Preparing For Your Interview
Preparing for an interview might seem intimidating, but there are several steps you can take to prepare yourself for a successful interview! On this page, we share an interviewing prep tips & resources!
General Interviewing Tips
Do Your Research
Get To Know The Company
- While preparing for a interview its important you take the time to get to know the company or organization you are interviewing with: who they are, their mission statement; what service they provide/what product they make, company locations, key people, recent news, etc.
- One tip is to follow the company on LinkedIn, and read employee reviews posted on Glassdoor.
- Research the interviewers: If you know who you are interviewing with, take some time to search for them on LinkedIn and review their profiles, and make a connection request!
Prepare Your Answers
Preparation Is Key
- Think about how you would answer these basic 4/5 interview questions:
- Why are you interested in this role?
- What are your best strengths related to this role? (Why should they hire you?)
- What are your weaknesses or areas to improve?
- What are your long term career goals?
- Research how to prepare for situational-based questions: This is the prime time to use the STAR Method!
Ask Your Questions & Follow Up
Ask Questions & Follow Up
- Always have questions prepared to ask the interviewers at the end! This demonstrates your genuine interest in the organization, helps you stand out as a candidate, and allows you to get a better feel for the role and organization. Its important you determine if the company is a ideal fit for you as well!
- Following the interview, send a thank you email to all those you interview with!
Practice Interviewing With SkillsFirst
Interviewing When Changing Careers
Thankfully, landing an interview means you succeeded in selling your experience on paper, so you’re well on your way in the career-changing transition process. Now, your job is to help an employer see the value that your experience will bring to the team. The more clearly you can articulate your value and connect the dots between your past experience and new opportunities, the more possibilities will be available to you. Read on to see how you can do exactly that, and explore more career changer resources on this page!
- If you’re going to convince a new employer you’re the best candidate for a job, you have to believe it yourself first. When you value yourself, you start to describe your work history and experience in another language.
- Start by writing out everything you do, in detail. Include all of your tasks and your accomplishments. This will help you to see your experience in a fluid way that can apply to many settings.
- Ex. You weren’t a “customer service representative for Caris’ Cupcake Emporium;” you were someone who “assisted customers with orders, promoted new products and services, and addressed customer complaints professionally.”
- Learn to spin your past positions in this way, and you’ll find it much easier to explain how your work history lends itself to the transition you’re seeking.
- Examples paint a picture of your experience and abilities for an employer. With a career change in particular, examples help an employer understand how your experience fits into a new role.
- So when asked about working with customers, for example, incorporate an anecdote about your interactions with people from your current or previous jobs, even if those people weren’t customers, per se. Then, explain how you would put that experience to work in your new role.
- The skills you used to manage conflict with a co-worker or to explain a difficult concept to management are the same ones you would use with customers, after all.
- If asked about problem-solving, talk about a time you actually worked through a conundrum or came up with an innovative solution. Even if the industry was entirely different, the ability to think critically and problem-solve speaks volumes of your competence level.
- Go out of your way to show an employer—literally—that you’re capable of taking on this new role by bringing evidence with you. This might include sample work, training certificates, or a mock grant proposal, marketing plan, or something else that makes your abilities concrete:
- Are you shifting into a writing-heavy field like communications or journalism? Bring writing samples. It’s OK if you haven’t written a news story; a well-written annual report still demonstrates your mastery of language and ability to weave complex details into a coherent whole.
- Are you transitioning from a non-tech field into a job that requires programming? Bring or show training certificates for those online courses you took. If you didn’t submit a link to an online portfolio before the interview, bring a tablet so you can show your potential employer samples of your work.
- If you don’t have the exact “evidence” that an employer is looking for, create it. This certainly doesn’t mean that you should fabricate experience, but you can develop samples that demonstrate your abilities:
- Applying to teach, but have no formal teaching experience? Create a syllabus and lesson plans based on what you plan to do in the role.
- Eyeing a graphic design job though you boast little real-life experience? Put together some sample products for the company you are applying to.
- Going after a position that requires lots of public speaking and outreach? Upload some short videos of you delivering a brief but powerful message.
- It’s OK to admit you don’t know everything and that you don’t meet every qualification. Very few job candidates meet every single criteria of any given job. But don’t just say, “Gee, I don’t know,” or “Well, I’ve never done that,” when asked tough questions.
- It’s okay to acknowledge the gap, but remind your potential employer of some other experience that will help you minimize the gap. And be confident when you answer these hardballs questions:
- Maybe you work as an engineer, but you want to move into a managerial role and you don’t have budget experience, for example. Guess what? Engineering requires some of the same skills as managing departmental numbers.
- So you can say, “While I do lack budget experience, I’m excited about getting up to speed with that work immediately. Of course, my current role requires exacting attention to detail and the same mathematical proficiency that I will need to manage a budget. So although there will be an initial adjustment, I imagine it’s something I can pick up quickly based on my current skills.”
- Finally, don’t wait until you’re in front of your interviewer to consider how to explain the reason for your career change, because, make no mistake, you will be asked this weighted question. Plan ahead, and practice your response so you aren’t trying to articulate it aloud for the first time in an important interview:
- People make this decision for a wide variety of reasons. Whatever your motivation, leave any associated baggage at home. Again, it’s OK to briefly acknowledge that circumstances are less than perfect.
- Keep it simple, positive, and future-oriented: “I feel like I have done a lot of great work over the past three years in [name of industry]. But, I’ve reached a point in my life where I feel like it’s time to move on. I’m ready for a different kind of challenge.” From there, you can segue into how you plan to make your current skills and experiences work in your new career.
- Never lose sight of the fact that you are a multifaceted person capable of accomplishing many things and wearing different hats. Your skills and your experience are unarguably applicable to more than a single job.
