Interviewers: at ease!

In the past, I’ve been for many interviews and I’ve been nervous as hell. Even when I’ve gone for jobs that I knew I was full qualified to do, I still got myself into a bit of a panic as I went into the interview room.

Recently, I’ve been doing some interviewing and I’ve found that a majority of the candidates have been nervous too. I think the interviewer should take the initiative and try and put the interviewee at ease – the interviewer is in familiar surroundings and is holding all the cards, they must be the one to ease the tension. Also, it’s in the interviewers interests as the candidate is more likely to show their skills, and suitability for the job, when they are relaxed and happy.

So, a few things I’ve found that are good ways to put the interviewee at rest:

• One interviewer - Have only one person doing the interviewing. If you need more than one person to assess the candidate then at least start the interview with only one interviewer – that at least gives the candidate time to settle in.
• Look interested – There’s nothing worse than being interviewed by someone who looks like they’d rather be eating a shit-sandwich. If you know the person isn’t getting the job then cut the interview short; there’s no need to inflict more pain. If you’re having a bad day then leave it at the door. Looking interested can be a real problem with multiple interviewers – some interviewers tend to switch off when others are asking the questions and this real off-putting for the candidate.
• Start easy – Give the candidate some easy questions to start off with.
• Be friendly – Obvious really but an opener of “How are you?” and “Did you find us OK” and that kind of thing does settle the butterflies.
• Talk first – The interviewer should probably go over company and job details before diving into questioning; gives the candidate time to take in the situation and settle.

The most important interview skills

Interviews, they’re evil. They seem to bring the worst out in people. Personally, I manage to forget everything I know the second I step into an interview room and spend the next hour or so waffling rubbish about nothing in particular. Here’s some tips to nail that interview:

• Talk with confidence: Show the interviewers that you own your subject.
• Be friendly: Be friendly, but always be professional – this isn’t an old-boys reunion, so don’t start wheeling out the anecdotes about the time you spilt beer on the stripper. But do smile, a bit. Just try and act normal, yeah?
• Pause: If you get a question you are unsure about, don’t start rambling straight away – take a second or two to have a think about the answer. A lot of pauses could get awkward but it’s OK now and again.
• Do your homework: Look up the company. Find out what they do – the employer wants to see that you are interested in the company as well as the big money on offer. Read up about recent events and maybe pick out something about the company that you can ask about.
• Get ahead of the game: Try and work out what kind of questions you are going to be asked and have some ideas about the answers you will give. Not always easy
• The eyes have it: Look the interviewer in the eye. If there’s more than one interviewer, make sure you look at them all during the interview, don’t just address one person. Although eye-contact is good, this isn’t a staring competition – look away regularly. I always get a tea or coffee, which I can look down at on occasions to break the eye-to-eye stuff.
• Don’t get down: It can be easy to get dis-heartened if you mess up some questions early on – you might think, “I fluffed that question, there’s no way they are going to employ me now”. Don’t lose it, keep going, keep being positive and confident – yes, you screwed up but a strong performance for the rest of the interview could make them overlook your earlier mistake.
• Admit it: If you don’t know a particular answer, say so. If you have no idea of the answer then just admit to that – if you are not quite sure then say, “I’m not 100%, but I think it’s….”. No-one is perfect, no-one knows everything.
• Ask some questions: I always write some questions down on a notepad and take that with me (because I forget everything in interviews) – I ask some general questions like, “Where would I fit into the team”, “Does the company have any social events”, “What technologies do you think the company will be using in 5 years”. And so on. As well as that, I pick up specific questions during the interview. You should always ask something during the interview, it shows you are interested.