Hello, Hello, Hello, Welcome back to another episode of the Straight Shooter
Recruiter podcast. I am your host, Emilie Durham. I have been a
careers coach for many a year. I've worked in recruiting for like seven almost
eight years. I'm a writer for Canadian business. You know the drill,
like, if you're here, you know the shit is about to be fire.
And today I want to give you a nobs straight to the point,
how to prep for an interview when you only have a couple of hours or
a very limited amount of time. I am not going to answer any questions
in this episode because this is designed to be a freaking crash course. Like,
you just got a call, you have an interview tomorrow, you don't
know where to start. You don't have time for me to answer your questions
of the week. Okay, you want the answers and you want to keep
it moving. So that's the intention of this episode. It is designed to
make your life a lot easier. If you want me to answer your question
in next week's episode, click the link in the description. If you want
to rock the merch, because baby, this merch goes crazy. It is
so cute. I'm literally wearing the off the Clock T shirt right now,
and I always get compliments on it because the quality is fantastic. The black
stitching is so chic, and it's just fun to wear, especially on a
casual Friday, like when I'm recording this. But that's neither here nor there.
I feel like I'm operating in freaking turbo speed. Let's get your ass
prep for that interview. Let's get into it all right, Besty. You've
just got the call. You have an interview today or tomorrow. This is
specifically what I want you to do. Now. How you prepare for an
interview does vary based on what round it is, so let me give you
a quick overview of what the expectations are for each round of different interviews.
All of these tips are industry agnostic, which means they're going to apply no
matter what industry you work in, and it doesn't matter if this is your
first internship or if you are much more senior in your career. These tips
are going to transfer to every single thing that you do. When it comes
to the first round interview, the recruiter or the hiring manager is typically looking
to understand if you are a general fit for the company, and if you
have the general skills required for the role, it's probably not the interview where
they're going super in depth on your technical skills and experience. And we'll break
that down more in just a second for your second round interview or your third
round interview. So whether it's your final round or it's your second meeting with
the team, this is where they're going to get really nitty gritty about the
specifics of the job to see if you actually know how to do the job.
So the questions get a lot more nitty gritty. Let's break into this
a little bit more so for the first round interview. No matter what,
you can be expected to answer questions like tell me a little bit about yourself.
You're also going to be asked why do you want this job or why
are you looking for your next job. You're probably going to be asked to
explain a breakdown of the day to day work you do in your current position,
or if you're a new grad, talking about what you're looking for in
that next position, and they're likely going to break down a couple of questions
based on the job description. So every single time you apply for a job,
make sure you take a screenshot of the jobs and pop it into a
folder on your phone just in case the position gets unposted at any point in
time, Because the job description is the best way to anticipate what questions you're
going to be asked in the interview. For example, if you're interviewing for
a recruiter position, let's say, and the job posting talks a lot about
needing to understand how to do technology recruiting and working with data, you bet
your sweet honey buns, I've never said that before. Don't know where that
came from, but you bet your sweet old honey buns that they're going to
ask you a question based on data and based on how to recruit for technology.
So it gives you a starting point to know specifically what you're going to
do. So the first step is to not only prepare for the basics like
answering, tell me about yourself and why do you want to work here,
which I won't break down in this episode because I have so much content on
that, both on the podcast but most specifically on my YouTube channel. I
have a whole playlist on how to answer commonly asked interview questions. So just
go there. But the next thing that you are going to have to do
is think about how you're going to answer job specific examples. And the best
way to do this is create a literal list of the skills they're looking for
in the job description that they've posted, and have a couple of examples written
next to it of work you've done that demonstrates that. Maybe it's a school
project you worked on, maybe it's I don't know, like a thing you
built, whatever it is, you know what I'm talking about. Have a
couple of examples that are aligned to each of those core skills, and what
I want you to do is practice answering a variety of questions tied to that
skill, specifically using the Star method. So the Star method is a method
of answering interview questions that is really structured and make sure you're giving the interviewer
or the recruiter the right amount of information. The S stands for situation,
the T stands for task, the A stands for action, the R stands
for result. I just left an executive interview, executive, I am talking
C suite executive interview, and you want to know what the feedback is that
we gave to the candidate who's getting the job. We said, you answered
everything with the star method. It was great. So it doesn't matter what
level you're at. This is what people want to see. So practice.
For example, if you're asked about how you work with data, tell me
tell me a time you've worked with data. I might say when I first
started working at into It, I noticed we had a huge opportunity to hire
more account managers in sales. There's a situation the task. So I started
doing a complete, in depth analysis about the talent market and the areas of
opportunity across our different territories. The action the data showed me that we had
an opportunity to hire more in Quebec to better serve that market. The result,
we ended up adding thirty percent additional customers in less than six months and
hired fifteen people. Boom, I just gave you five sentences that told me,
or told you rather exactly what you needed to hear. But another call
out. Do you notice that I'm only talking about me in this interview.
