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Preparing for an Interview

Okay, your CV portfolio has been accepted and you have been invited for a few interviews, now its time to prepare yourself and make sure that you give your dream job your best shot.

 

Interviews can be a nerve-racking or invigorating experience, depending on which way you approach and prepare for it. Preparing for an interview in another country can amplify this situation, particularly if you have to travel a long distance prior to the interview.  If your lucky, the interview will be in your own country (with an international employer).  Either way, it's a necessary milestone on the road to landing you your next job and, if properly prepared for, it could be the pivotal 60 minutes that change your life.

 

 

 

Identifying your Strengths
Your strengths are those unique aspects which could set you apart from other candidates. Combining them in the right manner to best suit the job at hand and draw attention away from your limitations is the key to landing the job.

 

Below is a list of the common important strength areas. They are not ranked in any specific order of importance. It is unlikely that you will be strong in all areas, so be realistic in your assessment.

 

 

Personal    Strengths	Always	Usually	Occasionally	Rarely or Never
I Lead by example
I am self-confidence
I am committed
I am determined
I am enthusiastic
I am energetic and have stamina
I am strong willed
I am competitive
I have good judgement
I am confident when making decisions
I am willing to take responsibility
I have the ability and confidence to take risks
I display initiative
I am creative and can provide different solutions
I have good organisational ability
I am flexible
I have good commercial understanding
I have the ability to understand the big picture
I am good at dealing with difficult situations
I can handle pressure
I work well in team situations
I am a good communicator
I enjoy learning new skills
I enjoy new challenges

 

 

 

Once you have completed the table, reflect on which you feel are strengths and weaknesses.  Be subjective and ask yourself about each question.  For example, you may be good at working under pressure, but do you work well without pressure?  The key here is to be honest with yourself, otherwise you may inadvertently turn a strength into a weakness and misrepresent yourself in the interview.  When the time comes, use the list and decide which elements are relevant to your interview.

 

When looking for a job it is easy to overlook the key factors that are required for obtaining the position, this is amplified when looking for your dream job. Before you start Job searching and submitting CV/Resume/Portfolios, sit down and take some time to identify your strengths and weaknesses. There are a number of means of working through this, SWOT (Strengths , Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats).

• What are you skills?

• Do you have the necessary skills for your desired job?

• Are you currently studying to acquire new skills?

• What experiences do you have?

• How will this strengthen your position.

• What unique experiences do you have?

• What is unique about you? Consider both positive and negative aspects, a negative aspect can be a strength. Example, I often get irritated/annoyed when policy/procedure is not adhered to or is incorrect. I use the energy borne of my irritation as my driving factor when rectifying the situation. This does not mean that I am annoyed during execution, it means that I am highly motivated by the necessity for correct procedure and fair, workable policy. The key to understanding yourself is to be honest, once you are honest, it becomes easier to identify the elements you need to harness for your future success.

• What specialist training do you have? This may seem the same as skills but is not. You may identify a skill like project management. However, a certification in project management can be obtained in a little under a week, this is completely different to certification obtained via a degree course for example where deep analysis and research have been conducted. This may be augmented by job placements or time spent as a project manager. The point here is to take a lateral view of yourself. I usually take the post-it approach. I write my skills on post-its and the spider-web out the supporting elements. I then modify the web until happy, at this point I put pen to paper and draft a generic CV covering all the elements I have identified. I then take the Generic CV and modify/tailor as necessary to meet the job I am applying for.

 

Conducting Self Evaluation

Remember that when you are conducting a self evaluation, your aim is to prepare yourself and documentation for your future employer. With this in mind, you must familiarise yourself with the job or field that you intend to move into to ensure that you are perceived as a valid candidate for interview, recruitment and employment. To do this you must convince your future employer that:

• You are competent and can do the job professionally.

• Your skills, experience and capability will enhance and benefit the company.

• You are the best candidate on both of the above points.

With this in mind, begin by looking at your background and sketch a profile of your key attributes which best fit your future interviewer's impression of an ideal candidate. The interviewer will want to know how competent and adaptable you will be in fulfilling all aspects of the job, particularly when applying for a managerial and administrative position. These are areas where your CV can lay the foundation but cannot reveal accurately your full potential. Therefore you must be prepared to expand on the comments you make in your CV.

 

	I am very competent	I am competent, but could improve	I could do the task adequately	My skills are underdeveloped for the task
Maintain operations to meet quality standards
Implement and evaluate changes to services and products
Make recommendations for budgeting and expenditure
Monitor and control the use of resources
Define future personnel requirements
Contribute to the assessment and selection of candidates
Develop teams through planning and organisation
Review and improve development of subordinates
Develop oneself within the job role
Set and update team objectives
Plan activities to ensure objectives are met
Allocate work and evaluate individual performance, providing constructive feedback
Establish and maintain the trust of your subordinates
Establish and maintain the trust of your immediate manager
Identify and minimise interpersonal conflict
Counselling subordinates
Obtain and evaluate information for decision making
Record and store information
Lead group meetings and discussions to solve problems and make decisions
Advise and inform others.

