This simple approach will blow up your interview game and get you the job

I have interviewed a lot of people over the years. The number one thing that puts me off straight away is not answering the question. Even though there is a lot of talking (usually attributable to nerves) the candidate ends up waffling and doesn´t get to the point.

What´s the result? I am no further forward in establishing if they can actually do the job and now they have a black mark against them for communication skills. 

Many of the jobs I interview for are project management roles. Key skills for PMs are the ability to listen, process information quickly and then give a concise response. They may need to present to the senior leadership team at some point and I am not going to send in someone to do that presentation if I´m not confident in their ability to be concise and relevant. And answer the question.

What can you do?

It's ok to take a pause to think first, and then repeat back to the interviewer what you have heard. This demonstrates good listening and gives you time to formulate your response while making sure you are on the right track. 

For example, you can say something like “ so you are looking for an example of a situation where I delivered a project with tricky stakeholders and how I dealt with them, yes?”

One of the great things about doing remote interviews is that you can also write the question in your notebook for reference and no one can see you! You can then refer back to your notes if you need to.

How to answer the question

Sometimes it’s not so much what you say, as how you say it.

Being able to give a structured answer demonstrates effective and concise communication, but also makes it easier for the interviewer to focus on the salient points, ie can you do the job?

My recommendation here is to follow the STAR approach. Situation, Task, Action, Result. Too many candidates get hung up on telling me the in-depth details of their project, why the company wanted to do the project, how the project was set up….and honestly?

I don´t care.

I want a brief summary of the SITUATION, I want to know what your TASK was, what ACTION you took and what the RESULT was. I don´t need to know anything about the actual project or the people involved.

An example:

Q. Tell me about a time you had to deal with someone in the project team not completing their deliverables on time?

A. I was working on a project to launch a new product and the marketing guy wasn´t completing his tasks on time (SITUATION). I needed to get the marketing information signed off to be able to give it to the developers for the website launch by a specific date (TASK).

I arranged a meeting with the marketing guy to talk through how I could help him to achieve his deadlines, by removing blockers or providing additional support from elsewhere in the team (ACTION).

He explained that his boss had given him competing priorities and we agreed that I would ask my boss to speak to his boss to prioritise his workload.

Within a couple of days his boss had allocated someone to help him complete the tasks for our project and we were able to meet the deadline (RESULT).

If you follow this approach you will increase your chances of interview success. If you really want to shine you will add extra details that demonstrate your skills further.

For example, you could say “I had prepared the project plan and could see from my critical path analysis that several areas of the project were dependent on the deliverables from the Marketing department”.

This shows planning skills, the ability to analyse the plan, identify the critical path and the key dependencies, and to then pinpoint the area that required action, not just communication and influencing skills as per the previous answer. Make the most of every question to demonstrate relevant skills.

This example is relevant for project managers but you can use the same format for the role you want. Make sure that you have prepared this kind of response for the most likely questions and that you know your examples.

But how can you predict the questions, you´re not a mind reader??

By going through the job description first and highlighting the key skills and experience. And if something is stated more than once then it is more likely to be something that´s important to them and will be asked about at interview.

And finally, make sure you have done some research on the company before the interview. Check the industry press for mentions of the company, connect with people on LinkedIn who already work there, and check Glassdoor.com for insights on what it´s like to work there…it may also have some example interview questions you can work on.

You will then be able to ask relevant questions about the company or the job when the time comes. It´s very frustrating to get to the end of an interview and to ask a candidate “do you have any questions for me/us?” and to get a “no, not really” response.

If there are two good candidates and one has done his homework and asked a relevant question or two at the end guess which one I am more likely hire?

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