how to handle stress Archives - Job Interview Coaching

May 5, 2021May 5, 2021

How to Embed The Three Rules for a Successful Job Interview

First, the 3 rules for a successful job interview are:

Rule 1 – identify the job criteria
Rule 2 – be a self-promoter
Rule 3 – communicate with confidence

More often than not, job offers are given to candidates that utilise the three rules of a successful job interview throughout the recruitment process.

The three rules are universal and work in a variety of different recruitment processes and interview models, from an informal job interview to a structured interview, to an all-day recruitment event.

The power of the three rules is down to how, when combined, they help to sculpture a positive interview identity.

An ‘interview identity’ is one of sixteen interview personality types that are prevalent in the job interview. The identity is how an employer perceives the applicant.

How an employer views an applicant, desirable or undesirable, skilled or unskilled, liked or disliked, affects the subconscious scoring allocation of each interview question.

Therefore, the three rules of a successful interview help to reinforce a positive interview identity:

These four interview identities often receive high-scoring points, compared to other weaker identities, including:

It isn’t only the duration in an industry (job experience) or a degree level qualification (academic ability) that results in high-scoring interview answers, but the applicant’s presence and communication style that creates the employer’s positive perception of a strong candidate.

As an example, some highly experienced interviewees fail, time and time again, to land high salaried job roles because their own self-worth results in a poor communication style.

This article will teach you have to be viewed as highly skilled and confident by any employer.

How to identify the job criteria?

Rule one, the identification of the job criteria, is key to receiving a job offer.

Why? Without possessing a deep understanding of the job criteria – the skill, qualities and experiences an employer requires for the advertised job position, an applicant won’t have the insight to choose job-relevant interview answers and examples.

This lack of insight can lead to candidates going off-topic, giving descriptive answers that have nothing to do with their future job role, and the use of jargon that isn’t understood by an employer (as it has nothing whatsoever to do with their job sector).

Identifying the job criteria allows a skilled career professional to reference 3-5 skills, qualities and experiences, required by the employer, in each job interview answer. Furthermore, the explanation of sector-related models and theories, plus industry jargon, reinforce the positive interview identity the employer is forming.

In short, each answer scores high and employers have a positive feeling that the applicant would work well within their organisation.

Quick ways to identify the job criteria.

Three ways to easily identify the job criteria.

Each essential criterion, in the main, will each be part of a job interview question.

For many job interviews, the employer will follow a structured job interview process, where each answer will be allocated a score. The answers stating the highest number of criteria, generally speaking, will gain the highest score.

This is because the job interview is designed to predict job performance.

The more criterion the applicant confidently shows they possess, the more likely it is that the applicant will be a highly-skilled worker.

Without question, all job hunters should review the job specification for the position they are being interviewed for.

The employer’s job spec list of the required job criteria, specifying which criteria are essential or desirable.

Additionally, a clever applicant can analyse the job spec to search for repeated mentions of certain criteria. If a criteria has been reference several times throughout the job spec (and in the job advert) then this criteria is, more than likely, going to be one of the key job interview questions.

If the job position’s job spec lacks detail, a second way to predict the criteria, and therefore the job interview questions, is to read a ‘job profile’.

A job profile is a tool career advisors use to help understand various job roles. The profile consists of the job duties, required skills, entry routs and salary bands.

For most roles, the skills are required for all employers: communication skills for a sales executive or a creative mind for a problem-solving position. Therefore, the job profiles list of duties and required skills can be used to plan interview answers to predicted questions.

A third way to use predict job interview questions is to use your online network.

Linkedin, as an example, can be used to contact people who work or have worked in the organsiation for the advertised position. Many people who use social media are more than happy to help others, even going as far as providing a list of job interview questions and ideal answers.

WARNING – you need to do your research before reaching out to any old employee. You never know if one of the people you are reaching out to is going to be part of the interview panel.

We recommend having a foot-in-the-door approach:

Make contact with a person who is working for the organisation, stating that you saw they are working for X company and that you are also interested in applying for a job there. Ask for their opinion about the company. Once a response has been received, you can then explain you have an interview and ask for ‘any tips’. This can even lead to asking for potential questions, depending on the replies you are receiving.

Another online tool is a career forum website, such as glassdoors, that encourages interviewees and employees to share their interview questions and opinions about employers.

How to be a self-promoter

The law of a job interview is: an employer can only score an applicant on what they have discussed during the job interview.

It is this rule that is the barrier to internal candidates being interviewed by their line manager.

Many internal candidates will fail to mention business-as-usual tasks because they know that their line manager knows that they are competent with these tasks.

However, if the business-as-usual tasks form part of the scoring criteria on the interview scorecard and an internal job applicant does not reference these, the interview panel will be forced to score them low due to the process of a structured job interview.

What is required is self-promotion.

Consistently good interviewee’s are skilled self-promoters. Each answer given is clear, structured and states what the applicant, themselves, did to achieve a positive outcome.

