For this practice I had enlisted one of the interns on my team (thanks again Ben! For payment feel free to use one of the photos of you looking professional here to update your LinkedIn) to be a quasi “interviewer”, while I sat in the corner and took some notes (given I am currently employed, by definition I must have passed at least one interview in my life and am therefore an expert). To simulate an interview environment more, we had him already sat down in another booth until he called Harry (and myself in), whilst since Harry had already talked in the past of his desires to potentially work in admin in the future, I had sent Ben over a list of job interview questions which were mainly office/admin-related.As I have mentioned before, one thing that has always impressed me about Harry is his confidence, as he didn’t come across at all nervous for what must have been a very novel experience when meeting Ben. In fact this confidence maybe came across a little too strong at one point, on being asked the standard interview question “Do you have any weaknesses?”, Harry answered with a flat “No.” leaving poor Ben awkwardly having to move on to the next question whilst I stymied some giggles.
They interviewed together for a good 10 minutes before I decided to draw thing to a close, and give Harry some feedback on some points for improvement (there is also a photo of these notes here, for those brave/foolish enough to try and read through my scribbles). My first bit of feedback was the importance of body language, to really try and “fill the room” as you enter (apologies for the corporate jargon) by introducing yourself, giving some eye contact (but not too much that it gets creepy – this interview was on Halloween) and a firm handshake – for those wondering, in one of the photos of my giving feedback to Harry that is me gesturing a nice firm handshake!
Harry had also been subconsciously fiddling with his lanyard for much of the interview, as one of the world’s worst fiddlers (just ask any of my primary school teachers) this is definitely something I could relate to, but I tried to explain to him that if he does need to do something with his hands to try and keep it below the eye-line of the table so as not to cause too much of a distraction to others in the room. (Though one huge advantage for us fidgets in this increasingly globalised/technologised world is that the increasing prevalence of Skype interviews means we can sit on our hands without it looking weird.)
Another takeaway was the importance of examples, as with the weaknesses question I explained that it is extremely rare that interviewers will be looking for a one word answer; but here I think that this is naturally something that will become easier for Harry the more he has interviews and starts experiencing the same questions again and again. And with this, I also emphasised that it is important that each example is relevant to the job being interviewed for and will make you come across more employable. For example on getting a more abstract question on what his favourite biscuit is, Harry started talking about how he always helps his mum with the shopping to get his favourite chocolate biscuits, this was all great to show he has a personality but probably wasn’t too relevant to the question at hand.
The final takeaway (similar to another one we covered when working on the CV) was to always sell yourself! For example when being asked about his hobbies Harry mentioned he likes playing the piano in passing, but neglecting to mention how regularly he practises and that he performs sometimes – skills I wish I could add to my CV. He mentioned his punctuality but said he was on time for our meeting today because his bus is never late – both underplaying the input needed from him needed to get to the bus stop before this and the nerve needed to put ones faith in the reliability of British public transport. As with the CV work, Harry has a lot to offer any potential employer so it is just important that we help them see that. But overall I was extremely impressed, he was calm and confident throughout and you never could have told this was his first ever solo interview. We are going to do another practice interview a few sessions from now to measure how he has progressed in his interview skills, I hope you’re excited as I am to see the improvements.
