Someone Else

Looking for that new job? Robert's Interview tips might help!

Looking to land that job? Sure you can write a killer CV or resume, but not sure you can knock the the interviewer out when you sit down face to face? Read on…

I’ve been to lots of job interviews as a candidate and I’m told it is one thing that I do very well. I’ve also sat on the other side of the table as one of the people a candidate has to impress. So here are my tips for having a good interview, written from my point of view as an experienced person working in the IT field. Despite my working and writing for the IT job market, most of these tips are good anywhere.

There is some stuff that is really obvious and hopefully requires little explanation so let’s start there.

First of all, turn up on time. Seriously.

I would hope I don’t have to explain why this is important, though given the amount of times I've seen people turn up late, apparently this still confuses some people. If you have a genuine problem that is going to cause you a delay then notify the interviewer as soon as possible.

Think about how you will handle the commute once you have the job.

Can you live with that journey every day? Don’t forget that if you take a job in London for a £2000 rise and the journey will cost you £3000 a year more than your current commute then accepting the job may mean a cut in what you actually take home!

Think about the job, and the CV you sent to get you the interview.

What questions will they ask? How will you answer them? You can go here for a good selection of common interview questions and possible answers.

Research the employer. They’ve read your CV prior to the interview so read theirs.

Visit their website or try to get product brochures from them, or whatever is appropriate. Finding out a little about the company before you go to the interview not only shows that you are interested, it also gives you something to talk about.

When you’re in the interview try to keep the following point in mind.

• Try to enjoy it. No, really.

You’ll ‘perform’ better if you find some aspect to enjoy. You’re meeting new people, visiting new places, talking to someone who is being paid to listen to you rattle on about how brilliant you are… there must be something there you can focus on as enjoyable!

• There is nothing wrong with being a little bit nervous.

If you feel a little bit nervous before an interview this is perfectly natural. It’s a good sign that your subconscious is taking the interview seriously in fact.

However, you must be in control of your nerves, not the other way around. Don’t let your nerves drag you into babbling or speaking without thinking.

A good interviewer will make allowances for nerves and stress during an interview, though as they want people who can cope with both of those feelings during the working day, that ‘allowance’ probably won’t stretch to giving you the job if you fall completely apart.

The interviewer might be more nervous than you, so remember that making allowances cuts both ways. Wherever you are and whatever time you read this, I guarantee that somewhere in the world someone will be attending an interview as the interviewer for the first time ever. Make allowances for nerves in both directions.

• Be yourself. Even if it means ignoring everything else I said here.

This might sound a little corny, but it is true none the less. You have a personality, so use it! If the interviewer wanted to speak to a robot they’d be interviewing a Dalek or Marvin the paranoid android, not you.

Any job that involves design work; working closely with customers; managing, supervising or training colleagues; working as an assistant to a senior manager or anything along those lines will require you to use your personality and humanity as part of your job. Therefore the interviewer will be looking for some sort of sign that you actually have some personality and humanity.

• Remember that you are interviewing them at the same time that they are interviewing you. Yes, another Cliche but again it is still true.

Do you want the job? Now is your chance to find out. Asking questions is obvious, but that isn’t all you should be doing.

Look around at the place and the people. See if you can engineer a tour of the place, if one isn’t offered.

What kind of ‘vibe’ do you get from the atmosphere of the place? Are people interested in the stranger walking through the office or do they not look up at all? If the latter, are they too engrossed in fascinating work or are they too depressed to look around them?

Does the office space fit in with the kind of work you’ll be doing? If people in your line of work need peace and quiet to ‘create’ then are they respecting that or are they cramming you in next to sales and marketing staff who spend all day screaming into hands free telephones at the top of their voices.

This goes the other way too - if you’re in sales and need to put a lot of energy and enthusiasm into your phone calls, does the area you’re working in provide the right background for that or is it as quiet as a morgue because its full of engineers who need to concentrate?

• Know what appropriate behaviour in an interview is, and listen to your heart.

If you get the feeling that a place would be ‘wrong’ for you, even if you cannot articulate why, you should listen to that gut feeling. I won’t tell you to reject a job based on this, you know how badly you need the next job after all. But don't ignore your feelings. Gut feelings are your subconscious warning you that it has noticed something wrong.

Earlier I spoke about making allowances for the interviewer being nervous. I’m not about to recant that advice, but you do need to know the difference between nervous behaviour and rude or even illegal behaviour. An interview is a time where everyone should be on their best behaviour. If the interviewer’s best behaviour includes rudeness, sexist comments, or racist remarks, then things will not improve once you are in the job. You don’t want a job like that.

• Never, ever, tell a lie.

There is a difference between telling a bald faced lie and keeping the focus of the conversation on the positive aspects of you and your skills.

