Upcoming Interview? How Prepared Are You to Stand-Out?

In our career transition coaching work at Brosna Consulting, a significant amount of our activity each month involves the vital work of helping individuals to prepare thoroughly for short-list job or promotion interviews.

There are four recurring issues and challenges in particular that we often encounter that need working on in this process, even with the most talented and skilful individuals. Addressing these issues is of paramount importance in a much-changed world where short-list interviews are likely to be in very short-supply for the foreseeable future:

Interview Rustiness - participating in a formal job or promotion interview is not something any of us do every day of the week. In many cases it may be many months, if not many years, since our last formal job interview. Inevitably we will be rusty and we may be unfamiliar with the current process and conventions. Also in recent times, interviewers are themselves now much better trained, better skilled, more prepared and much more precise in their questioning and probing about uncovering the real capabilities of candidates and how they fit the advertised role. It’s a rigorous and disciplined process requiring equally rigorous candidate preparation to be successful.

Competition - it is very easy to forget that when getting to a short-list stage of any interview process, you will be facing very stiff competition from a number of other comparably talented individuals who have also passed through the early stages. There is every likelihood that they will have prepared themselves well. You therefore really cannot afford to leave anything to chance in your own preparation if you are to standout as the right candidate for the role. An attitude that “it will be alright on the night” invariably risks failure.

Understatement - time and time again we find even with the most talented individuals that there is a tendency to understate and undersell themselves and their successes. You are where you are in your career because of what you have achieved not because of things you have not done. So be prepared to tell bold, proud and assertive stories about you and the things you have achieved in your career to date. No-one else will be there at interview to represent you and your talents; you cannot afford to be shy nor understated; you must assume that your competitor candidates will certainly not hold back in telling their success stories. 

Too Much To Say - a very big challenge facing many individuals preparing for interview who have a rich variety of career experiences to date is knowing what to include and what to leave out in the examples and success stories used to illustrate their capabilities in response to sharp questioning . The criteria of course should always be your most significant, recent success stories that illustrate the full range of your capabilities and (most importantly) are directly relevant to the advertised role. A failure to prepare thoroughly in this area often means individuals will try and cram in too many examples in the short period of an interview and dilute the impact, lose focus, ramble and not show their precise relevance and suitability for the role. 

To prevent these issues and many others becoming big obstacles to success at interview, we have developed a very rigorous coaching process involving proprietary visual techniques, interview role-play, video-playback, tough behavioural feedback and intensive practice to help talented individuals to give of their best at critical short-list interviews. 

In the current challenging times, with competition for new jobs being very fierce, if you have worked hard to secure that all-important job or promotion interview, our strong advice is to leave nothing to chance but seek-out help to ensure that you are fully practised and prepared. 

If you would like to know more about our approach, our services and our successes in preparing individuals for interview, please do not hesitate to contact me Tim Chapman at tim@brosna-consulting.com and I will respond quickly.