A slide show with commentary to help job seekers prepare for a job interview. Includes information about questions to ask, how to answer employers questions and how to prepare for your job interview.
Prepared and supplied by www.thejobguru.co.uk
2. Agenda
◦ Purpose of an Interview
◦ How to prepare
◦ STAR Technique
◦ Questions to ask at the end of the interview
3. Purpose of an
Interview
An interview is an opportunity
for a prospective employer and
employee to meet and assess if
they are suitable to work
together.
4. How to prepare for
your interview
Fail to prepare,
prepare to fail!
10. STAR Method
STAR is an acronym and stands for Situation, Task,
Action and Result.
Using STAR not only helps to answer a question
properly, giving all the information and interviewer
needs, it also helps reduce nervous waffling!
11. Situation
◦ What was the situation? This is your chance to
set the scene for the interviewer. Remember you
are trying to give context to your answer. So, you
only need to spend a couple of sentences on
this.
12. Task
◦ Now that you have set the scene, it’s time to be
specific. What was the task you had to do? The
problem you had to overcome?
13. Action
◦ Here’s where you can really shine. What did you
do to fix the task, overcome the problem, or
find the solution? Whatever it is, this is where
you can go into specifics.
14. Result
◦ What was the result? Here is where you need to
be specific, including essential numbers and
figures if you can. Think along the lines of
“because of this, sales went up by 20%”.
15. Questions to
ask
What size team will I be working with?
Can you tell me about the team I will be working
with?
What’s the best thing about working here?
What makes someone a successful employee in this
position?
How could I impress you in my first 3 months?
What training to provide?
16. Questions
NOT to ask!
Can I finish early on Fridays?
How do I book time off?
What’s the salary and how long does it take to get a
pay rise?
How long is the lunch break?
Do I get free tea or coffee?
How much time do I get off?
Notes de l'éditeur
Interviews are often the scariest part of the hiring process for both the candidate and the manager looking to hire a new member of staff. Staying calm and relaxed will make a huge difference to how you come across in the interview.
It’s important to remember that you both have the same goal - the person being interviewed wants to get the job and the person doing the interviewing wants to hire the candidate. If you are both comfortable then you will communicate better and find out much more about what each other needs and can offer, therefore you are able to make more informed decisions.
Get your interview clothes ready the day before, if there’s a problem you need time to fix it. Always dress appropriately for the interview, generally smart, formal clothes even if you are being interviewed for a role that normally requires more casual attire. If in doubt, call the company and ask what is expected, they will be pleased that you asked.
Know the job specification and your CV inside and out. Most interviews will be based on both of these so if you don’t know them properly you are not going to be able to refer to them in your answers and may get caught out in questions about them.
Prepare standard answers in advance for questions that are likely to be asked. For example, if you are being interviewed for a job working as part of a team you will probably be asked about your experience working in a team. If you are applying for a job as a software developer you are likely to be asked about the languages you use and the software you have developed.
Write notes for the interview to remind you of answers that you have prepared and questions that you would like to ask. Let the interviewer that you have prepared these notes and ask them for permission to refer to them in the interview. Even if they say no, this lets them know that you have prepared, you are taking the interview seriously and you are self motivated.
Make sure that you have pre-planned your journey to the interview well in advance, you should arrive about 15 minutes early. Getting lost, missing the bus or not being able to find a parking space are not good reasons to be late and could cost you the job before you even arrive.
If the interview is scheduled to last 1 hour make sure you allow an extra half an hour for over runs (you might find you have lots to talk about) you do not want to look as though you are desperate to get out of the interview because you will be late meeting someone, worried about missing a bus or something else.
Each of the letters is a step you can use to answer almost any interview question. It’s most useful when your interviewer asks you behavioural questions; these are questions used to determine how you might act in certain situations.
Behavioural questions typically start with, "Tell me about a time when you..." or "Describe how you have handled..." or "Give me an example of..." or even "Walk me through..."
For example, maybe you were working on a specific project, or had just received a piece of feedback from a client. Whatever it is, I recommend keeping this part short and snappy. That way you can focus on the later steps of Action and Result.
You will want to keep this specific but also relevant to the job you’re applying for. Would this be a situation you would have to face in this new role? That counts. Does this task show your leadership or technical skills that would useful in this new role? That counts too.
Remember, talk about what YOU did as well as what the team did. It’s not the team being interviewed and the interviewer needs to know what you are capable of.
You can talk at length about the steps you took, the challenges you faced and any specific skills you used. Remember: this, along with the Result portion, should make the bulk of your answer.
Make sure these actions are ones that are relevant or can be repeated in this new role. That way, the interviewer can easily see the skills you can potentially replicate in their workplace.
Remember this needs to relate directly to the actions you and your team took in the previous step. The result should always have a positive impact and helped solve the situation highlighted earlier.
You can also include what you learned from the experience and show points where you would improve or do things differently. This would impress the interviewer by showing thought and a desire to improve.
These are some suggestions of the type of questions you could ask at the interview. You should notice they all show a genuine interest in the company and give you more information about what it will be like to work for the company. There may be other questions that you can think of, these are just some suggestions.
These questions are all centred around you and demonstrate that you are not interested in the job, employers want to hire people who want the job because they’ll put more effort in and are more likely to stay. If you are obviously not interested in the job and only interetsed , they are not going to want to hire you.
