To bring notes into a second-stage job interview?

[ThatRoseFish]

I have a final second-stage, in-person interview coming up for a relatively senior role in the charity sector.

The organisation has described the interview as conversational but structured, with questions covering several key areas.

I’ve prepared thoroughly and have some brief cue cards covering key examples, achievements and points I’d like to make.

Would you consider it acceptable to bring these into the interview and occasionally glance at them if needed, or would that come across as overly rehearsed or unprepared?

I’m not talking about reading out scripted answers, just having a few prompts available.

Interested to hear from people who’ve interviewed candidates at a similar stage as well as those who’ve used notes themselves.

Agree. Taking notes in advertises that you are not comfortable with presenting and lack the flexibility to think and speak outside of a script.

If someone did this in an interview I would immediately feel that this was a person who could not be trusted to manage interactions with senior staff, clients and other stakeholders.

It would also make the other people in the process feel uncomfortable.

Better to ad lib confidently and maybe miss a few points than rattle off a laundry list and look really weird and uncomfortable.

I am senior in the charity sector and have interviewed a lot of people.
No issue with taking notes in but I’d be a bit hmm if someone had to look at examples of what they had done frequently throughout. It would make me doubt their role in those examples so be wary of it being too much of a crutch or overreliant. I think you should really try to memorise the examples. Cue cards also read as prepared or scripted answers which is at odds with unstructured. I’d expect you to reflect back language and perhaps explore the questions a bit more.

I do like it when people refer to their notes for questions at the end. It shows they have researched there organisation, particularly when the questions are very specific to the organisation. It shows they want the job.

personally when I’m being interviewed I bring a notebook and jot down the odd thing they say in questions in the intro so i can refer back, I’d often ask a clarifying question before answering. I also have about five bullets with my questions. It’s less than a page of my notebook and not reams of cues. You want to be making eye contact as much as possible and not reading.

No its not a memory test but a lot of senior roles rely on people having really good people skills and to be adaptable to situations which change unexpectedly.

If someone is reading from notes it immediately tells me they are inflexible and can’t think outside of a set template.

In so many senior roles the hardest part of the job is having to fix things which don’t fit the template or to pivot when the strategy changes. If someone can’t function without having a written plan for every step they are not leadership material.

Better to ad lib confidently and maybe miss a few points than rattle off a laundry list and look really weird and uncomfortable.

as someone who interviews in the charity sector, I don't want someone who bullshits their way and ad libs. I'd assume they'd do the same in meetings and therefore would get themselves involved in things they didn't understand and potentially put the organisation in a difficult position by eg offering resource we didnt have

I don’t understand why some of you think ‘notes’ mean a complete script and not just a few prompts?

Perfect sensible and reasonable to do the latter.

@Thepeopleversuswork I fundamentally disagree. That logic only works if you’re going to completely ban notes in all aspects of work forevermore.

I’ve always taken notes into an interview with me. I don’t always use them but they’re there if I need to refer to them.
I also see it as a positive when people I’m interviewing bring notes in. It shows they’re prepared and taking the process seriously.
Interviews are not supposed to be a memory test or an exam. They’re supposed to be a process to see if you’re a good fit for that role and organisation.

Ad libbing is not the same as bullshitting. It means being able to think on your feet when you don’t have the exact answer in front of you, not lying or misleading.

If you’re in a fast moving career where the management goalposts shift or where client priorities change its critical to be adaptable and not ticking things off a list because that’s the way they have always been done.

I think different sectors necessarily have different cultures and it might make sense in some to demonstrate that you understand the rules above all else. In the industry I work in reading from notes would signal that a candidate lacks mental flexibility.

I wouldn’t be impressed. It would seem underprepared and I would be suspicious that you had made stuff up hence needing prompts.
The exception would be if you neeeded notes as a reasonable adjustment - in which case you should be up front about that.

Why would you need to ban them? I don’t think they should be illegal. I just don’t think they are appropriate for senior interviews.

I couldn’t disagree more.
Taking notes/prompts into an interview is not a reflection on your leadership skills. It also doesn’t mean you don’t have really good people skills or can’t think on your feet.

I’m a senior leader and I take copious amounts of notes in meetings and generally as part of my working day. That’s how I process information. It doesn’t mean I can’t pivot or that I’m inflexible. I’m the opposite- excellent in a crisis and most days involve me ‘firefighting’ unexpected events.
I don’t need a written plan for everything thing but I do keep notes and records.

