If you have been called for an interview, there is no reason why you should not be the person who eventually gets offered the job. You stand just as much chance of being successful as any of the other candidates to be interviewed. How you have positioned yourself so far has worked. The way you described yourself on the paper application has appealed to the employer and you are amongst the front runners to get the job. To capitalise on your success so far, you must research thoroughly exactly what you put in your CV or application form. The mixture of your background and your current situation has appealed to the person short-listing for the interview.
Let us consider the interview situation for a moment. What is happening there? A strange situation has been set up – we do not normally have to talk to total strangers about our personal details but in a job interview we have to divulge everything about our background, experiences and personality to the employer. This situation arises because the employer has something that we want – the job – and we are ‘on show’ to convince them that we are the most suitable candidate for that job. The best candidate on the day may not be the one with the longest experience or the widest set of skills, as this could be ascertained from a simple comparison of the application forms. It will be the person who seems to fit in best and is most impressive on the day of the interview and this is why your whole performance will be taken into account when the decision about who to give the job to is made.
Employers have to make their decision based on three areas relevant to any job:
- your qualifications and skills – what you know and what you can do;
- your experience and work background – where you have been and what you have done;
- your personality and character – who you are and how you behave.
The most important of these is the last one. Candidates may fall short of the advertised skills and qualifications for a job and often too lack the required experience but still manage to convince the employer that they are the best candidate on offer. How? By stressing that they have the right personality to fit into the organisation and contribute fully to the fortunes of that company. Skills can be taught and experience can be gained once in the job if necessary – but one’s personality cannot be changed so easily.
In a competitive job market where there may be many competent candidates for every job, satisfying these three bullet points are the minimum required for possible employment. Where several able and experienced candidates are in front of an interview panel they will make their decision based on two more factors:
- your vision – your ideas about how you see the job/department/organisation developing;
- your added value – that extra something that you can contribute over and above the other candidates.
Most employers are not experts on the job that is covered by the vacancy. They are busy each day running the organisation or the department and they need to employ someone who can come in and do the job as advertised. Ideally the person recruited will hit the ground running once in the job, ie be able to start working effectively right from the first day. They will be clear about the priorities and certain of the best way to move forward. The employer will be able just to hand over the reins and leave it all up to the new employee to make it all work properly.
This is where the bullet point above about having some vision comes in. You need to really think about the job, imagine yourself doing it and then look ahead to envisage:
- What will be involved – what will you be doing when you begin work?
- What three key things do you think it will be most important to do when you start?
- Where do you think this job is going in the longer term?
If you can convey a sense that you can ‘own’ this job and look after the part of the business it concerns, you will come over as a very valuable addition to the organisation. No employer wants a new person at work who has to have their hand held for the first three months of their employment. This would be just too much of a drain and a responsibility, and represents a major investment of time and trouble. Employers want you to be able to come in, settle in and get stuck in straight away with the minimum of fuss and effort.