5 tips for interview preparation

1.When preparing for an interview, put yourself in the shoes of the interviewer. Based on your CV what areas would you want to explore further and how might they assess whether you have the competencies required for this position? Come up with some questions and consider what examples you could give.

2. Research the interviewer. It is all very well (and necessary) to research the business you're hoping to join, but what about the interviewer themselves? Do you know their background? Use the tools available to everyone: company website, social media profiles or other contacts of yours who might know them - certainly your recruiter. Knowing more about them might help to identify shared experiences and areas to focus on (e.g. for accountants you might both have qualified in small practice).

3. Check where you're going. If you don't know the route, or are having to rely on public transport to get you there, make sure you're 100% confident you know where they are and how long it will take you to get there. You should ideally aim to arrive at reception around 5 minutes ahead of time (any more than 10 minutes early is just annoying).

4. Make sure you can get away from the office. If you have arranged an interview at lunchtime or after work, it's a good idea to make casual reference to a personal appointment you have to attend (e.g. lunch with a relative or dinner with a friend). This can be communicated informally to avoid suspicion, but will reduce the risk of you being asked to attend a meeting or to work late at short notice. 

5. Avoid rehearsing detailed answers. Preparation is essential to leaving a good impression with an interviewer, but over-preparing your answers to potential questions can be risky. You run the risk of hearing the questions you want to hear, rather than what is being asked, and you're likely to sound robotic in your rehearsed replies. 

Use your Recruiter for interview preparation!

Guest Blog: Daniel Cumberworth @ Balance Recruitment
Daniel is a Senior Recruitment Consultant at Balance Recruitment, having joined the business in 2010. He recruits for permanent, contract and interim accountancy positions for Law Firms, primarily in London.


To many people, the term 'interview preparation' is nothing more than scanning over an employers website the night before to try and remember some key facts about the business.  

I'm not saying that's wrong, but to give you that extra edge in the interview process, why not work collaboratively with your recruiter to give you the best chance of securing the role?

Recruitment Consultants will have built up a business relationship with line managers and HR contacts over a period of time, and should therefore be best equipped to provide you with an insight into their personalities, and what to expect at interview.  Often line managers will use similar technical and scenario based questions in every interview, therefore getting this advice up front from your recruiter can really put you ahead of the pack.

In the days leading up to the interview, it's worth having a good think about your current role (i.e. key achievements, core responsibilities, difficulties overcome etc) and jot some ideas down on a piece of paper. Don't be afraid to pick up the phone and call your recruiter to discuss this, it's part of their job. 

Whether it's a case of not knowing what achievements will be relevant for this interview, or maybe there's a specific competency based interview question that you've struggled with in the past, run it past your recruiter.  They encounter these scenarios on a daily basis and should be able to assist.

The better prepared you are for the interview, the more confident you will feel. This will become clear in the interview and you will have a better chance securing your next career move.

Naturally, a good recruiter will volunteer this information and arrange a time to have this discussion, but if not, make sure to chase them up and make a note to use a different recruiter in future!

Interview myths - never talk negatively about your previous employer

It’s a commonly held belief that you should not talk negatively about previous employers/managers when interviewing.

Why?

If you’ve been working overtime to clear up the mess left behind by shoddy processes and a temperamental boss who doesn’t know what they’re doing, why should you fall in line and be expected to come up with some other reason for wanting to move on?

Maybe your boss has his or her favourites in the team, who they’d prefer to give the interesting work and promotions to, and this isn’t based on merit, but on who accompanies them to the pub most often to listen to their tales of business dominance.

So what should you do if you find yourself in this situation and you’re asked at interview why you’re looking for a move?

Tell the truth! 

It may be negative, and you would probably be wise not to go in to granular detail about all the goings-on, but if you can explain the key reason/s without getting personal and put any examples in to the context of how they have a negative impact on work performance or on your career development, then these are perfectly valid reasons and therefore a prospective employer should have no reason to cause alarm.

Exercising some discretion is of course advised, but it’s far better to be open and honest than to conjure up some alternative reason, which may come across as vague and lead them to assume (rightly) that there’s something you’re not telling them. 

Have you found yourself in this situation? How did you deal with it if so?

How to follow-up after an interview

Creating a good impression to a potential new employer can be a stressful process. We all know the importance of first impressions, but the do’s and don’ts of leaving a lasting impression are not quite so clear.

So when you’ve attended an interview and come away knowing that you will be devastated if you don’t secure the role, it’s natural to start worrying about whether there’s more you could have done during the meeting and if there’s something else you can do now to increase your chances.

Maybe I should have said this? Maybe I shouldn’t have said that? Perhaps I should connect with her on LinkedIn and stress again how keen I am? Or maybe send an email?

Now, when you’ve arranged the interview directly with the employer (with no third party/recruiter involved) this may well be wise. It should in fact have been actively encouraged by the employer. They need to know if the role appeals to you and whether you would like to progress to the next stage if invited.

However, if you’ve been introduced to the employer by a recruiter, they have intentionally appointed a third party to help with the process and will anticipate feedback to be collected and passed through via the appointed recruiter. Very rarely in this circumstance will it be encouraged or expected to make contact directly. Contrary to some advice I’ve read online!

