It’s interview season, and many of you are either preparing for upcoming interviews or have already taken them. So today, we’re going to share a quick story about how we helped a student named Sam ace his interview and what you can take away from it.
When Sam, reached out to us, he hadn’t previously interned or got to a final round interview at a corporate company and was quite unsure of how to prepare for the interview. This brings up the first and most important area where most people fail with interviews - structured preparation.
Roughly 70% of interview success is determined before you even set foot in the actual interview. How you prepare for interviews - actually scrap that - how you structure your interview preparation will heavily determine your success rate.
We worked with them on structuring their interview prep into 4 key areas:
- Company research
- Competency Questions
- CV Storytelling
- Interviewer and commercial awareness to prepare tailored questions
This meant they went into the interview:
- Demonstrating a deep knowledge of the company through understanding their company’s financial performance, strategy, values and major trends impacting their business model and clients
- Prepared with an army of scenario answers tailored to the key competencies outlined in the job description
- Could talk through their CV concisely and pinpoint achievements and transferrable skills as well as their well-roundedness
- Had personable questions to ask their interviewer to help turn the interview into a conversation and demonstrate curiosity and passion for the role
- and lastly, a confidence going into the interview which they were able to exude through body language knowing that they had covered all bases
While the outcome was that they passed their interview, I actually knew beforehand they would as the structured preparation we undertook meant they had done deeper due diligence than their peers and were prepared for all possible interview questions.
So what’s the key takeaway? Structuring your interview preparation. If you get your structure right (like the 4 part approach above) you’ll be able to prepare for the right things.
