My Top 3 Interview Tips From 2015

It’s been another great year for me on LinkedIn. I love sharing my personal tips and advice with you all and I’m always pleasantly surprised by the amount of engagement and feedback I get from my followers.

When I first started blogging as an influencer I had no idea what I was doing and I had no idea how well received it would be. It makes me so happy knowing I can help support and nurture millions of people and I’d like to thank you for enabling me to do so.

As the end of the year is fastly approaching, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to share a roundup of my top interview and career tips for 2015.

I know that 2016 represents a fresh start for lots of you so I’m sure there’s never been a better time for some tried and tested JC tips.

Research

I may sound like a broken record but research really should be right up there on your list of priorities when it comes to interview preparation.

It is absolutely critical you convey how passionate you are about the role and one sure way to do this is by showing the amount of effort you’ve put in understanding the business’ values, taking the time to brush up on any recent news they’ve shared and familiarising yourself with the team.

In one of my previous posts I wrote about why you should always bring a notebook into an interview, in order to take notes. The same goes for research notes – people are always so obsessed with thinking they need to memorize every single minute detail of the website and end up getting all flustered trying to remember one thing. The truth is, having some bullet reminder notes in front of you is absolutely fine. I really don’t mind if you haven’t learnt all the information by heart, i’m not hiring you for your photographic memory… a series of keywords to prompt you will not put me off. Nowhere in the rule book does it state 'you must memorize every single fat' so if, in the interview, you ask me if it’s okay to refer to your notes of course I’d say yes and, secondly, I’d actually be very impressed you’ve taken the time to research my business thoroughly.

This will also help you ask the right questions, making the experience a two way conversation rather than an interrogation.

Remember that we’re all human, including the interviewer. It’s okay to stumble, it’s okay to trip up or take a moment to get your thoughts together. Relax and your interviewer will too.

Debrief

Once you’ve stunned your interview with your research, asked the right questions and illustrated enough passion and determination, it’s time to follow up.

Always keep in mind that your interviewer is likely to have seen several interviewees on the same day and even if you did make a great first impression, it can be difficult remembering how well each candidate presented themselves.

To avoid being forgotten it is absolutely essential you send a follow up email post interview. If nothing else, it’s standard good manners to thank them for their time but also it acts as a prompt and will remind the interviewer of your conversation.

Start your email thanking he or she for their time, tell them you enjoyed hearing about the business and you are looking forward to reading more about what you discussed in the interview.

Reiterate why you believe you’d make a great addition to the team and say how much you can’t wait to meet the rest of the team.

End with the notion you’re looking forward to hearing from them and that you’re open to any further questions if necessary.

This could make all the difference, trust me. I’m always impressed and thankful to any candidate who takes the time to write a short debrief for me.

Go over and above your role

Congratulations! You got the job. This is where the hard work starts: proving they made the right decision and showing where you can add value.

It’s not enough to just do what it says on your job spec. Employers don’t want a robot; they want someone who actually really enjoys doing what they do and more often than not, these people are motivated to learn new things and get involved in projects outside of their remit.

Everybody wants to feel challenged in their role because otherwise work is pretty boring – we spend the majority of our time working, we don’t want that. Challenging yourself and challenging your boss to give you more autonomy and embrace innovation will increase your productivity and more importantly, make you feel valued.

Going over and above your role is the first step towards improving yourself professionally and personally, making yourself feel good about your work.

The most important thing to me is people. I want my team to feel like they’re appreciated and to appreciate one another. That’s why it’s so important you take time to really immerse yourself into the company culture and show your new boss just how well you fit in.

Of course, there are many other tips that factor into this, but for now I’ll leave you with these.

If you’re spending your Christmas holidays thinking ‘new year, new career’ I wish you the best of luck and I hope this quick roundup comes in handy.

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