DO NOT:

Think it is arrogant to talk about your own successes
Believe you have ‘imposture syndrome’ – you were offered a job interview based on your past experience and academic ability
Self-disclose weakness

To be a self-promoter:

Utilise none-verbals; strong eye contact, smile, gesture and positive and powerful body language
Vary language and use positive emotional words and powerful language
Explain in detail what YOU did to overcome problems
Detail how a skill (from an example) can be utilised in the interviewer’s company
Reframe any mistakes or weaknesses as learning points

How to communicate with confidence

Communication is king in the job interview

As mentioned above, failing to mention key criteria can only result in low scoring interview answers.

In addition to discussing essential criteria, the way skills, qualities and experiences are communicated influence how they are received.

An example of this is stating acronyms that aren’t reconisgnise by an employer or mumbling. The use of filler words, a monotone voice, and short snappy answers will also create a negative interview identity.

Employers admire confidence.

A confident team with the required experience are likely to be a high-performing team. In addition, trust is closely linked to confidence.

Employers, therefore, subconsciously score applicants who communicate confidently slightly higher than a weak communicator.

To communicate confidently:

Complete pre-interview voice warm-ups
Make small talk at the interview start to build rapport
Vary tonality, projection, and emotions
Focus on pace; speed up to create excitement and slow down when stating positive outcomes
When feeling nervous (or a dry-mouth) stop and drink water
Be humorous or smile is that comes naturally
Explain answers in detail as a high number of words per answer, research shows, gain higher scores
Be expressive – use gestures and positive body language
Debate ideas, and even challenge an employer opinion (in a professional and friendly way)
Ask the interview panel questions throughout the job interview, to create a conversation not a Q&A process

A successful job interview

Much research shows how the 3 rules; identifying the job criteria, being a self-promoter and communicating with confidence, will be vastly improve a candidate’s chances of winning the job offer.

Career professionals who struggle with gaining career advancement due to a high number of failed job interviews can analyse their interview performance to identify which of the 3 rules they are failing to implement.

With this reflection, and using the advice in this article, once weak interviewees can become strong applicants altering their job interview identity from a weak identity to one of the 4 strongest interview identities.

April 30, 2021April 30, 2021

How to answer the ‘where do you work question?’ if you are unemployed

Being unemployed, for many job seekers, creates its own barrier when attending a job interview.

Applicants often feel that being unemployed puts them at a disadvantage.

The reason for this unnecessary fear is the negative associations attached to the stereotype:

Laziness
Unemployable
Lacking the required skills

The truth is, employers, in the main, do not have bias based of whether an applicant is employed or unemployed.

Instead, the interview panel score applicants based on their ability to meet the job criteria, highlighted by their perceived level of sector knowledge and industry experience.

Employers are aware of the reasons for being currently unemployed, which can include:

Career gap
Redundancy
Change in career
Leaving education
Contract end/short-term contract of employment

Even so, the interview question ‘where are you working at the moment?’ or ‘who is your current employer?’ can be a tricky question to answer.

This article will help guide an unemployed job applicant through the steps required to give a strong answer when asked ‘where do you work?’

Preparing an interview answer

The ‘where are you working’ question can be asked in two settings:

As part of the structured job interview process
Informally, at the interview start

It doesn’t matter when or how the interview question is asked, what is important is the applicants response.

Interview anxiety

The anxiety of being asked a curveball interview question is the emotional turmoil it creates.

What the mind focuses on the body feels.

If an applicant is worried about the ‘unemployment’ question, their nervousness and anxiety will effect the whole job interview process; answers will be short and snappy, lacking detail. Communication will be mumbled and use of filler words will be high. Nervous twitches and lack of eye contact result in broken rapport.

To reduce job interview anxiety, the applicants focus needs to be directed onto their achievements during the unemployment period.

Preparing answers that highlight skills and knowledge gained while being unemployed.

This could be in the form of accredited courses, CPD or volunteering. Many career professionals have side hustle and part time businesses or can show leadership skills from being on the board of their child’s school.

What is important is the direction of the mind. The brain can only consciously focus on one thing at a time, direct this focus strengths as a positive focus is the pathway to confidence.

4 Tips for answering the unemployment question

Tip 1 – give the reason for being unemployed.

Being made redundant isn’t a negative. By stating the reason for the company, you previously worked at, making redundancies gives context. Humans like to have reasons, they find them reassuring. Without a reason, people will guess which is when an unconscious bias can come into play.

The ‘context’ strategy is required for all reasons for being unemployed. If a career professional choose to leave a job, an explanation, stated is a positive, is required. This could include: being a carer for a ill relative, to gain a new industry recognised qualification, or to gain a life skill by (travelling the world)

Tip 2 – share lessons learnt

Time off work has one key advantage, the career professional gets the opportunity to reflect on their career choices. Keeping the positive ‘frame’ going, applicants can state how having time out of work allowed them to reflect on their ideal career and company. During this period the applicant can state how they had time to research organisations to find a company with the right values, and how this is the reason why the applied for this role.

