This year marked three years for me in the rat race. Over those years and many interviews and failures, well almost never counts ey? I finally took a back seat and started reviewing what it was that I was not doing right, what I needed to change in-order to get to the final stage/ finish line. I started taking stock of the guys I saw going through to the finish line and this is what I find out.
- Document your wins and build a story around them
Always have the greatest achievements in your career. The moment you are asked “tell us about yourself,” during an interview, run with it. Narrate a nice story highlighting `your achievements and tell how they changed the organisation. Give a form of measure be it quantitative or qualitative e.g. I introduces the quality management system that saw us make savings of $ 100,000, this reduced the amount of time my team spent on doing rework and handling recalls….
- Brag brag brag
In school we are taught bragging is bad, well let me tell you something, if you are in the interviewee seat, do not shy off of bragging about your achievements. Don’t brag in an obnoxious way, but in a way that rouses the interviewer’s attention. Here you will describe the situation, explain what your role was, what you did and what the eventual outcome was.
- Remember it is about you
When talking about a role you played in a project or achievement of a goal be specific about what you did as a person. Use “I” as opposed to “we”. This will also vary depending on what level of leadership or team playing is required by the position. More leadership positions require to see initiative and goal setting abilities and other leadership competencies of the leader, use “I” mostly and we were appropriate. If the role requires you be working in a team setup, bring out of your role in team scenarios use “we”.
- Either or ask for feedback
If you do not make it to the final interview round always try to get feedback on which competencies you need to nurture to improve your competitiveness in future. Keep on improving and improving.
- Do not give up
I was talking with my friend about this and she told me she had made 200 applications over the past year, people never knew about this, but whenever she got a new job after an interview her friends would always tell her of “how lucky she was” if only they knew. If you have sent out only 20 applications you keep going don’t get bummed by the regret letters.
What else did I leave out, that you think is important to passing an interview?
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