How to Ace Your Next Job Interview

Interviews are among the most anxiety-inducing parts of the job search process. Getting one means you got your foot in the door. The key is to do your part to make the interview a success to elevate your odds of getting another interview or a job offer.

Sam Owens , a career expert and marketing wiz, sits down with LinkedIn News Editor Andrew Seaman to discuss job interview best practices on the latest episode of LinkedIn 's Get Hired with Andrew Seaman . In addition to his own experience in the workforce, Sam's advice comes from the research that went into his book, I Hate Job Interviews: Stop Stressing. Start Performing. Get the Job You Want. That advice includes how to prepare for the interview, how to answer questions, and more.

A transcript of the conversation is below. You can also listen to the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts .

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TRANSCRIPT: How to Ace Your Next Job Interview

Andrew Seaman: Landing your dream job or any job really often comes down to how well you do in the interview. Even if your resume perfectly matches the job description, you might not get an offer if you can't effectively convey your experience and enthusiasm to the person interviewing you. Today on the show, we are discussing all things interviews: common mistakes applicants make, strategies for giving stellar responses to all kinds of questions, and tips to boost your confidence. So don't go away. We'll be right back after the break.

From LinkedIn News, this is Get Hired, a podcast for the ups and downs and the ever-changing landscape of our professional lives. I'm Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn senior managing editor for Jobs and Career Development, bringing you conversations with experts who, like me, want to see you succeed at work, at home, and everywhere in between. Joining me today is chief marketing officer, author, and career coach Sam Owens. His latest book is called I Hate Job Interviews: Stop Stressing. Start Performing. Get the Job You Want. And he's here today to share his framework for excelling in any job interview. Sam and I kick things off by discussing the inspiration behind his new book.

Sam Owens: I started in the food marketing business, and it was big corporate. I worked for Conagra Foods, and I started noticing as I was working in these big corporate environments that there are certain skills that you don't learn in college but that you can really only learn on the job. Like, how do you manage a boss, or how do you tell a good story? These are very different from what you learned in accounting class. And so I became very interested in this topic and wound up self-publishing a book called The 8 Career Skills You Didn't Learn in College.

And it did fine, but what I found was there was a lot of energy focused on one of the chapters, and that chapter was around job interviewing because there is so much stress in the job interview. It's just this high-stakes thing that determines a huge amount for the rest of your career. I sometimes tell my clients, "It could be the most important hour of your career, not because it's when you're going to do your most interesting work, but it's because it's the hour that makes all the other hours possible, so to speak."

And so just kind of the observations I have with my corporate experience, as well as being involved in recruiting teams and interviewing for jobs myself, I started taking on clients and all the stress and everything I worked on with my clients to help them get ready for jobs I thought, "Man, I wonder if I could systematize this into a book and just give this to the masses so they can see the methodology that seems to be working for these clients."

Andrew: And what is your own personal experience with job interviews? Obviously, like you said, you've been hiring teams and recruiting teams, but in your own past, what has been your experience with job interviews?

Sam: I got plenty. Coming out of business school, I got into a good business school, and I thought to myself, "I have arrived. I don't... I can sit back and enjoy this." And I was sorely mistaken in my first job interview. I was looking for an internship.

I remember interviewing for Nestlé, and the interview, it was a phone interview, it was going well, and then this woman just kind of dropped the hammer on me, and she asked a case question like, "Hey, you're the brand manager of Butterfinger and what are you going to do if your business is down 10%?" And I just rambled to her for five minutes and no idea what I was going to say. And she pretty much stopped the interview after that and let me know that I was not going to be advancing to the next round.

Andrew: Oh, wow.

Sam: So that was my initial story of you go to college, and you think it'll be fine, and then you realize, "Oh, wait for competitive jobs, there's actually competitors. There's other people interviewing for these jobs."

Andrew: Yeah.

Sam: "And so I actually have to practice and work hard because I might have a perfectly adequate interview, but it might not get me the job."

Andrew: That's so interesting that you came from the side of like, "Hey, I think this is going to be kind of easy."

Sam: Yes.

Andrew: Because so often, job interviews are super anxiety-inducing, and I guess let's start there. It's like when there is that anxiousness or that anxiety, what do you think are things to sort of overcome those feelings?

Sam: Yeah. Actually, the first chapter I write about that is called Convince Your Harshest Critic is the title of the chapter, and your harshest critic is you. It's overcoming those barriers, and the way to build confidence and to get over that is to put in the work and the preparation.

Andrew: Yeah.

Sam: And I tell people, "If you have a job interview coming up, you're probably going to be preparing for eight to 10 hours."

Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

Sam: And they kind of look at me like, "What? I have a day job? I can't." And it's like, "Look, that is how you're going to be confident is if you are truly ready." If you fake confidence and you're not really ready, it sometimes can come off as arrogance, but true confidence is important in a job interview.

And it comes through preparation and through also trying to weed out those negative things we tell ourselves about the interview process. Like, "Oh, people make up their mind in the first five minutes, so I don't really need to prepare, or interviewing is better for extroverts. I'm an introvert, so I have a disadvantage." None of these things are true.

Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

Sam: Right. But we tell ourselves these things almost as protection mechanisms to not have to put in the work and be all in on the interview because if we're all in on the interview, the possibility of getting crushed if you don't get the job feels bad. It's hard.

Andrew: Yeah.

Sam: It's almost like dating or something where you're like, "I can't be all in on this because I got to protect myself a little bit."

Andrew: Yeah.

Sam: But really being all in dealing with rejection when it comes is the way to approach this. It's the way people get great jobs.

Andrew: I think that's so true. And the other thing too is I was hoping to talk to you about common interview mistakes because I think that is something where it's important to sort of get that out of the way. So what do you think are the most common interview mistakes, and how do you avoid them?

Sam: The general answer is the most common one is people don't practice out loud and don't... A lot of times, they just think, "I'll be fine. I got it. I've gone through the questions in my mind." It's kind of like Kevin James in Hitch. So practicing out loud is uncomfortable. People don't like to do it, but it makes a world of difference. So that's probably the most common. They just don't think they need to prepare as much as they do. And then, tactically, the introductory question, which is when someone says, "So tell me about yourself or walk me through your resume?" Too many interviewers treat that is just a warmup question. "Oh, I'm from California, and I like doing this, and I like doing that."

That question if they could really rearrange that question and ask what they really meant, they would say, "Tell me in the next three minutes why you are the perfect person for this job and why this is going to be the best meeting of my day because after this interview I don't have to interview anyone else because I hate interviewing and I can get back to my day job." That's what they would actually say. And so that introductory answer is your opportunity to say, "Hey, I'm qualified. I'm a high performer, and I really want this job." That's your opportunity to do that in three minutes. So I think it's a mistake to discount the power that introductory question can be. The next probably biggest mistake I see is when someone asks, "Can you tell me about a time when you demonstrated leadership?"

Many times, they will say, "Well, I think leadership is really important, and I actually consider myself a good leader, and I've been given feedback that I'm a good leader, and I have an open door policy." And they don't answer the question, which is, "Tell me about a time when." And so I tell my clients to think about it as if you were pressing play on a three-minute video recording where you're taken into a movie scene or something like that where a hero comes in, counters a problem, solves the problem, and in the end, everything works out amazingly well. When that clicks for interviewers, I have to tell a specific story, their performance in the job interview goes way up.

Andrew: I think those are really good points. And then, when it comes to the frameworks you suggestion in the book, I think you call them SPAR and SEE. Could you go through those? Because obviously there are a lot of different frameworks out there. And can you tell us about sort of why you suggest these approaches?

Sam: Yeah. The first reason I have these different frameworks is more of a fundamental question that I get from people, which is I could be asked a thousand questions like, "How am I supposed to prepare a thousand different answers?" And the answer is, you can't do that and don't do that. The answer is what you want to do is recognize the question type, and then you want to apply a framework to that question type. While there may be thousands of questions you could be asked, there's probably only a handful of question types you'll be asked. So, for example, if someone asks a behavioral question, which is, "Tell me about a time when you showed analytical ability?" The framework is SPAR, situation, problem, action, result. It's an easy way that, in the interview, you can structure your answers in such a way that will produce a good response.

A ‘you question,’ which is, "Hey, what kind of a leader are you," is a different type of question and the SPAR framework doesn't necessarily apply. I would use the SEE framework, which what stands for statement, explanation, example, which is where you give a brief statement, you explain a little bit what you mean, and then you demonstrate by a small example what you mean. And so I think frameworks can be helpful in the sense that it takes this really scary thousands of question complicated thing and boils it down to, "You know what? If I can just memorize a handful of frameworks, I can recognize what type of question I'm being asked, and then I can do okay." It's just much more manageable. So you're not preparing for 300 hours for a job.

Andrew: We'll be right back with Sam Owens.?

Andrew: And we're back with Sam Owens, career coach and author of I Hate Job Interviews.?

I guess then the flip side of that is obviously you can prepare can say, "Okay, I kind of know some of the information that they're probably going to want from me and questions I can have answers for." But there are always those that sort of come out of left field, or at least you feel like they come out of left field. How do you handle those questions?

