(Photo credit The Jopwell Collection)
To interview well, you really do need to prepare, prepare, prepare! It’s a mistake to assume that glancing at your resume and the job description for 10-15 minutes before an interview will be enough to help you be a prepared interview candidate. It’s also a mistake to prepare several ‘perfectly written responses’ and expect that you’ll remember them word for word in an interview situation.
Over the past decade or so, I’ve conducted countless interviews and mock interviews, and provided critical feedback to help candidates improve their responses. I’ve found that there are 3 main stereotypes of interviewees that I’ve encountered – do you recognize yourself in any of them?
Type 1: Overly confident in their speaking abilities. Verbal storytelling comes naturally to this candidate, so they tend to over-rely on this ability and don’t do much interview preparation.
Does this sound like you?
“If I prepare too much, I will get bogged down in trying to remember too many things and sound too rehearsed – and I’m pretty confident that I know my own resume and that I can answer just about any question that comes my way.”
Challenge to overcome:
Just because you feel confident and speak well doesn’t mean that you actually come across that way to a practiced interviewer. An interview is an important opportunity to show you can be focused with your answers and your allotted interview time slot.
I find that this type of candidate is most likely to ramble when telling their interview stories and forget to emphasize key points.
This can become a big problem because while the candidate may be highly engaging, I worry about their ability to think ahead on projects and be efficient with their time. It also causes problems in future interview rounds where interviewers are expecting to hear concise responses.
What can you do?
Recognize that preparation will help those who are good at storytelling to become stellar at it, and will not diminish your ability to sound natural.
Type 2: Overly confident in their writing abilities. Crafting well-written interview responses is a strength for this type of candidate, however many do not practice translating these statements into the spoken word. And since most interviews require you to speak at some point, you’ll need to become good at this.
Does this sound like you?
“I have written down the perfect responses to a zillion types of interview questions. All of those sentences are floating around in my head, and I feel confident that I will be able to find the right one, remember all of its components, and speak it out loud at the right time.”
Challenge to overcome:
Two challenges - the written word rarely translates perfectly to spoken word. Don’t believe me? Try reading your cover letter out loud to a potential interviewer as your introduction about yourself - trust me, it’ll feel really awkward.
Trying to remember the ‘perfect statement’ slows you down.
What can you do? Recognize that preparation will help those who are good at storytelling to become stellar at it, and will not diminish your ability to sound natural.
Type 3: Practiced yet not robotic, feeling confident with defined areas for improvement.
Does this sound like you?
“I am feeling pretty good about any upcoming interview. I’ve practiced my interview responses, both written and spoken, so I know what key skills I want to emphasize. I’ve reviewed the job description and feel confident I know ~80% of the questions that will be asked.”
Challenges to overcome:
Working on how to prepare for the less common ~20% interview questions that will come your way (instead of feeling completely unsure of what’s coming next).
What can you do?
Pat yourself on the back for recognizing that interview prep is important and that you’ve found a successful strategy for balancing preparedness and still sounding like a real person.