This needn’t take away the level of influence you can still have on the process however. Firstly, be quick in debriefing your recruiter on how the interview went. The quicker you can provide feedback to them, the quicker they can pass this through to their client, which will be appreciated. It’s also important to be specific in what appealed to you about the opportunity and how and where you feel your experience/skills will be well utilised.

It may also be worthwhile putting together a carefully composed email to your recruiter as a follow-up, expressing your interest in the position. Discuss it with them and see if they feel it could help for them to forward the email on themselves. This won’t come across as pushy as sending it direct, but will still give you the opportunity to get your message through.

The urgency compromise in Recruitment/Hiring

Having had over 10 years experience of working within recruitment, I can safely say that timing is everything when it comes to a firm successfully managing a hiring process.  Unfortunately I need to add that the majority of firms fail to recognise this and demand urgency when it’s not required and then expect patience when they should be acting quickly.

The outcome can greatly impact the calibre of candidates that are put forward for vacancies by recruiters, and can lead to employers missing out on talent they were hoping to secure.

On many occasions I have been instructed with a vacancy on a Wednesday or Thursday and have been told that the hiring manager is hoping to have CV’s through by the weekend. A shortlist has been sent to the hiring manager within this timescale, but then there has been no feedback on the CV’s until later the following week, or even longer in some cases.

This to me is wasted time. If the hiring manager is prepared to wait a week before reviewing CV’s and arranging interviews, they could have allowed the recruiter another week to spend time finding the best available candidates for their shortlist. Admittedly a good recruiter will already have an existing database of jobseekers and will be able to react quickly, but a good recruiter should also be able to go to the market to find new talent who may be even closer to the requirements of the role and produce a definitive shortlist at the end of this process.

A good proportion of the vacancies we have filled within my business have been with applicants who were not actively looking for their next move at the time. Having been approached and briefed about a suitable role however, they have considered the opportunity, met with us to discuss it in more detail and have gone ahead with an application. This process can rarely happen within 24-48 hours and rushing to receive CV’s will therefore rule out the largest potential candidate market available; those who aren’t actively looking (yet!).

There is also a high chance of missing out on candidates altogether when encouraging recruiters to send through only readily available applicants and then taking too long before reviewing CV’s. These candidates are likely to be very active in their job search and, even if they are still available a week or two down the line, they may not want to arrange further interviews if they’re already progressing to final stages elsewhere. This can put a supposedly “urgent” process back to the drawing board two to three weeks after it started.

The recruitment process rarely runs completely smoothly as there are too many variables affecting the outcome and causing delays. The whole process is generally a task that needs to be completed in addition to the hiring manager’s already busy workload. It’s therefore extremely important to put in place a realistic timetable for the recruitment process, and if you want to attract the best talent for your firm it may be worth allowing a little more time for a thorough search to be carried out before asking to review CV’s from a recruiter.

If you've enjoyed this blog, please do share any comments/views/experiences you've had in relation to this topic below. 

Researching an employer ahead of an interview

Everyone knows they've got to do it. The majority will spend time on it. But how many see value in it, other than to prove during interview that they've done a bit of research?

From my experience, I'd make an educated guess that's it's around 50/50. That's a high proportion of people who don't understand the benefit of doing some homework prior to an interview and therefore put themselves at a disadvantage in the recruitment process. If you fall in to this category, it's time to change!

Employers do of course want to know that the individual they're interviewing has looked through their website. It's the minimum expectation. Depending on the firm, their website may well provide nearly everything you need to know to get an impression of the firm from a potential employee's perspective. A detailed 'careers' section and a content rich 'news' feed are great sources of information. Many company websites don't provide such useful info however, and in these cases you'll need to look further afield. 

When asked at interview what you know about the firm, very few interviewers want to hear just stats and facts, e.g; "I know the business was established in 1845 by Sir Joe Bloggs, and now has 42 offices in 25 countries across the EMEA region, with 2500 staff serving over 600 clients". They want to see an understanding of what the business actually does, their culture, how they engage with their customers and what they're trying to achieve. It's also reasonable to expect that if they've been in the press lately (trade press or mainstream) the interviewee may well be aware of it.

The key point here though, is that you might not actually be asked "what do you know about the business?". If all you've done to prepare is memorise the number of offices and staff they have, you're going to struggle to drop it in to conversation naturally and are therefore unlikely to leave the impression that this is a business you know much about and are genuinely interested to join. 

Fortunately, other sources of information are easy to come by. A simple search of the employer name on Google, filtered to 'news' results may bring up some invaluable topical information about the business. Wikipedia might provide some useful data too. One of the best sources however is online trade publications e.g. in the UK, for a Law Firm visit: www.thelawyer.com, or for a Retail business: www.retail-week.com. All industries will have something similar (and if they don't - there's a good business venture!). 

Finding topical news articles can create great opportunities to show your interest and understanding of the business, by asking questions such as: "I read that you're opening an office in Paris this month. Would this role have any involvement with the overseas offices?". This can set you apart from other interviewees and is very helpful to have in mind when you're asked in the interview if you have any questions.

If you're interviewing via a recruitment business, the other key source of information is your recruitment consultant. A good recruiter will be a goldmine of information, and will expect (rather than wait) to be involved in your preparations for interview by sharing their knowledge of the firm.