It's super important that you are calling out the winds of other people and talking
about teamwork and collaboration, but specifically when it comes to you answering tough to
answer interview questions. We don't want to hear what your team did. Yeah,
I want to hear what you did, So don't say we did this,
we did this. What you would say is our team was working on
this, and here specifically how I contributed. And to be honest, these
tips carry really well into second round interviews as well, but it's almost a
guarantee you're going to get these style of questions in both. So it's just
good to know, and I also find it helps you like mentally prepare.
Now, what I think is the most important differentiator between preparing for a first
round and like a second round or final round interview is how much they expect
of you. In the first round interview, the recruiter is typically looking to
learn more about your general experience and general fit for the company, but maybe
not nitty gritty. That changes when you get to the second round. So
here's a key difference. When you are entering that first round interview, it's
a really good idea for you to have an understanding of what that company does
and their values because you're probably going to be asked why do you want to
work here, and you saying something like, oh, I love your commercials
on TV like that's it's just not enough. You know, I need you
to step it up, step it up. And you know how we do
that. You go to their career website. You look up their values.
Yes, companies love when you butter them up with their values. Okay,
and you say, oh, I saw this as a value of yours.
I saw you volunteer here and that you invest in here. That means a
lot to me because of blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And you
want to make sure like it's authentic. You don't want to just make shit
up. But you call on those specific things listed on their website when they
ask you why you want to work there, because it proves that you do
research. In that second round interview, you got to take it a step
further. In the first round, you know they're getting it's like a vibe
check. You know, it's a first date. They're trying to see is
this person the right fit. The second round interview, they want to see
you show the hell up. And how you do that is the next time
they say, you know, tell me about yourself, because chances are you're
going to meet with a second person who has not heard that spiel. You're
going to say the same thing you did before, using that amazing YouTube video
that I've put together, but you're going to add on this sentence, and
you're going to say, after speaking to the recruiter last week, I was
so invested. I went to your career website. I learned a little bit
more about your investment strategy and your product, and did some more research on
people who've been in this role previously, and I just think I'm an amazing
fit. It shows you do research and it further cements the idea that you
are the ideal candidate. Second round interviews tend to get a little bit more
technical. So the same way you prepared to answer basic questions around the job
description in the first round, get ready for them to drill a lot deeper.
So in your second round interview, in addition to preparing information on why
you want to work at that company, I need you to go deeper on
why you are specifically qualified for that role, backed by data. It might
not be as necessary in round one, but round two, when they say,
talk to me about how you grow teams, have numbers to back up
your experience. If it's your first job, and they're asking you how you
collaborate. I want you to talk about the size of the projects you've worked
on. How many people did you partner with. That's the stuff that really
matters. So it's important to click down, go deep on data. This
is a tip that's important for every interview, but it's particularly important to further
along you get in the process, and it's something that's really overlooked. So
at this stage, you would have prepared to answer tell me about yourself.
You're prepared to talk a bit about the company and why you're a fit for
the job. You have some examples ready to go to share using the Star
method. The last thing I need you to do is come prepared with amazing
questions to ask in that interview. I also just left an interview, actually
yesterday I left this interview and the feedback from the team was I don't think
this person wants the job. They didn't ask me any questions, and I'm
like, oh my god, this person is an amazing fit for the role.
I don't want you to shoot yourself in the foot by not having these
things. So at the end of the interview, when the person is asking
you, do you have questions. For me, always say yes, And
this is why your research is important. If you found that a value aligned
to you are aligned with your values on their career website, say, I
see your value is being bold. Can you talk to me about how that
shows up in your team? I see on the website you have invested in
this. How does that impact our team? Like? Those are the questions
that make you stand out, and those are so easy to prepare because literally
you just need to go on the career website like it really is as simple
as that. Other quick fire tips for preparing for an interview, go to
LinkedIn and take a little creepy creep of the individual you're speaking to. See
what school they went to, what companies they worked for. That's another great
way to ask really thoughtful and impactful questions. At the end of the day,
preparing for an interview, yes, is stressful, but it's not rocket
science. You just need to be prepared to answer some basic questions about who
you are, why you want that job, and have really great structure in
terms of how you are answering those questions. Now, if you feel like
you prepare for interviews and maybe you still get nervous It's a great idea to
have notes with you, not a script, because you don't want to over
prepare and feel like you're not yourself and that you're not organic. Another great
tip to prepare for an interview is practice. I just literally kissed my microphone
by accident. Whoopsies, I hope you didn't hear that. I was like
right up in my MIC's face. Another great tip is to record yourself answering
commonly asked interview questions. It'll help you get a flavor of what your communication
style is like, and then it'll help you adjust and correct for body language,
your pace, all of those good things. But I do have a
full episode on this podcast about communication and how to be a clear and direct
communicator, especially in interviews, as well as some content on YouTube if you
prefer a visual for that one, so definitely check that out. But this
is short, this is sweet, and the reason for that is it doesn't
need to be complicated. Anyone telling you it needs to be complicated, frankly,
is trying to stress you out and make you feel like you need to
spend money on a career coach to prep for an interview. And it ain't
like that it's simple. It's clear. You make bullet point notes, you
practice, you practice, you practice, You're going to be fine. I
believe on you. If you have an interview this week, DM me let
me know how it goes. I care about you, mutually. Talk to
you next Sunday. Bestie,