Preparing for an Interview

It is important to do some preparation prior to an interview. You do not know exactly what questions will be asked, so it is important to do some general preparation about you and your abilities. The preparation will give you the ability to quickly recall information when answering questions.

Depending on what you are used to you could prepare in different ways. You could write lists, or brainstorm. You could also sit down with someone you know really well and do some 'mock' interviews to practice your interview technique.

Some people are better than others when it comes to selling themselves but what you must be able to do is show self-confidence; that you are sure of whom you are and your ability to do the job.

Think about the following points and take your notes: -

1. Research the company
1. Mission statement
2. Long term objectives
2. Read and dissect the job description (look back at the tips for preparing your application)
3. List your strengths & how they apply to the aspects of the role
4. List your weaknesses and what you do to overcome them
5. Who you are as a person
1. Your behaviour
2. High standards
3. Friendly
4. Honest
5. Approachable, etc
6. What motivates you
1. Quality
2. Adding value
3. A challenging role
4. Doing something fresh; something new; something innovative
7. Have a clear understanding of what the expectations of the job are
1. Again, back to the job description - make sure you understand what the expectations are
8. Why you think you are the person for the job
1. Be honest - sell yourself!
9. Think about your experience
1. What have you achieved?

Example interview questions

You have to consider the role and the requirements. For example, if it is a management role or leadership role, then expect questions and your answers to contain elements of leadership; if it is a technical job, then expect questions and your answers to contain examples of your technical ability.

I have listed a few 'closed' questions here (i.e. questions that can be answered with 'yes' or 'no' - do not fall into this trap, always elaborate on your response with examples).

About you: -

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your work experience
1. Tell us your best moments/not so great moments
2. What are your strengths & how do they apply to the job?
3. What are you weaknesses and how do you overcome them?
4. What motivates you to achieve; what drives you?
5. Are you a reliable person?
6. Are you flexible in your approach to work?
7. Do you feel passionate about what you do?
1. What is your favourite part about what you do?
2. What is your passion?
8. What are your aspirations?
1. 1/3/5 year plan - where do you see yourself in 5 years?

The role: -

1. What can you bring to this role?
2. Why should we hire you for this job?
3. What challenges do you think this role will bring?
4. What do you see as being the main challenge in this role?

Your development: -

1. Tell us the last training course you attended.
2. Do you actively pursue personal development opportunities?

Team Work: -

1. What are your strengths as a team member?
2. Do you have the ability to encourage and maintain good working relationships?
1. How do you do this?
3. What role do you play in a team environment?
4. Have you ever worked in a poor performing team? How did you cope?
5. Give me an example of when you had to be particularly supportive to others in a team.

Innovation: -

1. Give me an example of when you have shown creativity.
2. Give me an example of a time when you used a less common approach to work.
3. Do you feel that your ideas are always listen to?
4. Do you feel that you have good ideas?
5. Are you creative?
6. Can you provide a situation where your ideas have been criticised? How did you deal with this? Did you feel it was unfair?

Time management: -

1. Give me an example of when you had to work to an important deadline.
2. How do you manage your time effectively?
3. Describe a situation where you have had to deal with a high degree of pressure.

Policy and procedure: -

1. Can you tell me about a time when it was essential that you followed clear policies or procedures?
2. Are you capable of following policy & procedure?
3. Do you think it is important to follow policy and procedure? Why?
4. Has there ever been a time where you have not followed policy/procedure? What happened?
5. In your experience, have you ever had to complete paper work or reports as part of your role? How did you cope with this?

Communication: -

1. Do you think communication is important?
2. Would you define yourself as a good communicator?
3. Tell me about a time when you found it difficult to build an effective working relationship with a customer or colleague?
4. Describe a situation where you had difficulty persuading someone around to your point of view.
5. How do you manage difficult people?
6. Can you deal with conflict? How?

Performance: -

1. How do you measure your performance?
2. How do you know that you are successful?
3. Give an example of a goal you reached and tell me how you achieved it.
4. Give an example of a goal you didn't meet and how you handled it.
5. Have you ever made a mistake? How did you handle it?

Quality: -

1. How do you determine quality?
2. Do you believe in delivering the best quality?

The customer: -

1. Define excellent customer service.
2. Are you comfortable speaking to people you don't know?
3. What is the best way to deal with a customer complaint?
4. Give me an example of a time when you had to satisfy a particular customer or client need (this could be an internal or external 'customer').

Other questions: -

1. If you know your boss is 100% wrong about something how would you handle it?

Prepare some questions for the panel

1. Try to stay away from terms and conditions…
2. What are the future prospects of this role?
3. Who will I be reporting to?
4. Who will be setting out my objectives?
5. Can you describe the team culture
6. What are the organisations long term objectives, and how do they apply to this role?
7. How does this role fit in with the rest of the organisation?

