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Interviews – Techniques / Top Tips…for Junior Techies

Welcome to Getting ready for the world of work…Interviews – techniques and top tips.

Here at gethynellis.com, our main aim is to help Put the Human back into Technology.

Working Together, with our partner Wyeden Limited, we’re putting together a range of Business and Technology P.H.I.T (Putting the Human back into Technology) Guides to hopefully make a difference to Humans in Technology. This guide is focused on Recruitment and Talent and this module is on helping people be best prepared for Interviews.

For over 25 years, our Lead Consultant, Mark Williams, has successfully fulfilled Programme and Project Delivery, IT, Executive and Non-Executive Positions covering a wide variety of sectors and business experience, including in Not for Profits, Membership, Housing, Care, Financial Services, Local and Central Public Sector, Digital Process Outsourcing and Law.

For the last few years, alongside working with us here at gethynellis.com, he’s run his own Business IT Change Coaching and Consultancy, Wyeden Limited.

During his career Mark, has both participated in and conducted “hundreds” of interviews, as well as being involved in several strategic organization design and skill fulfillment initiatives, and offers his top techniques and tips for interview success herein.

During this session we will cover:

• How to best prepare for an interview
• How to present / engage at an interview
• Common questions / types of questioning

Offering learning outcomes on:

• How to know if you’re a fit for the job.
• How to grow your confidence to do interviews
• How you can ask questions to find out what the job / manager / company is really like

Getting Ready for the World of Work – Key Takeaways

• Until you meet someone, your CV… IS you!
• Know Yourself
• Know every word on your CV, and be ready to explain and evidence everything on your CV
• Know your audience
• Practice what you know
• You don’t know what an employer is going to ask, you must prepare to cover all the bases
• Read the Job Description…Prepare a Job datasheet of Answers AND focused Questions
• Listen to the advice of your recruitment agency
• It’ll make you feel better, it’ll make them feel better, and it’ll give you a little bit of confidence
• You’ll be better able to answer questions that are a bit left field, because you’ve already got the answers for the ones that you’ve already prepared
• Answers to the Common questions aren’t likely to win you the job, but they could lose you it
• Many employers have generic competency guides covering all of the roles in their organization
• Use STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Results) to help you answer (competency) questions
• Prepare a top 10 competency answers sheet

Getting Ready for the World of Work  – Interview Preparation

Without further ado, let’s start. My bit is the interviews, the techniques and the top tips. And I’m going to talk about preparation for that interview. I’m going to talk about presenting and engaging at the interview, and I’m going to talk about sort of questions that you might get asked for that.

As we’re going through these slides, what I’d like you all to do is to actually read the slides on the video. I’m going to read through some of them and some of them I’m just going to talk over.

Now, let me put this to you, until you actually meet someone in an interview, your CV is you! And perhaps unless you’ve done a video short, which is becoming a bit more common these days. That’s all most employers and more importantly, most people who are coming along to interview you, will have to go on. So, until you give them something else in that interview, they are going to ask you about your CV.

So, know every word on your CV, and be ready to explain and evidence everything on your CV

Next thing, Know about your audience, not just on their website, ask your agent, ask your friends, go on Glassdoor. Know about who is going to turn up to interview you. What is their role? How long have they been at that organization? or indeed, How long have they been in the in that role? And what do the agency know about what they’re particularly interested in?

…and practice, write it down. Get a friend to ask you some questions. “Sing it out loud with a hairbrush in front of the mirror if you wish”, but make sure you practice it.

Getting Ready for the World of Work  – Read the Job Description!

How best to prepare for that practice? Read the Job Description!

Hopefully, you can start reading through some of the stuff that’s on this slide. Now, I want to tell you that these are all genuine excerpts, genuine excerpts from actual job descriptions and I’ve obviously redacted some of this to make it fit & in order to remove confidential stuff.

Which words are you drawn to?

So here’s the same slide. My guess is that a lot of you, coming on this junior developer event, I’m expecting a lot of you are junior developers or aspiring to be, junior developers.

