To use an interview coach - is it worth the money

I am an exec coach and I often get asked about working with people to help prep for interviews. I think sessions can be useful however, there are plenty of resources online about great interview techniques and you can ask colleagues / friends to be practice partners.

Is it just interview technique you'd like to work on or are there other areas of prof development you'd like to explore?

If it's just interview technique, a coach can fast track you by having resources and tips to hand and being an objective sounding board but you could look for things yourself if you don't want to spend the money. If you think your interview technique would benefit from other support (eg confidence, identifying your core strengths etc) then a coach could definitely help although you'd need more than one or two sessions.

DM if you want any more info / advice 😊

I used an executive coach (in my specialism) to help with interview technique and got promoted as a result. It massively helped my confidence. Make sure you pick a coach who specialises in your field. Good luck OP!

That's a tricky one - it could be that the content of what you said didn't match what they wanted (although it sounds like you've got a great answer!) or it could be that the structure of the answer wasn't clear enough. What do you think?

Yes a coach could help with your examples / skills based answers. Have you read about the STAR technique in interviewing? I think you may need to flex it to your personal style but it often gives a good starting point in terms of structure

Whilst I’ve never used an interview coach, and would never use one because I’m weirdly confident at interview, I’ve interviewed loads of people for senior finance roles, working for me, and I am constantly surprised by how few people know how to conduct themselves at an interview.

So I say, give it a go.

re the feedback: I am known for being honest with my feedback, sometimes brutally so. Most candidates I see come via recruiters. I have no compunction about telling the recruiter putting the person forward that he isn’t clever enough for the role, or he skated around the difficult questions, or his technical knowledge was not where it should have been, or that his specific answers to questions on softer skills didn’t chime with me and made me wonder whether he’d fit into the team and organisation. I make detailed notes.

However, most people don’t. You’ll get fobbed off with “not the best cultural fit” or “didn’t shine as brightly as other candidates”. So you have to benchmark yourself against other people doing similar roles to you, read job descriptions to see what skills are in demand and be brutally honest with yourself about whether you can actually cope with the mental demands of the role you are applying for (which will vary by profession: what I want from a head of commercial finance isn’t the same as what will be expected from e.g. a senior social worker).

So if you aren’t getting honest feedback from interviews, you need to explicitly request it, saying that you want to hear it warts & all, or you need to do your own self-assessment.

I think it's a worthwhile thing to do while preparing for an interview. Especially if there is a role you are very interested in. I work in tech area, and there are technical interviews. While it's mostly technical, how the person presents themselves and the solutions are very important.

You are 100% right to do research and prep to represent yourself as best you can. Even if you do not get the role, then it's valuable feedback for later.

Also, it's fantastic that you got feedback on the interview. Not all companies do that!

Having been on a few interviews in the last few months, I do not think feedback is always genuine. Like you, I've been told I did well on questions I was sure I fluffed. If I've heard the words "strong field" and "close second" once, I've heard them a dozen times.

Thankfully I have been successful now so I hope I can forget about the awful things for the next few years.

Two things that stand out to me:

• STAR is a great starting point, but it can come off a bit rehearsed and I've always found interviews where I approach things more conversationally rather than rattling off points s,t,a,r, I've established more rapport and got the job or better feedback. I also like to make it STARE - E is for explain. Relate the example back to the question and explain to them how it is relevant to a point on the job description and how you feel it will relate to doing the role.
• Your answer to 'why do you want the job' isn't quite what I would look for. It relates too much to your current role when it should be all about them and their company. It also suggests that you have nothing to learn or nowhere to grow with them and so they might be afraid that you'll be complacent, or that you'll want to leave again quickly. I would pick some aspects of the job description and even if you've done similar before, talk about them as if you haven't and they are the most exciting sounding thing in the world and you can't wait to do it.

I don't actually mean talk about tasks as if you haven't done them before at all - but talk about how keen you are to do more of xyz and how much you love what you've done in the area previously and want to develop.

Have you ever recorded yourself doing an interview and see you come across answering those questions. Perhaps, the way you are coming across to the interviewer when answering those questions is different to what you think it is.

I would definitely recommend a coach! I used one after having a number of interviews which weren't successful and she helped me get a really wonderful job. She pointed out a lot of things I wouldn't have recognised about my own answers.