 

 

Adapted from national standards identified by the MCI Occupational Standards of Management.

 

You can print out this sheet and complete it to enable you to have a clearer view of which areas to highlight during the interview, (and which areas to avoid or tread carefully around).

 

 

Knowing and using your limitations to your advantage
Identifying your limitations/weaknesses can be a difficult task, particularly if you associate a limitation as a personal failure.  If you wish to improve yourself and demonstrate to your future employer that you are capable of self development, then you must embrace your limitations.  Why, because your limitations serve as a basis for your development.  How so?  If you are honest with yourself, and review both the limitation and the reason for the limitation, you will find it easier to identify a means of turning the weakness into strength.

 

As a personal example, a serious caveat to my overseas employment was �the language barrier�.  I looked at and analyzed my perceived shortfall in the following way:

 

Q.                 What is the limitation/weakness/skill shortfall?

 

A.         I can only Read/Write/Communicate fluently in English.

 

Q.         Will the limitation/weakness/skill shortfall inhibit your ability to progress?

 

A.         Yes, whilst I aim to work within an English speaking company overseas, without the ability to communicate ion the local language, I will be unable to integrate effectively into the community and/or communicate with local workers in their parent tongue.  Additionally, the majority of vacancies that I am interested in require, as a minimum, basic language skills in the local tongue.

 

Q.         What do you feel is the source of this problem?

 

A.         During my school years, I had never really embraced languages as I was unable to see the true benefits, naively believing that just speaking English would be enough for my life (it was for my parents etc).  Due to my earlier stance, I had closed my mind to the need and potential for learning new languages.

 

Q.         Is there a means of building on your limitation/weakness/skill shortfall?

 

A.         Yes, I can take a language course, buy some language books/tapes, use self study or pay for structured lessons.

 

Q.         Is there anything that will hinder you building on your limitation/weakness/skill shortfall?

 

A.         Yes. 

• Time will be a key factor, with a young family and a full time job, creating the time and opportunities for study will be difficult.

• Finance.  Paying for private courses, books and supporting literature/tutorship will be expensive.  This will however be offset by the potential salary increase that my new skill will provide.

• Experience.  My previous experiences at school and in life may make it difficult for me to embrace this new skill.

• Family situation.  Concentrating on study with a young family may prove difficult.

 

There are more questions that you can ask yourself to help reflect in this way, try different questions and reflect on the factors that surround your situation.

 

 

Reflect on your limitations, the first step to realising your full potential.

 

Once you have established the factors affecting your limitation look at the individual elements and see if there is a way that you can reduce the impact of the negative points.  In the example provided, my greatest concern was the impact that my young family would have on my study.  To negate this, I engaged my son in the language, discussing how different languages had different words.  6 weeks in and he had mastered over 200 words in German, not bad for a 4 year old!  We turned it into a game; "Guess what this is in German?" etc. 

 

So what does this mean to you?

 

The point here is that having identified a shortfall, you can understand whether or not it is important.  I it is important, look subjectively at the problem.  How can you overcome this shortfall and turn it into strength.  This is always a difficult process but very rewarding in the end.  Anyone can build on their strengths, the best people build on their weaknesses and employers look for the later.  Why?  Because they know that the later are willing to learn and are not afraid to embrace a challenge.  Remember this when it comes to your interview, if the question arises "what are your weaknesses?"  You will have a few well-prepared, confident answers.  If you are really clever, you will be able to expand on your plans for negating them.

 

Another approach is to look at how you performed in your previous workplaces:

• In which areas can I really improve?
• What were the tasks and situations I had the most difficulty with?
• In which instances did my colleagues react negatively towards me?
• Were there any reasons for hindering my progress and promotion?
• Why am I leaving my present job?

 

As a guide, apply the questions to the following characteristics, it may help to get you started.

• Leadership
• Competitiveness
• Good judgment
• Confidence with decision-making
• Willingness to take responsibility
• Quick thinking
• Initiative
• Creativity
• Organizational ability
• Flexibility
• Striking a balance between details and the bigger picture
• Sensitivity to people

 

When it comes to identifying you limitations, there are different techniques and all have their merits.  At the end of the day, it is up to you to be honest and open with yourself otherwise you will not get the true benefit of this exercise and ultimately this will be obvious the employer. Once you have come to terms with your limitations, it is up to you how you use them in the interview:

• Identify the most critical of the weakness or limitations and explain how you will actively strive to improve on them
• Identify limitations that are likely to be of little concern to the interviewer or that you can realistically offer tangible explanations for.

Most importantly, you will be prepared.