You’re probably drawn to the words that were in white and bold- knowledge of ASP, and MySQL, and brilliant techie, and Drupal, and all that sort of stuff. And I’m not saying that they’re not important. But I’m drawn to the words that are in red. So why am I drawn to those words that are in red?

For some simple reasons really, firstly, there are probably just as many words in red, or near enough, as there are in white. I’m going to ask you this, how do you know which aspects of that job description your prospective employer is going to ask you on?

Now you can, and you should, and talk to and listen to your agent, they should have a decent idea. But ultimately, though, you don’t know what they’re going to ask you. So, you need to cover all the bases white and red on the screen.

But I’m also wondering, where it says, in red, it says firmly established market leader. What is the employer driving at by firmly established? Do they mean, they aren’t for changing? Or do or do they mean they’re constantly changing?

And where there are some words saying various projects. So maybe that means you won’t see something through? Or maybe it’s saying each day is different in an exciting way.

Also, positive attitude is in there. What does that mean? Does that mean There’s lots of pressure? Lots of downs? Or does that just mean there’s a high energy culture?

So, what I’m trying to put into your minds here, it’s not just preparing your answers, based on what’s in the job description, it’s actually starting to prepare your questions. I suspect you would want to know whether it’s high pressure or high energy, for example?

Getting Ready for the World of Work – Prepare a Job Data Sheet

How best do you prepare for that interview?  – Prepare a Job Data Sheet

This is what many people call a job datasheet. And on the left-hand side, there’s stuff about the job description on the right-hand side, hopefully, there’s some answers. Here’s an example, from one of mine, albeit adapted somewhat.

You need to do is take that job description and dissect it, take it apart, work through it in detail and write down where you can evidence against the criteria and equally where you can’t. And if you don’t think you can, try and find something that you that maybe is partially related to it, even if it’s not work related.

Let’s remember here, we’re talking about junior developer positions. So that could be somebody that maybe is under three years of experience, or it could be somebody that is looking for that very first role, then have a chat with your agency, they should be prepared, and they are good agents to coach you on how to get through that interview.

You should be prepared to listen to their advice.

You ‘re probably reading or listening to this because you think you need some help? You’re not “in recruitment” and therefore you don’t “Interview for a living”? So, whoever your agency is, be prepared to listen to what your agent has got to say.

Getting ready for the world of work – How to present at an interview?

So, we’re now onto stage two, the interview. What do you notice about the people in these pictures?

Start really having a look at them. These are all just everyday stock photos from PowerPoint, genuinely all I did was type in the word meetings and it offered these to select from. So, they’re, they’re not that contrived, a bit contrived, but not that contrived!

So what do you notice… maybe it’s the number of people? Maybe it’s the fact that some are in person and maybe it’s the fact that some are on video? Maybe it’s just that back in the day, people actually went into offices to do some work! Who knows?

Now I’m going to present the same slideshow again. And I want to ask you now, if you start to look a little bit deeper, do you notice in each one of these pictures, the Eye contact, do people look relaxed, look positive? Are they using notes or props? Do they look interested? Are they presentable? Are they open, friendly?

How do they do that?

That can be that can be quite daunting for people going into these situations. So firstly, smile. It’ll make you feel better, it’ll make them feel better. And it’ll give you a little bit confidence.

Going back to where I started…its preparation. Remember this you are performing, you are on air, so be engaged with all of the audience.

Now, you’ll see there’s different sets of dress code in there, wear whatever makes you comfortable.

Now for some people their suit is their armour. For other people, they want to feel relaxed and you know, and comfortable in their own skin. Check with your agent before you go into that interview what the dress code is like, and wear something that is appropriate to that situation and you, give yourself some confidence. Ask from the start…If they mind whether you are using notes, or taking some notes, use a prop.

And as you go through, be polite, speak the truth as you see it. If you’ve done your preparation, then you’ll be better able to answer the questions that are a little bit left field, because you’ve already got the answers for the ones that you’ve already prepared, and try and enjoy it.