If I’m going to meeting with my more senior manager I prepare and take notes in with me. That would be viewed positively so why should it be any different in an interview?

By all means take a list of questions to ask at the end, in a neat folder or something, but you can't be flicking through answers.

The questions are about your working life, so shouldn't be hard to actually remember surely?

I'm hiring at the moment and wouldn't care if you bought in notes to the interview. Interviews aren't a memory test and you shouldn't be penalised for noting down what are the best examples of your work to make sure you cover them. I would avoid multiple pages though.

There are obvious examples of where this should be normalised too, women through menopause suffer brainfog as do others with chronic conditions and those who are neurodiverse would maybe benefit from notes and any other reasonable adjustment. I've even shared the questions in advance for some candidates. Good luck!

Interesting that people have said the more confident candidate would win out

I've always wondered why i end up working with colleagues who are very confident but are rubbish at the actual job...

Why would it seem underprepared? It’s the opposite surely? They’ve taken the time to prepare notes.

I’m peri-menopausal and I’m finding I need notes at the moment to prompt my memory. I wouldn’t be declaring that in an interview situation!

You seem to be assuming that confidence and competence are mutually exclusive?

You can be both.

The stress of an interview situation can make people forget. Plus things like menopause or other conditions can cause brain fog.

It depends on the your of company you are interviewing for. If it’s old fashioned and still views interviews as memory tests, then dont do it.
If it’s going with the times, then feel free to take them.
Many companies are even sending questions ahead of interviews, which I think is the right way to go.

I work in the sector. At one time it was an absolute no, but gradually happens more frequently now.
I think there are two schools of thought. One that it's somehow 'cheating' gaining an advantage over candidates who have relied on memory.
The other that's its not a memory test anyway, it's the content that matters. And if they are using strict scoring criteria, as long as the right words come out of your mouth, it should be hard to mark you down.
There are also equalities issues that the sector tends to be hot on, and refusal could disadvantage a candidate with certain conditions.
Not really possible to know which way your panel would lean though.
I think the job role matters also. If the role would expect the ability to informally network, promoting the service on the hoof, then the ability to speak from 'the heart' knowing your material inside out, might be seen as lacking if you needed notes.
Tbh though, now you've prepped with the expectation of using them, how will your confidence be without them? So in your position I'd probably ask if they minded (it would be unusual to refuse) and hope it wasn't a problem.
Make sure you only glance at them though, as if it's a conversation style interview you don't want to be reading or interrupting the flow while you find the relevent card.

Because an interview is partly a sales pitch and it’s about building a relationship with other people.

If you’re reading from notes you are not interacting with the other people in the room. You’re not building a rapport, not showing the best version of yourself and you are suggesting that you don’t know what to do without a manual.

Underprepared in that, whilst you have thought things through and written them down, you haven’t gone as far as committing them to memory. If you are capable of taking a senior role, you should be able to easily reference examples which evidence your suitability. Unless there is a good reason, which you do have. But it is easier to write things through than to ‘revise’ and practice.

No issue taking in a note book with your questions and some key points you want to get across. I interview people regularly and wouldn't bat an eyelid unless they had reams of paper they were reading off of.

There is a difference between having a few bullet points on a card to remind you of what you want to say versus having print outs of answers to any potential questions to refer to throughout. The former is acceptable imo

But you seem to be assuming people are just reading from a set of notes verbatim rather using them as prompts.
How does that prevent you from building a relationship with other people? Or selling yourself? In all my years interviewing and being interviewed that’s never been an issue.
A few notes isn’t a manual, they’re prompts that’s all.
Not everyone has perfect recall and there are conditions which can impact that. When I’m interviewing I want to see people at their best. That looks different for different people. I feel strongly that to get a more diverse workforce we need to move away from the one size fits all approach.
There are still more men in senior leadership roles than women. One of the reasons for that is having recruitment practices which favour men. As a peri menopausal woman I rely on prompts/notes more than ever. Does that mean I’m not as competent as my male colleague who doesn’t suffer from occasional brain fog?

But that’s a bit diffierent to the ‘few cue cards’ (plural) in the OP, which would need shuffling through