In the spirit of being 6 years on from what I thought was the worst day in my life when I failed my BlackRock assessment centre (listen everyone at university knows failing an assessment centre is pain!), I’m going to go through my feedback which I think will help many of you when it comes to your interviews
Answer the question they ask you, not what you want to answer
I felt like I had prepared perfectly for that assessment centre, If you asked me what the CEO said on any random earnings call I could have probably told you! I made sure no stone was unturned in preparation. However, what I had done was that I created answers too rigid for competency questions I had prepared which meant that when I was asked competency questions, I was using my rigid answers for questions I had prepared and not what I was asked. So while I thought my answers were great (and they were!), they weren’t exactly answering what the interviewer asked which worked against me.
My learning point here is that when preparing for competency questions, always ensure that you have a bank of answers that you can adapt and change to variations of a question you may be asked.
Remember interviews are a conversation
Now while I am really good at this now, on this particular day, nerves really got the better of me. I was so focused on answering their questions in the one-to-one interview that I didn’t think much about the quality of the questions I had for them. It meant that the interview had an awkward cadence of them asking a question, I answer and then silence. You ideally want the interviews to be back-and-forth conversations where you also ask questions and follow up on comments that the interviewer says - this will not only make you more at ease but also impress the interviewer.
My key takeaway here is to do a bit of LinkedIn snooping on the interview and understand their career journey. Have they always been at this company? Did they pivot from a completely different industry in the past? What are their views on a particular trending topic? This will give you good content to ask the interviewer.
Overthinking the whole day
Honestly, I can’t overstate this final point - while I know interviews are really critical moments in your career journey, you have to try and remain as calm as possible. I didn’t - and went into overdrive with preparation and anxiety, meaning I made things worse for myself by doing erratic things (like in the first section).
Aim to remain calm, remember you got to this point because they think you’re good enough. So while you should be prepared, you should also be relaxed and take the day as it comes at you - it will make the experience 10x better for you.
Let us know what you want to see more of
Hey guys, we’re playing around with our content and support we provide here. Our ultimate goal however is that these emails are valuable to you, so let us know in the email below what content we should provide more of for you (outside of the jobs newsletter and job opportunities we share)
