Setting Yourself Up for Success in the Interview Process

Most people are familiar with the traditional interviewing advice and tips - make eye contact, arrive on time, give a firm handshake, etc. These cardinal rules of interviewing pervade job search information. While this advice is crucial, it is important to ask, is it really enough to get you a job in the current climate? Does arriving 10 minutes early really make you feel as though you have aced the interview? Does following these rules really set you apart from the rest of the candidates? Do they lower your overall anxiety and make you feel calm and confident? No, no, and no? Then, what are you to do?

Effective interviewing results not only from heeding the traditional advice, but also from taking control of the situation. You can do this by Interviewing from Multiple Perspectives.

This approach requires you to analyze the situation from multiple perspectives before, during, and after the actual interview. It encourages strategic thinking and a confident presentation. This approach also allows you to differentiate yourself from other candidates and reduce your overall anxiety about the interview process. It will enable you to feel more confident, more in control, and more prepared.

The goal is to conduct the interview that you want to have. You need to determine what you want the interviewer to know about you and then make sure that they know it. Additionally, you need to ensure that you learn what you want to about the company and position. This can only be accomplished if you are in control and act like your strong, strategic, savvy, and sure self!

Interviewing from Multiple Perspectives includes five key strategies, which encourage you to be deliberate and thoughtful throughout the entire interview process: before, during, and after. Keep in mind that this approach will not alleviate all of your anxiety (as interviews are intended to be stressful situations), but it can prevent anxiety paralysis by increasing your level of preparedness. The more work that you do up front, the more prepared, confident, and successful you will be!

BEFORE THE INTERVIEW:

1. Take a Walk in the Interviewer’s Shoes – Identify the interviewer’s pressures, concerns, and needs and plan to address them throughout the interview. You can gain this understanding through research of the company, its competitive landscape, and other pertinent external influences. Is the company just coming off the heels of a merger? If so, the interviewer may need someone who can help bring different types of people together around a common agenda. You will want to highlight examples of when you have done exactly that in past jobs. Speaking to someone who works at the target company is a great way to supplement the knowledge you will gain from Internet research.

2. Anticipate and Address Possible Concerns - Review the typical questions an interviewer will likely ask and consider them from the employer’s perspective. Try to anticipate what concerns about the future underlie the question and/or what they are looking to hear. Also, try to think about what aspects of your background may raise flags for them and plan to address these aspects directly in an upfront manner (e.g., if there are big gaps in your job history you will want to prepare in advance how you are going to address them so that you remain in control of the discussion). In addition, it is important to consider stereotypical reactions your presence may trigger and how you can subtly dispel them with your behaviors and words. Stereotypes may derive from demographic characteristics, social identities, previous employment history, career path, nature of educational institutions and training, etc.

3. Make Yourself Part of the Solution - Start with the job description of the position you are interviewing for and break it down into its component parts. Then map your strengths, skills, and experience to as many of the employer’s needs as you can. Think of specific examples from your experience that you can use as supporting evidence. Make sure that you emphasize these matches during the interview and that you are very comfortable talking about them. To practice, put each point of emphasis and the supporting examples on an index card. Say each of these points aloud - on videotape, in front of a mirror, or to someone you trust. Do not forget to bring the cards with you to review before the interview.

DURING THE INTERVIEW:

4. Put Yourself in the Driver’s Seat - Approach the interview from a position of strength and communicate with confidence and competence. How can you do this?
There are two key aspects:

a) Make it a two-way dialogue. Both you and the interviewer should be evaluating whether the job is a good match for you. Prepare specific questions to help you determine if you will fit into the organization, be set up to succeed and want to do the job. The questions should come from the criteria you have deemed important to you, as well as what you learn from your network and, of course, from thorough research of the company.

b) Act as if you already have (and are successful in) the job you want. How would you greet someone? Carry yourself? Dress? Communicate? Use this as a guide to how you should present yourself. First impressions do matter. Fake it ‘til you make it if necessary!!

AFTER THE INTERVIEW:

5. Look at Your Performance from an Outsiders Point of View – As soon as you leave the interview conduct an objective review of your performance. Identify what you did well and what could have been improved. Reflect on the parts of the interview that you feel could have gone better and generate multiple hypotheses to explain how/why they went wrong. Until you have sufficient data to validate one of the hypotheses, do not assume that you are the problem. Women tend to internalize negative messages. Do not let yourself fall into the trap of self-blame when a bad interview could have just as easily been a product of a very bad day on the interviewer’s part.

Make sure to write your thoughts down immediately following the interview, while they are still fresh in your mind. Then, within 24 hours, write a letter or send an email that incorporates both a recap of your points of emphasis and adds whatever information you wished you had communicated during the interview.

Using this approach certainly requires a lot more work than ‘winging it’. However, your in-depth preparation will pay off by allowing you to feel more confident and in control of the process. Interviewing from Multiple Perspectives will better equip you to conduct the interview that you want to have!

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About the Authors:
Adena Berkman and Adelaide Fives are the principal partners and founders of Berkman Fives, LLC, a Manhattan-based career development company focused exclusively on women. Berkman Fives aims to help women make informed career decisions, integrate career and life planning, and thereby take control of their career paths. Both women were trained at Columbia University and at the highly respected JP Morgan Chase Career Services Center, where they met.

For more information, please see www.berkmanfives.com.