Page 60 - You're Hired! Interview Answers

n Aim to be thorough but concise in the answers you give. Interviewers’ duRing the inteRview
hearts tend to sink when they hear phrases like ‘OK I need to give you
some background first’, followed by a 10-minute description of the history
of ABC Ltd. Aim to produce answers that are no more than 2 minutes in
length – as you practise this you will realise that 2 minutes is quite a long
time to keep talking. (Two minutes is about the time it would take you
to read a closely typed A4 page out loud.) If the interviewer wants more
information, they will ask for it.

n Be aware of the speed at which you talk. It is hard to monitor this in ‘real
time’ during the interview, so it needs to be part of your preparation. Get
some feedback, or listen to a recording of yourself. Talking too quickly
when under pressure and when the adrenalin is flowing is a common fault
which needs to be remedied before the interview.

don’t
n Be long winded. Try to assess in the early stages of the interview how much

detail the interviewer is after. Are they interrupting you and trying to move
you on, or are they pausing and asking you to ‘say a bit more’. Be alert to
this and try to modify your answers accordingly.
n Be too terse. If you are asked a specific ‘closed’ question such as ‘how
many people were in your team at that point?’, then a short answer is
fine, but most of the interviewer’s questions will be ‘open’, asking you
to describe or explain something, and one-sentence answers to these
questions will make it hard work for the interviewer.
n Focus on negatives during your answers. ‘Difficult’ situations tend to stick
in our minds and are often easier to recall. While they will show that you
can overcome obstacles and persevere, too many will start to make your
working life sound like a horror story! This is why we recommend recalling
examples of things you have done well, projects that had a good result, as
part of your preparation.

Closing the interview

Research shows that what we say in the first 2 minutes of meeting someone
and what we say in the last 2 minutes have a disproportionate effect on the
impression we give. For this reason it is well worth thinking about what your
closing remarks will be.

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