Have you ever been in a job interview and felt that the examples you gave lacked impact? Not only did you feel they weren’t great, but you could also see that the interviewer was a little underwhelmed . If your examples fall within one of these four categories, you will gain the interest of the interviewer and will set yourself up to have significantly more impact.
At one level, the interviewer wants to know that you:
- can do the job
- will do the job
- will fit in with the culture and values of the firm
- are affordable - that you represent value for money
However, at another higher level, the hiring firm wants to achieve only two fundamental things - increase revenue and decrease costs. So if you can illustrate the ways in which you can help them achieve those things with compelling examples of things that you have achieved in the past, you will be doing very well. Let’s look at this under four headings:
- Increase Revenue. There are a large number of ways in which you may have had impact in increasing revenue. Your role may be in sales. If so, you can discuss your increasing number and discuss how you achieved that. You may be part of the marketing team so you can discuss the increase in brand awareness and how your team drives leads for the sales team. You may have improved the SEO for the website - you get the idea. Have examples that show how your decisions, actions and leadership have increased revenue.
- Reduced Costs. Any well-run business will not want to waste its hard-earned money, so being able to demonstrate how you have found and plugged leaks will gain the interviewer’s interest. You can think of any number of examples where you have had an impact in this sense, so prepare these before an interview. Discussing this and giving well-crafted examples will show that you are commercially minded and many interviewers find that an attractive trait. This leads us to the next heading.
- Improving Processes. Even if it was not in your job spec to do so, it would be great if you have found ways to improve the processes that you work with in your part of the value chain. This may have meant that you had a discussion with Operations that led to changes being made. Simplifying the steps taken to achieve tasks, automation of parts of the process where possible, and so on, all fall within this category. Anything that reduces time taken and reduces friction will be relevant here. Ultimately, this leads to a reduction of costs.
- Leadership. Whether or not you are in a leadership position, being able to give examples of how you have been able to lead, be an example, bring energy, enthusiasm and direction to a situation is great. Demonstrating your impact in this way, takes us back to both increasing revenue and reducing costs. Your leadership will increased productivity, which leads to more revenue, etc. By the same token, if you have built a team where the individuals feel part of something, they are engaged and know that their best interests are being looked after, you will have done something to reduce staff turnover, which is expensive. Furthermore, should hiring be necessary, then it is much easier to do that if you have a happy and successful team.
Much of my work with my Coaching Clients involves preparing for job interviews, from crafting well-honed examples that evidence the value that you can bring to a firm, to pre-empting the challenging ‘trip questions’ you may be asked. If you would benefit from an Interview Preparation Coaching Session, do get in touch at the following link.
