How An Interviewer Decides If You Are The Best Person For The Job

How is an interviewer actually assessing you?

Interviewers assess candidates during interview on three levels – your competencies, motivations and your cultural fit with an organisation. This, coupled with the style in which you present yourself, will dictate whether or not you’ll get that job offer.

Competency Fit

A competency is a skill or ability such as leadership, communication skills, problem solving etc.

Employers are likely to score you on predetermined competencies which are are often present on the job spec.

Competencies will be assessed based on the evidence from your answers provided at interview,

Interview Preparation Tips:

1. Understand the competencies being sought.

2. Prepare real world examples related to the job spec that best demonstrate each competency using the SAR formula:

• Situation: Outline the context of the scenario
• Action: Describe the specific action you took (this will demonstrate your competency)
• Result: Outline the specific result and the impact relating back to the context. Quantify results where possible (i.e. revenue growth, customer satisfaction etc.) and describe the impact on company values.

3. Practice your style of delivery.

Motivational Fit

Here employers are assessing whether the jobseeker’s career trajectory meets that of the job opportunity.

It is vital that you express your desire towards both the company and the job – i.e. you want this specific role in this specific company, above all others.

Interview Preparation Tips:

1. Research the company. Knowing the company history is the bare minimum; you need to showcase a deeper understanding of the company and its position in the market.
2. Understand the job and where it sits within the organisation. Be prepared for questions such as “what do you see as the day-to-day duties of the role?” or “how do you see the position developing should you be successful?”
3. Self-Awareness. Be aware of your skills and what you can contribute so that you can align this with the opportunity.
4. Compete. Know your value proposition and sell yourself on your unique skills and strengths. Your attitude needs to be confident in competency while being humble in approach. Focus here on what you can do for the company.

Cultural Fit:

Cultural fit refers to a shared belief in values between the employer and potential employee – here you must align your personality to that of the organisation.

You can do this by identifying shared values and showing how you have shaped these values/similar values in other organisations.

Interview Preparation Tips:

1. Research the company’s mission statement, vision and philosophy. Understand the underlying values of the company and how you can impact these.
2. Questions on cultural fit may not always be asked directly. Instead it is a sub-theme and is being assessed from the moment you walk into the interview. Try to incorporate “company language” from your research on the company values e.g. high performance, trust, transparency etc., and other words and terms used on their website.
3. Back up these phrases with achievements and how you have impacted on these values.
4. Engage with the interviewers, lean in and bring all of you to the interview.

Style

Linking in to the capability framework is the style of interview. This refers to your style of delivery and how you can be impressive and make an impact in an interview setting.

Style is not superficial and interviewers do take this into consideration from the first minute of the interview to the last. Style of delivery can influence your score on each competency and therefore dramatically increase your chances of securing a job offer

Key characteristics sought by interviewers:

• Enthusiasm
• Sincerity
• Confidence
• Positivity , warmth and engagement
• And above all likability!