Tip 3 – what can the applicant offer?

All job interviews are designed to predict the interviewee’s potential job performance. It is important, therefore, for the candidate to state clearly what added value they can bring to the organisation. The first of the three rules for a successful job interview is ‘identifying the job criteria’. All answers, promotional points and interview stories must reference the job criteria for the advertised position. In short, applicants need to tell the interview panel that they possess the required knowledge and experience for the role.

Tip 4 – avoid focusing on unemployment

Any interview question can be reframed. If an interviewer asks about a weakness, the applicant can reframe their answer to talk about lessons learned. The ‘reframe’ can be utilised with the ‘unemployment’ question. Instead of focusing on why the applicant is unemployed focus the answer on what the candidate can bring to the team.

Attitude is king in the interview.

Confident and charismatic applicants do better than nervous and unsure interviewees.

Stating how the ‘unemployment’ period was a horrible and troubling time creates a different emotional connection between the applicant and employer than an answer that happily states ‘this was the best thing that could have happened to me’.

However an answer is framed, it is the applicants communication and non-verbal communication, the packaging of the answer, that will increase and decrease the allocated scores to the interview question.

Interviewers warm to applicants that look confident;

positive body language
strong eye contact
warming smiling
confident communicate; long descriptive answers, positive emotional words, strong diction, pace and volume.

Always remember – confidence builds trust.

Will you be asked about being unemployed?

In most structured job interviews there will be a pre-set of interview questions that all applicants are asked.

Generally speaking, there won’t be a ‘unemployment’ question.

Instead, interviewers will ask:

‘Tell me about yourself?’
‘Explain why you are suitable for this role?’
‘Why did you apply for this position?’

All of the above examples can lead to nervous applicants explaining why they are currently unemployed.

Research shows that anxious applicants are more likely to self-disclose weaknesses, including the referencing of being unemployed.

Take the lead from confident candidates who state all answers in the positive and reframe any negative follow-up questions so they are viewed in the best possible light.

April 8, 2021April 26, 2022

How Do You Handle Stress?

The most widely asked job interview questions include ‘how do you handle a difficult situation?‘ and the ‘how do you handle stress?

Employers, as well as reviewing industry related knowledge and experience, also check applicants temperament and qualities during the interview process.

As well as being asked for high stressed job roles, the stress question is common across most job sectors. Therefore, it is important for all interviewees, no matter their job level, to prepare for the ‘stress’ question.

This article will to teach you how to answer the job interview question: ‘how do you handle stress?’

The ‘stress’ interview question come in different forms:

‘Tell me about a time a project or task made you stressed ?’
‘If X stressful situation happened, what would you do?’
‘How do you plan your workload when you have several high important projects with similar deadlines?’

What is important, when answering an interview question on stress, is to cover three key aspects:

Pre-planning
Organisation
Emotional Intelligence

The mistake, that many applicants make, is to discuss how stressed they become in certain situations:

‘Managing multiple projects at the same time is very stressful’
‘Deadlines make it hard for me to sleep at night’
‘I often worry when I am behind on my targets’

The admission of situational stress can give an employer concerns. ‘Behavioral interview questions‘ which is the format the ‘stress’ question comes in, look at past actions to determine future situations.

If an applicant admits to becoming stressed in an environment that will be required in the new job role, it is unlikely that the recruiting manager will want to offer the job role to the interviewee.

A good way to reframe the stress question is to generalise the reason why career professionals can become stressed.

The interview answer should start with an ambiguous statement to creates the authenticity of a specific answer:

‘Stress comes from a lack of planning. An example of this is when a (job role) doesn’t plan for (situation)…’

This example highlight industry related stressful situations without stating how the applicant themselves have been previously stressed.

The second step to answering the stress question is for the candidate to showcase their proactiveness.

‘…When I know about (a new contract, upcoming deadlines, busy periods of the year, etc) I pro-actively plan to ensure that tasks are achieved without becoming stressed. As an example (discuss a planning or time management model or give a real-life example)..’

Next explain why an organised approach reduces stress. There are many approaches to this section of the answer. The key is to pick an explanation to will resonate with the employer.

Interviewees can embed any of the following suggestions into their reply.

Use of GANNT charts
Delegating tasks
Diary management
Collaboration with stakeholders
Taking the lead of a team/project

‘…this organised approach I take, reduces stress, not just for me but for the whole team. Even when a unknown or unplanned for event happens I am to calmly organise what is needed to overcome any problem, compared to stressfully charging in without any planning which often leads to an increase in stress and errors. The tools I use include (add tool/technique)…’

The final section of the answer is for the candidate to focus on the answer on their emotional intelligence and how they can recognize the signs of stress:

‘…The key to handling stress, apart from being well-organised is to be aware of the signs of stress. Most people ignore these and only react once they are fully stressed. A better solution is to be aware of stress indicators and then do something to relieve stress. for me, my indicators are (headaches, not sleeping, procrastination, etc) when I feel this I (solution – run, mindfulness, meditation).’