Sam: Yes, those are often... can be bucketed into question types as well. I have a little section about, there's illegal questions. For example, how do you handle someone when someone asks you an illegal question? There's wacky questions. Like, "What's your spirit animal, and why?" Kind of creativity questions. And there are ways to answer each of these question types. And the one thing that I've found is the weirder the question is, the more license you have to kind of play along and give a weird answer.

It's always helpful if you can just tie it back to the job description. Sometimes, they're just looking for poise that you're not just going to be ruffled. All those questions as much as like, "Ugh, how do I..." You can bucket a series of questions even into, "All right, I get it. This is just kind of one of those wacky questions. They're just kind of testing me. Got it. I know how to deal with this." So the more you can bucket and categorize in your mind, the better.

Andrew: And then, you talk in the book also about power examples. Can you talk a little bit about those?

Sam: Yes. Think about this as if The Beach Boys were going to put on a concert, they better not play their newest single. You know what I mean? I mean, they better play the hits, right.

Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

Sam: We're talking about I want to hear Surfin' U.S.A. I want to hear God Only Knows. Play the hits, right.

Andrew: Yeah.

Sam: So the power examples, you should think of them as the greatest hits. Like, "Wow, these are amazing things that I've done that are applicable to the job description, and these are going to be the foundation for my job interview. And I'm going to find ways, depending on what questions I'm asked, to weave these stories in because I know they're good, and I know they're going to do well."

Andrew: And also, if you get stumped for something, you could also pivot to those.

Sam: Yes.

Andrew: So if they're asking about something specific and you say, "I don't have an answer for that, but I'll get back to you, but it does remind me of X, Y, or Z." And if you have one of those power examples, you could sort of pull it out of your back pocket and still control sort of the conversation, right?

Sam: Yes. And one of the most difficult skills, but it's most valuable skills, is the ability to kind of bridge in the moment to tweak your response to kind of fit that if someone says, "If you have a power story about how you led this really difficult, complicated project." Well, that's your power story.

But then you can note on the side as you're writing this power story down, "Okay, actually, there's leadership components to this. There's analytical components to this. There's detailed components to this. So, depending on what question I'm asked, I'm going to still use this story, but I'm going to draw out the parts of the story that matter to the question."

Andrew: Something that I wanted to ask you about too, and I always remind people about this, is that hiring managers are often terrible interviewers.

Sam: That's right.

Andrew: So when some people walk in, one of the things I hear is like, "Ugh, the hiring manager was completely unprepared. They didn't know what to ask me. They talked for most of it." So if you walk into a situation like that and you do prep, you do all of that, but then you feel like, "Listen, this is a weird playing field for me." How do you suggest people approach that?

Sam: Yeah, great question. I think, I mean, if you're really prepared with what you want to say and they say something like, "Well, yeah, leadership's super important. Are you a leader?" That's a dumb question because the answer to that could be, "Well, yes, I am." But if you're an experienced candidate, you could say, "Yeah, I mean, I agree this role looks like it has a lot of leadership components to it. I do think I have some leadership skills that are very applicable here.

Would it be okay if I shared with you some examples of how I've demonstrated leadership?" And an interviewer like that, "Oh, great. Yeah, thank you." And they're thinking they should have asked that in the first place, but they didn't. So I think there are ways to kind of take control of the interview and make sure you're spoonfeeding, chewing the food for them, so to speak, everything that they need to go back to whoever they go back to say, "Yeah, this person's great." But it comes down to you.

Andrew: No, I think that's really great advice. And then, I guess, the end of the interview, how do you suggest people wrap that up? Obviously, sometimes, it's not necessarily totally in your control. But in the perfect world, how would you suggest people close out their conversations?

Sam: A lot of times, the way the opportunity is given in the end when they say, "Do you have any questions for me?" People are always puzzled, "What questions should I ask the interviewer?" There's two extremes. One extreme is I'm going to ask questions that just make me sound smart and that I researched. "Hey, I noticed on your financial statement this and this. What do you think about this line item?" And the person's like, "I don't know. I'm in HR. I don't even know what you're talking about. Thanks for putting me on the spot and letting me know that I don't know the answer." And then, on the other side, it's a really kind of question that you really want to know, but it's probably not appropriate to ask like, "Hey, so how fast do you think I could get promoted in this role?" Or something like that.

It's like save that question to after you have an offer. And so what you really want to do is ask questions that you genuinely are interested in that apply to the job that the person's uniquely qualified to answer. "Hey, tell me about the culture in this organization." Or, "Tell me about the things you're worried about in this business or the things you're excited about." So after a couple of those, I think the way to close out is to reiterate your interests. "This has been such a pleasure speaking with you. I just want you to know I'm really excited about this. I'm really looking forward to next steps." I tell people two things. One, it's totally appropriate to say, "Is there anything else I can clarify for you or questions that you feel like I haven't answered so that you can make an accurate assessment of me as a candidate?"

