The Best Interview Advice I Wish I Could Give to Those I Interview
The best way for employers to predict success of a candidate in a future role is to find concrete evidence of past success. In the confines of an interview, the most common method to uncover this evidence is to ask behavioral interview questions. They almost always start with the phrase “tell me about a time when...” The interviewer is inviting you share a specific anecdote from your recent work history that illustrates how you exhibit whatever trait they are looking for.
One of the most valuable nuggets of interviewing advice I ever received helped to answer these questions. As the interviewee, it's impossible to predict the questions you may be asked and trying to come up with the perfect work story on the spot that both answers the question and highlights your capabilities is incredibly difficult. Instead, pick your experiences ahead of time.
Your Top 5 Stories
Pick the four or five projects and experiences that
Highlight the achievements you want to share with the potential employer
Are most relevant to the position you are interviewing for
It's critical that your stories meet both these criteria. It may surprise you how little room you have in an interview to share what qualifies you for the role. You may get asked that question exactly, but in many cases it won’t come up directly. By choosing stories that show off precisely what your secret sauce is, you will guarantee that your most impressive and flattering experiences are shared before the end of the meeting.
You may also have a work project where you were the white collar equivalent of the hulk in an avengers movie (the early ones, not the last few) and you smashed it! But if it doesn't have obvious relevance to the position, the impact will be lost on your interviewer and they'll be left wondering why you didn't answer their question. Your story must illustrate how you meet their wish list of a perfect candidate.
Categorize Them
Once you've picked your stories it's helpful to plan which you will use for the questions you expect to receive. It's impossible to predict precisely what you'll be asked but by looking at the job description you should be able to anticipate the qualities and skills your new company cares about. List out the questions you would ask if you were hiring for the role and then match up the anecdote that best answers that question.
This practice is useful for two reasons. First, it takes the guesswork out of your interview responses and you'll respond confidently--a trait that is always a plus in an interview. Second, it will reveal if you are relying too heavily on a single example from your work history. If all your answers to your anticipated questions refer to a single anecdote, it's time to pick a new one to share. If you can only reference a single project or problem in an interview, you'll be sending the message that you've only ever accomplished that one thing. The more variety and diversity you can demonstrate to your potential employer, the better.
The More Recent the Better
I’m often surprised when candidates with years of experience share something relating to a project they did while in their university career. That immediately raises a red flag to me that says, you have no more recent experience in this area. If a past experience is particularly applicable to the situation, it may be appropriate to share, but I would recommend supplementing it with additional instances of similar experience in your recent work history. Your employer wants to know that you have been doing relevant work in recent history so they’ll rest at ease knowing you’ll do a great job when you start working for them.
Problem, Action, Results
The second piece of advice I received and actually found useful was a framework for answering the behavioral interview questions. Under the stress of an interview it's easy to ramble on about something that was intended to give a clear direct answer to a question and only serves to meander into the realm of ambiguity and fluff that will leave the interviewer wondering what you were trying, poorly, to say.
This framework is the acronym PAR which stands for Problem, Action, and Results. Every answer you give to a behavioral interview question can follow this pattern. You outline the problem that you or your team faced, you describe in detail the action that you took, and then you summarize the results of your actions and how, ideally, they solved the problem at hand.
Your Actions
I must emphasize that you make it crystal clear the actions that you took. Even in interviews, most of us will use royal ‘we’ to not sound conceited or arrogant. However, that leaves the interviewer unsure of whether you or your peers solved the problem. Explain in direct, clear language what your team did and what you did so there is no question. Removing the ambiguity here also shows your future employer what you didn’t do. When you give proper credit to your colleagues and team members you illustrate the fact that you are a team player and don’t try to aggrandize your own contributions.
STAR
You may have heard a similar framework described as the STAR method which stands for Situation, Task, Action, Results. This is essential the same approach but it adds a step for you to describe the tasks you regularly perform or were assigned in conjunction with the particular problem you are describing. This extra step adds a little color but the same information can and should be covered in the Action portion of the PAR approach. I prefer the simpler acronym and methodology. If you have any trouble remembering it, simply think that you must keep your answers on PAR with the expectations of the position (even though in reality you are trying to exceed them).
Clear and Concise Wins
When you give your answers to these behavioral interview questions, err on the side of brief, clear answers. By keeping your responses to no more than three to five minutes you give yourself a better chance of being clear and understandable. Your goal should be to provide a description that is so clear that whoever you are speaking with can summarize your answer in one sentence. If you can achieve that level of clarity, you will be in great shape. Interviewers can always ask follow up questions to get more details but if you bog them down in details that muddy the waters, it’s unlikely that you will be viewed positively after the interview.
Practiced but Not Rote
As you prepare yourself to use these strategies, practice telling the stories you chose. Recruit a friend or loved one you trust and share each of your anecdotes using the PAR framework. Ask them to explain back to you in one or two sentences what you did and how it resolved the situation. If they can’t give you a clear answer, you need to polish up your response. As you practice sharing your selected experiences you will become more fluent in the way you share them and reduce hesitation or the likelihood that you will trip over yourself trying to find the right words.
One word of caution is to avoid trying to memorize your responses. Typically that results in answers sounding mechanical and rote instead of natural and conversational. Additionally, if you deviate from your memorized wording or phrasing in the moment it can actually trip you up more than if you are speaking naturally. If you need to outline your responses, write out bullet points instead of full sentences to give yourself the high points you need to touch on, but don’t stress about the exact words you will use.
Stick to the Strategy
With these two methods in your back pocket, you will be ready to face any behavioral interview question. You won’t be searching your memory databases for the perfect experience, instead, you simply pick which of your selected sketches best matches the question, and you spin it to deliver an answer that shows off your capabilities that are relevant to the position.
When you share your stories you frame them with PAR. You share an experience with such a degree of clarity that even someone entirely unfamiliar with your industry could repeat it back to you in one sentence. You do that by simply articulating the Problem, your Actions, and the Results. You do this in just a few minutes so your thoughts remain direct and relatable to your interviewer.
With these simple strategies, you will represent yourself in the best way possible and increase your success in interviewing!
What interview strategies have you found helpful in landing the job?
