throw at you in the interview. To practice, ask your employment counsellor for a mock interview.

Good luck with one of the most challenging interview questions in the world!

Best regards,

Joanna

Ask the Employment Specialist: Explaining bad job endings to interviewers

We are excited to introduce a brand new feature: Joanna Samuels, our highly experienced Workforce Specialist Team Lead will be collecting questions from job searchers and putting them to our Employment Specialists to give you the best answers possible. Here’s our first installation in Ask an Employment Specialist. We hope you find it useful and would LOVE your feedback and questions (if you would like to ask a question, you will find our contact email at the end of this post).

Dear Employment Specialist,

I was recently fired from my job as a customer service representative/receptionist at a large wholesale supplier company.

I’m still in shock but have to jump back on the horse and overcome my fears of working in another job in my field which I love. So, I’m busy applying for work and started to have both telephone and face-to-face interviews (at least the resume is working!).

When the interviewer inquires about the reason I’m no longer at my last job, I am stumped with a suitable response which will not be used against me and exclude me from being hired! Please could you give me some suggestions.

Signed,
Furiously Fired and Fearful

Dear FFF,

This is an excellent question, which I am often asked.  Coaching job seekers on how answer difficult questions, so to help them eventually get that job offer, is part of what employment specialists do.

From experience, I have found that when answering such a challenging question, honesty is the best policy. You have to figure out an answer which you can share comfortably, and make sure you sound articulate and stay calm, confident and clear. As the old saying goes “it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it“.

We always recommend that interviewees put themselves in the interviewer’s shoes, and read between the lines of the interview questions. When an employer asks “Why did you leave your last job?”, they are probably really thinking: “Are you going to bring me headaches? Do you have trouble getting along with people? Were you fired or did you quit? Did you have difficulties in your last position which may affect your ability to do the job here?”

Considering these concerns of employers, here are some suggested scripts to respond to such questions about your past job:

One helpful suggestion came from Jeannette Mazzocato, one of our experienced JVS Employment Counsellors, who recommended this script: 

“I was at my last job for a long time. I loved the work and the team. However I had a situation and  I recognize that I did some mistakes. I took this as an invaluable opportunity to learn and grow. I acknowledge that I was wrong. The company is a great company and they do great work. I would like to move forward and find work in my field which uses my experience, skills, passions and education, and find a company where I can make a contribution, grow and continue to learn”.

I also consulted with Steffen Allen, a Senior Recruiter at Zylog Systems (Canada) Ltd., a leading IT and Engineering consulting and staffing firm. Steffen is a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in corporate recruitment and consulting for Fortune 500 companies around the world.

Steffen suggests that it is important to keep positive, to “turn a negative into a positive”, and recommends the following possible scripts:

“My job description changed. I was put into a new role which I could not do. I didn’t have the skills or experience to perform the new position. The learning curve was too steep for me. So, both  I and the company parted ways on good terms. I took this as an opportunity to understand what skills I need to learn and have enrolled in a course to gain those skills for future opportunities.”

“The company was bought out and was going in another direction. There was a new management which took over. They had different goals than mine. So we parted ways on good terms.”

“The company’s goals changed and were not aligned with my goals. I parted ways on good terms with the management.”

The bottom line: if you are confronted in an interview with a difficult question about a past job, the best thing you can do is be prepared with an honest and responsible answer. Find a way to describe what happened that does not say anything negative about the former employer, and focuses instead on moving forward.

Good luck with your job search, FFF. I am sure that with some careful preparation, you will succeed in getting back onto the job market soon!

Regards,
Joanna

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References:

Fatt, J. (1999). It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it – Nonverbal communication. Communication World, June-July, 1999

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What do YOU think? We would love to hear your suggestions about how to handle such a question

Please comment below, or on our Facebook Page  .

If you have a question for our Employment Specialists, email us; your question may be the next one we answer!

Sound and feel confident at a Job Interview, Part TWO: tell a few good stories

Facing an employer in a job interview is often described as the most stressful and intense moment in the process of finding work. When asked what they fear most about interviews, job searchers often tell me that they worry that they may get so overwhelmed by anxiety that they might forget what they wanted to tell interviewers, or that they may not be able to answer a question properly.

Of course, the only way to deal with this anxiety is by preparing; you may want to work on some of the commonly asked questions. In addition to preparing answers to questions, you should be ready to talk about yourself by sharing examples of your achievements from your past. These will serve to demonstrate your skills and abilities and make you a lot more believable. It will help the employer to picture you in the workplace. When an interview has concluded, it is likely that candidates will most be remembered by the interesting stories or anecdotes they shared.

To identify your best stories, think back to your past jobs. Think of accomplishments or events which challenged you or which gave you an opportunity to demonstrate your skills. Consider including the feedback you received for these achievements. Keep in mind that stories do not have portray you as perfect – situations are more likely to be believable and credible if they include times when you made mistakes and learned from them.

Your stories might include a time when you:

• lead a project, from beginning to completion
• identified a problem/gap in service and took initiative to solve a problem
• were given responsibility to represent your company in a public event
• dealt with an unhappy/difficult customer
• assisted a colleague with a problem they were facing
• developed and applied some expertise in a particular area
• went above and beyond the usual demands of your job to contribute to the company
• did something really well

Keep in mind that to sustain the listener’s attention and be memorable, you need to plan your stories carefully. Make sure that examples are clearly structured with a beginning, middle and end:

1. Begin with a brief context or setup – where and when did the incident/event happen?
2. Describe what happened and why was it important – what was YOUR role/action?
3. End off with a description of how the issue was resolved (what was the outcome?)

The stories have to be short, but must include enough detail to enable the employer to visualize and get a feel for the situation. Most importantly, make sure they are directly relevant to the position for which you are interviewing.

Type your stories up and practice saying them out loud. Ask an employment professional or even a friend for feedback; let their impressions and questions guide you to improve the length, clarity, details and relevance of the story.

Once the stories are complete, try figure out which skills each demonstrates. Each example may demonstrate a number of skills such as your ability to make decisions, work in a team, solve problems, take initiative, be responsible or flexible, and many other skills. Identify those which you would like to “show off” to employers. A good anecdote can often demonstrate multiple skills or strengths, and can be told differently depending on what you are trying to demonstrate. If you are able to talk in a relaxed, fluid and comfortable way, storytelling can become a very effective tool to market yourself. You will be demonstrating your communication skills, as well as having an opportunity to show some of the best of what you have achieved in your work history.

Read this guide http://joblounge.blogspot.com/2011/08/past-successes-path-to-future-success.html for more ways to develop your storytelling abilities. Make sure to watch the excellent video included in the post for more reasons and ways for effective story telling in interviews: