Even after fighting through the gauntlet of grueling job boards and countless informational interviews, landing that perfect job is far from over.
Despite your hard work to this point, the interview process still looms up ahead. A successful interview can be the difference between attaining your dream job and being thrust right back into your same old cube.
With today’s post, I wanted to help you prepare for your next interview by giving you the template that I used in the final interviews to land my current job. Below you will find an outline of the template broken down into these three parts:
- Pre-Interview Research
- Telling Your Story
- Questions for Interviewer
- Action Step
I hope this brings the same structure and confidence to your interview process as it did for me and empowers you to land that next great gig.
Interview Template
1. Pre-Interview Research
Interviewer Details:
- Interviewer’s Full Name
- Job Title
- College
- Previous companies
- Any commonalities
Small Talk Topics:
- Ask how their week is going
- Weather
- Mutual connections
Major Goal(s):
- Bring enthusiasm
- Articulate essential skills
- Learn about the job & the interviewer (be curious)
- Close with an action step
Rough Agenda for Call:
- Tell your story….why leave your current job/ why you for this job
- Learn interviewer’s story
- Questions about industry, company & job itself
- Action step
2. Your Story
Why leave the current job?
- Reason #1
- Reason #2
- Reason #3
Why you’re right for this company?
- Reason #1
- Reason #2
- Reason #3
Why you for this specific role?
- Why would you be good at it?
- List skills and prior experiences that match up
- Why do you want it?
- List what attracts you to the specific job (i.e. job responsibilities, potential projects)
- Strengths:
- (Possible strengths: emotional intelligence, relationship building, time management, learn quickly)
- Strength #1 & Example
- Strength #2 & Example
- Strength #3 & Example
- Weaknesses:
- (Possible Weakness: Bad Work/ life balance (too much work) -> good for a company)
- Weakness #1 & how it can translate into a strength
- Weakness #2 & how it can translate into a strength
- Other examples:
- Example of a win
- Example of overcoming a challenge
3. Questions for Interviewer
About Company/ Industry:
- What has been your career journey? I see you were at XYZ companies, how does this company compare?
- Why did you join this company?
- How would you describe the culture here?
- How do you see this company evolving overall?
- What are the company’s advantages/ disadvantages versus the competition?
- What is your vision for your team? How do you see it growing or changing over the coming years?
- What are the biggest challenges/ pain points in your current management role?
About the Job:
- What’s the structure of the team? How does everyone function together?
- What is the training schedule for a role like this? What type of support will I receive?
-
How would you describe your management style?
- As a manager, what do you value/ look for in a role like this?
- What does your ideal employee look like? What types of people do you like to manage?
- What skills would you say are most important for this position?
- What type of future growth potential would come from this role?
- What would my day-to-day look like in a role like this?
- Looking back a year from now, what would he consider a successful hire to be?
4. Transition to Action Step:
- Recap what you learned and liked
- Reiterate why you’re a good fit for the job
- Close by asking for the next step
- “What does the rest of this interview process look like? What would the next step be?”
That wraps up the interview template I used to land my current job. This was a process I refined after months of various interviews.
As I mentioned above, if you’d like me to send this to you in a workable document please email me at brendan@straddletheline.co.
Finally, if you’d like some one-on-one advice about your current job search or need help prepping for an interview, please send me an email as well. Happy to help!
