How to get the right tone in an interview
Q: I’m going for a big job interview next week. And when I say big, I mean big. The biggest I’ll have gone for so far, and perhaps the biggest I will ever tackle. I want to let them know everything. As the saying goes, I aim to leave it all our there on the […]
How to show you meet challenges head-on
Q: In the job interview, they asked me what challenges I find most difficult in my current role. To be honest, while my job is tricky and at times challenging, there’s nothing in it that I really struggle to do. I get through things well. They kept pushing for more detail and it felt like […]
Technical questions at interview
Q: I went for promotion in my own company. The interview panel surprised me by asking a lot of technical questions about my current role. I work in a highly regulated sector with countless items to check, documents to complete and reports to file. I found it difficult to articulate what I do, even though […]
How to portray your leadership and management skills
Q: The interview panel asked me if I knew the difference between leadership and management. It completely threw me. I’ve been a manager in my company for a few years and I’d always seen leadership and management as being much the same thing. I didn’t get the job and I’d like to be better prepared […]
Job interview – put yourself at the heart of your answers
Q: In the job interview, I felt I gave a good account of how things operate in my department. I talked about how we schedule our work, how we ensure that nothing slips through the cracks and how we evaluate completed projects. I didn’t get the job and the feedback was that I failed to […]
Career path – tapping into old skills
Q: I’m traveling down an old road, back to direct sales, where my career path started 20 years ago. In the interim, I have taken up some management roles, but I miss the independence of being a salesperson. However, I fear the interviewers will believe I no longer have the hunger for sales? How do […]
How to maintain focus as a job interview approaches
Q: I applied for the job yesterday, they rang first thing this morning and want to interview me on Friday. Can I therefore take it that they are very keen to hire me? (DL, email) A: Well, the scenario you describe is infinitely preferable to several alternative ones that could include them not getting back […]
How to avoid getting pipped at the post
Q: I’m in an unusual position. A job has come up in the place where I’ve been freelancing / working on a temporary basis for several years. The reality is that I am the leading contender. But there are several others who have also been freelancing here. They haven’t as much experience as me and […]
How to make your career history work with – not against – you
Q: I’ve got past the first two interviews for a major post I am chasing in a new company, and now, as I get ready for the third, they’ve insisted that they want to talk to the general manager of the company where I worked prior to my current role. This causes me a big […]
I chanced my arm – and got caught
Q: I was poorly prepared for the interview. I chanced my arm. I hadn’t practiced my answers, and I got thrown off by some easy questions. For example, I struggled on what I knew about the company (little or nothing); why I was leaving my current job (my time there is done, and this was […]