Other tips: -

1. Listen to the question and make sure you understand what it is that is being asked.
2. Respond appropriately. Pause before you respond.
3. Think about projects that you have been involved in and what you achieved. What learning's can you apply to this role?
4. Some more info can be found at About.Com.

Click here to read 25 questions you probably won't get asked...but worth reading anyway!!

I hope this helps you to prepare for your interview!

Thanks,

Chris

Maximising the tweetdeck search facility

I really wanted to find a way to utilise Tweetdeck to find out what people were talking about in a specific area. For example, I live in Leven and I wanted to know what people were saying about the town. A simple search using Twitter or Tweetdeck will give you the result you are looking for, although unfortunately Leven is also ‘Life’ in Dutch! I desperately needed to find a way to control the search by location in order to cut out irrelevant chat.

Using Tweetdeck you can search for a term within a certain radius of a specific location using a Geocode. I had to do a small amount of research in order to do this and I cannot remember what the references are.

Using this technique effectively will allow you to refine your on-line reputation management for your business

Geocodes are not easy to come by although a simple search on Google will provide you with one.

• St Andrews - 56.33555119444445, -2.796599861111111
• Kennoway Area - 56.22,-2.98

The term you should use in the search column is this: -

[term] geocode:[value],[value],[radius]

An example for the term ‘Leven’: -

Leven geocode:56.22,-2.98,100km

Result is anyone mentioning the term ‘Leven’ within a 100km radius of the Kennoway area. This proved to be VERY useful and now I can quickly see the relevant chat, thus saving me time and effort from weeding out the irrelevant chat.

I also have searches for 'St Andrews' in the St Andrews area, 'New Hall' in the St Andrews area and many more.

Please feel free to comment on this post.

Thanks for reading,

Chris.

Creating a Winning Team

As a manager and leader you really want your team to be empowered to make their own decisions, but that does not happen overnight. One of the first things that has to be done is to sit down with the team and agree the team operating values.

I used this technique with a newly established team just recently. It really helps to get the whole together in one room and chat about what they consider to be important in a team environment.

The flow chart below highlights the main areas of discussion when discussing team work: -

This exercise can be used along with the previous values/motivators discussion which will allow the team to think about why they are here and what they feel is important to them as individuals; setting the scene for this next discussion about team work.

Facilitating a discussion

If you have read my previous posts you will know that what I tend to do when facilitating group discussions is ask a lot of questions and use what the team come up with to steer the discussion, whilst ensuring the discussion is kept relevant and going in the correct direction. This technique will allow for open discussion. Just remember to listen and ask the team members to elaborate on points made; sometimes it is far too easy to spout out one word answers.

What you need

1. Your team all in the same room
2. A flip chart to capture everything
3. Motivation and energy
4. A positive attitude
5. An open mind

1. Identify your team

Spend time discussing with the team who they consider to be their team members. It is important that the whole team agree and that you as the manager are happy with the result the team come up with.

As the facilitator you should already know what answer you are looking for. Think about the bigger picture; there will most likely be sub teams within larger teams. It will be interesting to see what the team come up with and will highlight how each person thinks.

2. Agreeing Team Values

Make use of one of my previous posts about getting to know your employees which will help you facilitate discussion about team values and motivators. The result will allow the team to think about why they are here and what they consider to be important about working in the team. This will allow the team to really understand what their team is all about and why they do what they do. Again, it is vital that everyone agrees with what is discussed.

3. Operating from the bottom-up

By hosting a focus group like this you are allowing the bottom-up approach to take shape; allowing your employees to make decisions and influence the future of the organisation and how their team operates.

I feel that it is vital to open up the communication channels from the very start and show the team that their ideas are listened to and considered. The worst thing you can do is shut them down; you will find that a lot of good ideas will come from your team and you have to give them the platform to expresses themselves and try out new ideas, without the fear of getting into any sort of trouble.

4. One voice

A very important factor in teamwork is to ensure the team are all delivering the the service with the same message; they use the same language, they behave in the same ways.

Again, this forum setting will allow the team to start to form a message and agree on the values of the team.

5. Having a friend at work

Some may think this is not all that important but I have found that having at least one person you can confide in at work is very important. If anything, it allows those who are having a bad day to get things of their chest and know that the person they are confiding will not take it personally and not discuss it with anyone else.

It is important to highlight here that not everyone will have that one person. As a manager you have to pick up on this, it may be that you can be that person.

6. Have an overriding goal

A fairly obvious point; the team must have an objective, something to focus on - quite high level in this case.

Examples could be: -

• "To deliver the best service"
• "Get it right first time"
• "Have no customer complaints"
• "To be better than everyone else"

Typical Questions

• If you were able to create a team, what values would you expect?
• What makes a good team a good team?
• How should a good team operate?

This is a great start for discussing team work with your team and is the start of many posts about team work.

Thanks for reading,

Chris