How to Prepare for an Interview
Tips for building confidence and getting that dream job
By Honey Patel, Founder of Career Companion
Job interviews can be an intimidating process, even for the most confident people – but there’s one simple secret that will help you make the right impact and keep your career on track – preparation. With the right preparation, you’ll showcase your skills with confidence and walk out with your head held high. Without it, even the most skilled people are likely to drop the ball under this kind of pressure.
So, how do you prepare for a job interview? There are two key ingredients for success: content and delivery. Content refers to knowing the specific answers to questions you’re likely to get during the interview process. Delivery is about how you communicate – through your tone, volume, clarity of speaking, etc.
Think of it this way: What would you do if you had to give a Ted Talk? Firstly, you’d spend time drafting and redrafting your content so that it’s engaging, interesting and relevant to the subject. Then you’d practice it over and over again, on audio, on video and even with a test audience until it was perfect. You can essentially use the same process for interviewing. Here’s how:
Step One: Prepare Your Content – Interview questions often focus on specific areas of your skills, the industry you work in, your career plans and your ability to work with people. It’s important to consider what these questions will focus on and prepare your answers in advance. Some popular questions to include are:
- What are your strengths and areas of improvement?
- Where do you see yourself in 1-3 years?
- Describe a situation when you solved a job-related problem
Remember to keep these questions relevant to your experience and to the job you’re interviewing for and take the time to ensure that you’re covering all your bases.
Career Companion gives you the perfect space to do this step of your interview preparation. The platform offers 100+ interview questions to choose from (as well as the functionality to set your own questions) and the space to answer each question in full detail. By answering your chosen questions in simple 3-point structured responses in an outline format, you don’t have to prepare a full script – just outline the 3 key points you want to hit.
Step Two: Practice Interviewing – This is where your ‘mock interview’ comes in to play. It’s a simple process where you stimulate a real interview environment by having someone interview you for a specific role. You can ask a family or friend to do this, and Career Companion has a list of tools where you can mock interview online. Here, you can focus on delivering your 3-point responses to familiarize yourself with interview situations and ensure that you’re communicating clearly with your ‘interviewer’. Practice makes perfect and by knowing your content from start to finish, you’ll feel confident in your interview skills and with the interview environment itself.
Remember, your interview is part what you say and part how you say it – and preparation is key to conquering both these elements!
