I interview terribly, please help

[User15643289]

Please help.

I am really good at being shortlisted for jobs, but I interview terribly. The feedback I get is always the same, I just don't answer the questions in the right way. I leave interviews and within seconds I'm kicking myself thinking 'well of course I should have mentioned x when they asked me about y'.

I am an extrovert and an extremely competent public speaker - presentations are part of my job!!! I'm good at my job too. For my role (think trainer sort of thing) I usually have to give a presentation and then have an interview. My presentations are good and always well received but I fall down in the interview panel. I have now got to the point where I feel I'm so bad at them that end up really nervous and it makes them even worse.

For example in the last interview I had they asked me what I was passionate about with the role. I have a part of the role I'm REALLY passionate about, but I just waffled and ended up not mentioning it (what?!). It's almost like when I'm asked a question I have no idea how to answer. I hardly ever manage to mention things from my CV or my long list of achievements. I feel like if I was asked why I liked apples I'd bang on about an apple flavoured ice cream I once had or something.

When I'm presenting and training, it's all about approachability and being friendly, kind and just nice. My job involves a lot of support and showing compassion, I'm great at this, I'm just not very good at interviews. Informal or more natural discussions are more where my strengths lie.

I'm the sort of person people come to for help, I go out of my way to help other people and I get on with everyone. I'm genuinely easy going. So I'm fairly confident I'm not putting people off by being 'the wrong fit' if you know what I mean? It is literally just that I'm shit at answering the questions.

Please help. I have another interview in two weeks and I'm getting desperate. I've been out of work for a few months now after a long contract ended and I now need my salary back!

Just read this back and even my posts are waffley. Luckily my job doesn't involve any writing 🤣.

Is it a competency based interview?

If yes do you know what the competencies are and have you got good solid examples you could use for all of them?

For example if the competency is 'Be agile' do you have an example of a preferably recent time you adjusted to meet an urgent need, reprioritised, delegated etc.

Can you deliver that in the STAR format (Situation, task, action, result)

Situation - 'I was working through my list of BAU activities when I was notified that a team member would be unable to attend work and had a presentation that was due to be delivered to an important client that day.

Task - 'I agreed to take on the presentation as I was aware of the urgency and importance of the task.'

Action - 'I went through my list and prioritised activities that needed to be completed that day and identified which of those I could realistically complete. I approached my colleagues and explained the situation, then assessed which of my colleagues would be able to support my tasks based on their skill level and available time. I clearly explained what needed to be done, the time expectation, provided reference material where needed and established a check in point to make sure those activities progressed.

I then reviewed the presentation and familiarised myself with the material. I confirmed my understanding of any areas I was less familiar with.'

Result - 'I delivered the presentation receiving positive feedback from both the client and my line manager. My colleagues were able to complete the activities assigned to them and I completed the remainder of the high priority items that day and the rest of the list the next day which remained within SLA.

I made sure to express my appreciation to the team, as they supported my ability to be flexible in this situation.'

I could have written your post, that's me right down to you going off on a tangent. I have an interview soon and I'm dreading it even though I have all of the essential criteria. I just know I won't mention it to clinch the interview and it's frustrating to witness people with less experience than me get all the fab jobs.

Check on Glassdoor to see if you can get an idea of the common interview questions.

I interview people a lot and I really struggle with wafflers! I'm looking for evidence to prove they can do the job or not and it's hard when there are just too many words to think about!

My questions are always in the format of "tell me about a time when...."

I want your answer to be about something that actually happened, not theory about what you might do.

So listen to the question. Ask them to repeat it, or repeat it back to make sure you've understood. Then stop and think of an example that fits the question. Breathe once or twice. Try and keep your examples in the last couple of years if you can.

Tell me the situation: Two years ago, I was working on a team, our goal was to produce a report which would go to the CEO. One member of the team wasn't contributing and I wanted to resolve the problem to get the best outcome.

Then tell me what you did: I took them to one side and said that I'd noticed they hadn't been contributing much and I wanted to check they were OK. They explained they were having some personal issues and were struggling to focus. I asked how I could help and they said asked if I could chat through the actions with them after the team meeting which I was happy to do.

Then tell me the result: the outcome was good, they really started to engage and their contribution was really valuable. The report was well recieved and we all got a pay rise.

Keep the words to a minimum. Let the interviewer ask questions if they need clarification.

Go back through all the interviews you've had recently and write down the questions. Maybe post them here to see how other people would answer them if that helps?!!

I'm not really sure what a competency based interview is? 😬

@RNBrie that's all so helpful. Thank you. I totally appreciate that wafflers are hard work in interviews. In the actual job I do, it's quite helpful but definitely not good for an interview. Just did a mock interview with DH and he said none of my personality comes through and I'm too worry, waffley and seemingly worried about some kind of professional facade. He says I need it to be more natural, less forced and more coherent. So somewhat helpful advice.

competency based interview

These are situation based interview ..
tell us about a time you went above and beyond for a client
tell us about a time you found yourself fin a difficult situation
tell us about a time you made your company millions

@User15643289 In the actual job I do, it's quite helpful but definitely not good for an interview

I'm struggling to think of any job where waffling could be helpful. 🫤

Just practice with a friend

@TootMootZoot well my role involves training, mentoring and supporting people. The single most important part of my role is fostering good relationships with them. I can only do my job if those relationships are strong. To build those relationships I have to be very natural, friendly and approachable. So when I converse with them it's in a very 'unprofessional' manner. Colloquial language, no jargon etc. So perhaps waffling wasn't the right word to use but I converse with them at length and there is often a lot of repetition and I do a lot of the talking.

You can take notes into an interview - it's not an exam, and I've done it. That way you can maybe underline Things You Really Must Mention, as I know the feeling of coming out of an interview knowing you missed out on saying something you should have.

One of your questions at the end should also be 'Is there anything you'd like to know that we haven't covered?' as a) they may be able to ask again about something significant if you didn't mention it and b) sometimes interviewers forget to ask things they need to know about. It's a tip I heard before and I know DH has had at least one interview where they said 'You didn't have experience in X' when he actually did, but they never asked about it.

@beonmywaythen 🙄 if only I'd thought of that myself.

@Echobelly great last question idea. Definitely using this.

I'm sold on the notes too. Will take a list of things I've achieved, probably just a short list to jog my memory.

Maybe you come across as sarcastic and know-it-all in your interviews too 🙄

If you’d bothered to read OP’s posts, you’d have seen that she did a mock interview with her DH.

I hate interviews too. Usually I’ll feel physically in the couple of days leading up to it.

Love the notes idea. I’ve just been shortlisted for a job and it was my best interview for years. I was given the interview questions and 15 minutes to make notes. It made all the difference. Really helps the employer to make sure sure you’re not just employing someone who’s amazing at interviews but not so great at the actual job (have had some classic examples of this at my current workplace).