Common types of questions

More often than not, one way or another, these are questions that typically come up in most interviews. Now they aren’t going to win you that job. But they could lose you that job!

So. let’s dissect two or three of them. For example, tell me something about yourself.

Don’t make it a chronology of everything that you’ve ever done in your life. It’s dull, it’s boring, people don’t want to know, keep it fairly succinct, a minute or two is absolutely fine for that sort of thing.

Now, if there’s something in that JD that says something along the lines of teamwork, maybe you need to be saying to them, you know, “I like the camaraderie of being in my sports team or my chess team”, or whatever, and start to subtly sow those seeds of the linkage between – a little bit about yourself and some of those things that they want to see in the in the in the JD.

In the question that says, what are you looking for? or Why are you leaving your last job?

Never blame, never, ever blame and… try and relate things to the new role. So maybe if you’re leaving a job, it’s something along the lines, and perhaps if it’s your first job – “I have enjoyed my first job, but you know, it’s time, time is right to move on. And I want you to learn something new”.

That’s all you need to say, you don’t need to blabber on, about all the while I needed to do this, and I need to do that and something else was going on and so on so forth…will that lose you the job? Absolutely!

Where do you see yourself in…? If you want to say, “Yeah, I see myself on a beach, or in your job”, or whatever it is, as you’re going through that interview… Know you have the right audience to get away with that!

So, for example, it might be okay… In the second interview, perhaps with you know, a bit of humor or maybe with a certain humility? Maybe it’s better to say something like, “I’d like to take on more responsibility”? And why would you say that? That’s because you might know that they are looking for somebody to take on more responsibility three or four years down the line.

So, think about that situational context of where things are.

Competencies and values.

Organizations often publish their values on websites, they don’t often publish their competencies, so please start reading through these slides. As you can see, there’s words like respect and business focus, and how do you seek feedback and teamwork and all those kinds of things?

Again, these are genuine excerpts from actual employers’ competency and value guides, in different sectors. And I have altered some of the words just for ease of use of getting them on the slide, but essentially, the meaning is there.

The first thing I want to draw your attention to is this. There’s nothing in any of these guides about tech. And that’s because most employers have generic competency guides covering all of the roles in their organization.

So, you need to make sure that you know how to handle those sorts of wider questions. Find out whether the interview is likely to contain competency questions or not. And if it’s your first job, ask them to find out what the expectation from the employer is on how they anticipate someone with no or little experience should answer a competency-based question.

Again, I’ll repeat a good agent should know the answers to these sorts of things, or at the very least, be prepared to find out. Looking at the words in blue here, you need to clock what somebody is asking you. It’s saying, how did you ensure? What techniques did you use? Give me an example.

And there’s a real way of answering these questions. And it’s called the STAR technique.

So where it says, Give me an example of where you maintain motivation and focus… you should…describe the situation and the task that was ongoing, what actions you took, and what results you’ve got. And if you can’t remember what that means, remember STAR? And hopefully, you’ll come through from that.

Now, you do you need to prep for these. And moving on to that, because most people look for things like, you know, teamwork, and respect, and so on and so forth.

And so one way to prep for this exactly like the job datasheet is to do a top 10 competency answers sheet.

There’s a few in here, which are a little bit different from the ones on the previous slide, like dealing with ambiguity, and what happens if if something didn’t go well, the first time around, etc, etc. but write them down and think through the answers. That’s what gives you your confidence.

Closing Summary

We’ve covered preparation for that interview… looking at a job datasheet – knowing the questions that you might get asked about – knowing your CV.

We’ve looked at presenting – smiling – being relaxed – understanding the dress code

We’ve looked at a few of the common questions, some of those that you don’t need to get wrong – Tell me about yourself – some of those that preferably you do need to get right, like the competency questions of… know what to do, to handle a difficult stakeholder.

I hope you’ve got some learning from all of that. If you’d like to subscribe to our You Tube channel, connect on LinkedIn, or visit our website’s, we’d much appreciate and welcome that.