How to feel prepared for your interview

In a recent LinkedIn poll, 43% of our followers felt the biggest mistake they made when it came to their interview journey, was not being prepared. When we drilled down further and asked followers what they needed to feel prepared, 59% stated example interview questions.

Being prepared for an interview can help give us that extra layer of confidence, it supports us to think clearly, even when we’re nervous or under pressure and it gives us our full set of tools to work with when we go to the interview. Ultimately, we stand a much better chance of success.

That’s something we all want, right?!

As with everything, life is busy, we don’t necessarily know what the best areas are to focus on and we can’t predict entirely what the interviewer will ask. It can be difficult to ever feel fully prepared and easy to fall into worry that we haven’t done enough to give it our best shot. ?

This is exactly why we’re here to support you in feeling prepared and empowered on your interview journey. So this week we’re looking at some key interview questions, tips about answering some of those questions and mindset advice that will help you get the job.

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Sample interview questions

Whilst we can’t predict what you might be asked in interview and it will vary, depending on your job sector, the level of seniority and of course the hiring manager, you will find that it’s common for standard questions to come up.

Of course, there are many, but here are ten very standard questions that you might get asked and could be good to consider your answers for:

1.????? Tell us about yourself.

2.????? Why do you want to work here?

3.????? What made you apply for this position?

4.????? What is your greatest strength?

5.????? What is your biggest weakness?

6.????? What do you know about this company/organization?

7.????? What makes you the right person for this role?

8.????? What has been your greatest achievement?

9.????? Why do you want to leave your current job?

10.?? Can you give an example of when you had to deal with a conflict?

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How you might answer interview questions effectively

We could talk endlessly about answering interview questions, but for the sake of brevity, here are few key points you should consider when formulating answers to these types of questions.

Questions about your personality/ traits/ strengths/ right for the role

• Focus on the ways this is aligned to the requirements of the role (make sure you’ve checked the keywords in the job role) / the values of the organisation.
• Show your energy and enthusiasm so that they believe what you say to be true.
• Be ready to share practical examples.

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Why do you want to work here/ what do you know about the organisation?

• Use this as an opportunity to show that you’ve done your homework.
• Show your passion for the role/ organisation.
• Show that your values align with the organisation.

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Discussions on weaknesses/ failure

• Ensure you chose weaknesses that are not a vital component of the role.
• It’s important that you can see and discuss your failings but keep it to one or two.
• Ensure weaknesses are always professional, not personal and keep emotion out of it.

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Talking about your current role/ organisation/ line manager

• Try to always stay positive and focus on the opportunities for growth elsewhere.
• It’s never a good idea to talk badly of existing line managers.
• Showing that you’ve reached your possible potential for growth where you are is always a good strategy.

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Think about questions you could ask them that demonstrate your relevant skillset/ experience

• You don’t have to only rely on the questions they ask you. If you want to show what a great fit for the job you are, think of some questions you could ask them that might demonstrate your experience or skill in the relevant areas.

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It’s worth making some notes, thinking of examples, having some key points ready, rather than trying to write a full response and remember it word for word. Once you’re ready, why not practice with a friend or family member?

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In our new Hub platform, you will also find longer lists of potential interview questions and more detailed answer examples to support your pre-interview research and practice.

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What else might be causing you to feel unprepared?

Practicing interview questions is a really important, straightforward action that we can all take to feel prepared. However with so many of you feeling like you haven’t done sufficient preparation, we wondered if there was more that might be causing you to feel this way.

You might like to consider how the following also affect your performance or confidence in interview:

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Your mindset

It can be easy to overthink or worry about what the interviewer might be looking for, or focus on the barriers of getting the job. What if you could make it simpler? If you focus on what’s good in your current skillset, experience, job role or organisation, you will feel more confident, you’ll naturally talk with energy and enthusiasm.

• What do you love about what you do?
• What excites you about your industry or the organisation you’re applying to?

Just be sure to make sure that within this you are still matching the key requirements of the role (look for keywords in the job description) and staying focused on their position requirements.

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Your stress levels or nerves

A small amount of nerves before an interview is a good thing, it gives that little boost of stress hormone that improves our performance. Too much however, is detrimental and you won’t be able to perform at your best. When we’re nervous or highly stressed, the function of our thinking brain is reduced as the body’s resources switches to a stress response (fight or flight). ?

If you want to be at your best, you will need to focus on communicating with your body so that it can sense that we are safe and that we can be fully present for the situation.

We can do that by taking bodily cues of safety like:

• Let your eyes move around the room sensing into where you are and the safety that’s there.
• Focus on your breath, notice it’s natural pull in and out of your body.
• Focus on where your body contacts support (the chair, the ground) - feel into the sensations that are there.

Your beliefs about yourself or the opportunity

If we consider the hiring manager to be the gatekeeper to all we desire and are looking for, it’s no wonder that we feel the extreme pressure of the situation and succumb to nerves or don’t give our best impression.

• What if you could look at the situation differently?
• What if it was true that the hiring manager (like all of us) wants their job to be super easy?
• What if all you must do is give them enough evidence that you can do this job through the matching of your experience to the requirements of the job?
• How would your performance be then?
• We can examine our beliefs around ourselves or situations and shift them to more supportive versions of what might really be happening to support our performance.

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If you’ve researched the organisation, you’ve thought through some questions you might get asked and how you might respond, you’ve come up with some insightful questions to ask them, you’ve practiced with a friend, you’ve worked on your mindset and have some great skills to deal with nerves and stress…you have done everything you can! Now it’s time to let go and trust in yourself, stay present, listen, respond with ease and let your skills and experience do the talking!

For more detailed advice and support for your job-hunt journey, we welcome you to check out our Hub community for job-seekers. We’ve been talking about this for many months as we’ve been working on hard on making sure it has all the best tools to support you in your job search – we can promise that it will be coming very soon!

We’d love to tell you more about this when we can, so if you’d like to be one the first to hear about the upcoming launch and have an opportunity to join us with an exclusive founding member rate, sign up on the link here .