If there's doubts and it's like overcoming obstacles. Sales 101. If there's doubts, make sure you give an opportunity to express them. And then, number two, don't leave without at least knowing next steps. I can't tell you how many people say, "Hey, it's been a week, and I haven't heard back from them. Should I reach out to them?" I say, "Well, did you ask when you would hear back from them in the interview? No." It's like, "Well, now I don't really know if you should reach out or not." But if you say, "Hey, can you just let me know next steps." If they say, "You'll hear back from us next Thursday." Well, guess what? If it's Friday, it's very easy to send an email. "Hey, we talked. You mentioned Thursday. It's Friday. Just want to see where we're at." Totally appropriate to do that. Just get the commitment.

Andrew: Yeah, that brings up a great point because the follow-up part is sometimes difficult, and obviously ghosting is a real thing. So how do you suggest you follow up? Do you send a thank you note? Do you send an email after a couple of weeks or so? What's your advice there?

Sam: I definitely send a follow-up email or handwritten thank you note. No matter what, I do that the next day. If I want to really go after it, and if I can, if I have the right connections, I will ask friends who might know the hiring manager to call or to write a note on LinkedIn and say, "Hey, hey, I heard you interviewed Sam. Just so you know, he's awesome." So I try to pile on. And then, if you haven't heard back in the timeline that they stated they would get back to you, I follow up.

Andrew: Got it.

Sam: I follow up and ask, "Hey, just checking in. How's it going?" Now, I don't think anyone should count a job interview is in the bag unless they have an offer in writing. So if you've got other interviews, I'd say the job search is on until you have an offer that you've accepted in writing.

That's how it should be because you don't want to in a situation where they've dragged you along for four weeks, then after four weeks, they tell you no. And you say, "Man, I thought I was going to get this job, so now I have to start over." You want to be in a situation where you are continuing to just pedal to the metal, and then when the offer is signed, then you stop.

Andrew: I think that is completely correct. I always say, "Don't fall in love with the job until you have it."

Sam: Yeah.

Andrew: And even if you have it, you still need to sort of have that emotional distance. But yeah, until you have a signed offer, don't stop interviewing other places.

Sam: That's right. Absolutely.

Andrew: And is there anything else, Sam, that maybe I didn't ask about that you think is important or anything that maybe I missed?

Sam: Yeah, there are two thoughts I have. The first is if you care enough about the job to interview for it, I think you should care enough to really prepare and do your very best in the interview. And the reason for that is a lot of times people go in, this is a protection mechanism too, but a lot of times people go in and say, "I don't know if I'm that into the job, so I don't think it deserves my best preparation."

Andrew: Mm-hmm.

Sam: And what happens is they go and interview, and they actually start to enjoy the interview, and they learn more about the company. And then, after the interview, they're actually really excited about the job, and they want the job, but then they don't get it because they didn't prepare as well as they could've. So that's number one.

Number two is for anyone out there who is struggling, and I've worked with clients who've gotten to the last round many times and then got rejected, and I just want everyone to know you are going to find a job. In my observation, when people want a job, the amount of times they find a job is 100%.

Andrew: Mm-hmm.

Sam: Sometimes, it takes longer than they want. Sometimes, it might be a different job than they thought, and they have to work their way back up, but they are 100% going to get a job. It's going to work out for them. And I just want people to know that because when you're in the thick of it doesn't always feel that way.

Andrew: Well, thank you so much, Sam. I really appreciate your time and your expertise.

Sam: Thanks, Andrew. It was great talking to you.

Andrew: That was Sam Owens, career coach and author of I Hate Job Interviews. If you're leaving today's conversation with a new learning to apply to your job search or career, I'd like to invite you to write about it in a review on Apple Podcast. Our team really enjoys reading what you learn from our shows, plus it helps other people discover our community. Speaking of community, remember that we're always here backing you up and cheering you on. Connect with me, Andrew Seaman, and the Get Hired community on LinkedIn to continue the conversation. In fact, subscribe to my weekly newsletter that's called, you guessed it, Get Hired to get even more information delivered to you every week. You can find those links in the show notes.

And, of course, don't forget to click that follow, subscribe, or whatever other button you find to get our podcast delivered to you every Wednesday because we'll be continuing these conversations on the next episode right here, wherever you like to listen. Get Hired is a production of LinkedIn News. The show is produced by Grace Rubin and Emily Reeves. Assaf Gidron engineered our show. Joe DiGiorgi mixed our show. Dave Pond is head of news production. Enrique Montalvo is our executive producer. Courtney Coupe is the head of original programming for LinkedIn. Dan Roth is the editor-in-chief of LinkedIn. And I'm Andrew Seaman. Until next time, stay well, and best of luck.