Telling a lie is never acceptable, for two reasons. First and most obvious is that you may get caught sooner or later. If this happens during the interview or probation period after you accept a job offer then you’ve lost the job, simple as that. If you get caught later then you might not get fired, but depending on what the lie was, you will have a serious credibility problem.

Accentuating the positive parts of your past is not telling a lie. It’s a normal and expected tactic in an interview. You don't have to talk about the things you are bad at unless they ask you. Even then, try and turn this around to talk about how you used to be bad at something but have worked hard to better yourself.

Remember that an interview is a two way sales job. You’re selling yourself and the prospective employer is selling their company. How many salesmen do you know who talk about why their product is bad? How many do you know who talk about why their product is good?

• Understand the people interviewing you. Use this to understand and answer the questions they are asking you.

If you know who they are before an interview try to do some research on them or at least the department they represent.

Remember that a Human Resources rep will be attending an interview for a different reason to that of the line manager for the vacant position. This will probably be clear from the questions each person asks you. It should certainly be clear from your answers that you know who you are speaking to, and that you’ve tailored your answer appropriately.

If you’re being interviewed by a panel then by all means look at the other members of the panel when answering a question, but speak to the person who spoke to you.

Turn this advice around. Remember, you are also interviewing them? Remember to address your questions to the appropriate people too.

• Most important of all: They have a problem, and they hope you are the solution to that problem.

Understand the problem they hope you will solve. Try and see why they thought you might be the solution, and talk that part of your career history up.

There may be more to the job than the job title indicates. Use active listening to dig around their explanation of the job, to understand more about it.

For example, if the job has come about due to an expansion in the team, emphasise your experience in a growing business, and indeed how you helped this to happen.

If they are employing you for your knowledge in a new technique or process, don’t just explain how well you know that subject, take a chance to mention that you are well versed in training or mentoring others who are just learning the new system.

Hey, I think the interview has gone well. They’re asking me about salary!

Good one! If you are a new hire, say fresh out of university or moving into an entirely new career field then remember to be realistic about salary. The two biggest mistakes you can make are:

1. Being so grateful for being offered a job at all that you accept anything,
   
2. Or believing all the hype about inflated salaries in your chosen profession (hello all you computer grads who think you’re Bill Gates!) that you refuse to consider offers that are actually realistic for a first job.
   

Five important things to remember about salary:

• Know what you are worth. What is a reasonable salary range for someone in your profession and with your experience?

• Know what the job you’re applying for is worth (e.g. the average wage for your role might be X, but if you are applying for that role with a registered charity then be aware that due to financial constraints, charities may only offer 85% of X).

• Understand total compensation: e.g. your offer just isn’t the figure they spit at you but also the benefits they offer (e.g. pension, gym membership, healthcare…) Also be sure to understand what those benefits are worth to you – if you have no intention of visiting the gym that they offer a membership in then that benefit is worth nothing to you.

• Bonuses and profit sharing schemes are benefits but due to their intangible nature they are not really a part of your salary. Go and ask a bank for a mortgage based on your likely bonus for an average year and see what you get.

• Delay discussion of salary for as long as possible and let them speak first. Two things here.
  
• Firstly, the longer you leave it the more time there is for both sides of the table to gain an appreciation of what you and the job are both worth (see first two points in this section).
  
• Secondly, in any negotiation the person who makes the opening offer is generally at a disadvantage. Now in a job interview, the candidate is always at something of a disadvantage, so try to keep hold of what few advantages you do have.

An employer is looking to spend as little as possible on salary. This is reasonable. It is the job of the HR department and maybe the line manager as well to keep these costs down. This is why many job application forms talk about salary expectations; this is the first stage of screening to cut out people whose demands it would be impossible to meet.

You, of course are looking to get as much as possible for your skills. This is also reasonable, but obviously opposed to the objectives of the employer. Hopefully there is a meeting point somewhere in the middle. Again you start your screening process at this stage, as you didn’t even consider applying for that job with the wages you absolutely couldn’t live off on a bet.

If the two sets of budgets are workable, we then move on to how things might work in an interview.

A department or company salary budget is a constant, like all of us, a company has to live within its means.

When you start an interview, the interviewer first decides if they want to hire you at all, and assuming they do, they think about how much they want you, a bid figure if you like. You can negotiate around this to some degree but if they need two new employees they absolutely cannot spend their entire budget for new hires on just one of those people. This should be obvious.

Hopefully, by the end of the interview when everyone knows one another a little better, the interviewer has stopped thinking about how much hiring you will cost and has started thinking about how much money you will generate (or save). This is the best point to talk about salary as they are now balancing your demands against the potential of hiring you, which ought to be the most favourable way to view you.

Remember that you’re solving a problem here, in partnership with the interviewer. Their ability to afford you is part of the problem. Like it or not, people are still pieces of equipment that our employer users to drive their business. Like all pieces of equipment, you will be subject to cost/benefit analysis. Understand this, accept it, and work to put yourself in a positive light rather than fight it.