Job Interviews

Things
121

Best of luck Thrawneen, be no bother to you.

122

Firm handshake, lots of eye contact, don’t overly criticise your last employer, have a good explanation ready for your current hiatus keeping in mind the last point, keep your pants on. You’ll do great-I just know it, pal.

123

[QUOTE=“Thrawneen, post: 975889, member: 129”]Job interview tomorrow morning to be the PA to the MD of the finest bakery and confectionery company in north (and now south!) Dublin.

Haven’t done an interview for almost 8 years. Feel like doing a Spud from Trainspotting.[/QUOTE]
Thunders?

124

Aye

125

[QUOTE=“Bandage, post: 745501, member: 9”]Any feedback, comments or queries on the below? I want to ensure that all TFK members are as successful as possible in their work environments and I invite others to share their views, experiences and knowledge.

I’m also looking for a volunteer to hold a CV workshop to ensure we’re maximising our opportunities to get to the interview stage.

Competency Based Interviews
If you’re selected for interview (either for an external or internal role), there’s nothing wrong with outright asking your contact what format the interview will take and it’ll actually show that you give a shit and intend to prepare for it. Competency based interviews are increasingly becoming the main method used in job interviews. The interviewer will have a list of the required competencies for the job and they’ll ask you questions about them - competencies could be influencing others, teamwork, problem solving, motivating others, communication and various other stupid buzzwords and phrases.

Again, if you’re told that the interview will be at least partly competency based then you’re well within your rights to ask if there’s a list of the key competencies available to review. That will allow you to prepare a couple of examples / answers to cover the various required headings. Of course, most interviews will also have some general questions too starting with “tell me about your career to date” to ease you into it and moving on to “what attracted you to this role?” etc etc so you’ll to prepare for this side of it too. However, I’ll be concentrating on the competency part for this morning’s workshop.

Taking, say, “communication” - the interviewer may not necessarily simply say “communication is a key competency for this role - tell me about a time you used your communication skills to good effect”. They may add a layer to it and perhaps combine a couple of the competencies by saying something like “communication is a key competency for this role - tell me about a time your communications skills were required to resolve a problem and what the outcome was”.

They may also test you by framing it in such a way that it’s not merely a straightforward “tell me about a time you used your communication skills to good effect” type comment / question - they might test you by saying “tell me about a time you had to adapt your method or style of communication and used your skills to obtain a successful outcome” or something. But, if you’ve gotten information on the key competencies in advance then it should help you to predict the type of questions that will arise. In any event, you should be able to prepare a couple of examples to cover each heading and be capable of tailoring them appropriately if they do ask one of those nuanced type questions.

I recommend the SELL approach for competency based interviews:

Statement - “Yes, I have very strong communication skills and have used these skills to excellent effect in my career to date…”

[SIZE=3][FONT=arial]Evidence - This is where you used one of the specific examples you have prepared. “A specific example of a time where I used my communication skills to resolve a problem was…” and outline it - cover the issue, what you did, why you did it and why it was successful.[/FONT][/SIZE]

Learning - You need to show that you’re constantly learning from these experiences and applying the lessons learned. “What I learned from that incident was that it’s critical to use my communication skills to ensure that customers are updated in a clear and concise manner…” blah blah blah.

Link - Finally, link it to the job you’re actually interviewing for. “I believe that utilising and further developing my communication skills would also be extremely important for this role. I’m aware that maintaining a constant communication flow with clients ensures they’re updated in a clear and concise manner on an ongoing basis and it can help to ensure any potential problems are pre-empted before they even arise” or some other such bullshit.

So you’re saying you have the required competency, you’re giving an example to prove you have it, you’re saying you’re learning and developing your skills in the area and you’re also planning on utilising them strongly in this role should you be successful in the interview.

A key point is to use “I” - you have to take credit and it has to be all about you. You’d amazed how many people in interviews go on about “my team did this” and “we” did that and “my group” did that. It has to be “I did”, “I organised”, “I reviewed”, “I planned”, “I communicated my idea to…” etc etc.[/QUOTE]

Bumped for anonymous TFK user.

126

Thanks, mate.

127

I have a good friend who is an actress who is employed to take part in the interviews for recruitment of a major accountancy firm. She says that most of the candidates are appalling.

128

I would endeavour to pass on any info I have gleaned if it were of any use to anyone (I’d have to ask her the ins and outs).

129

And you’d take a lot of pleasure from that you hairy hound.

130

In my experience as long as you know RICEFW and can give examples of practical experience in all of the you are on the pigs back

131

if you were asked to interview/discuss an internal role in the company you were working for would you be expected to wear a suit or would you be as well off keeping it relatively informal?

132

always keep it professional, shirt and tie at least, you’ll never go wrong

133

If it’s internal and you are already known to the interviewer then just dress as per the culture of the organisation, but perhaps a little sharper than usual.

134

That was my opinion, if you were to wear a suit and tie in you would stand out like a sour thumb and the whole organisation would be aware of the interview and could lead to political issues.

135

You’re on the money. Runts suggestion is the correct one.

136

Thanks Mac your validation means the world to me

137

@Bandage, @Big_Dan_Campbell, @Rocko, @briantinnion -

Advice and tips welcome. Just got a call for an interview Monday.

138

Private or public sector mate?

139

Public.

140

Nice suit, nice haircut, shave.

Be able to discuss everything on your cv. Sounds common sense but you would be amazed at the number of people that cannot.

Be specific on your achievements, don’t just say what your tasks / duties were.

Go through the new job description and for each area of responsibility be able to link it to something you have done or achieved in the past. Prove you can hit the ground running.

Be able to discuss problems you encountered and what you did to overcome.

Be confident.

Convince the interviewer that you are able to take ownership of whatever the job is. He / she needs someone that can take on some of their responsibilities

Good luck and be positive.

:+1:

6 Likes