Improve Your Interviewing Skills

Improve Your Interviewing Skills

Improve your interviewing skills using the *STAR method and the process below.  Whether you are currently involved in interviews or planning to seek your next opportunity, practicing and perfecting your interviewing abilities will help you clinch that great position when the time is right. 

To help you prepare for your interviews, start by brainstorming your top accomplishments, characteristics, and qualities.  What makes you unique and stand out among others and what are your most significant accomplishments?  Second, think about who you will be meeting with during the interview process: VP Programs, VP Engineering, HR Leader, CFO, as an example.  Third, create a spreadsheet that starts with questions you believe the hiring team might ask.  Then, considering the brainstormed list from the beginning, add your answers using the STAR method to a spreadsheet.  This will allow you to perfect your responses and rehearse them so that they will flow more professionally when you are in an interview. 

To do this right, it will take several hours to develop your list of questions and answers but this tool can grow with you as you go through your career and will help to document some of your key achievements.  Prior to your interview(s) review the questions and answers like you are practicing for several mini speeches.  The summary responses should be concise and to the point.  Each one should be able to be repeated in 30 seconds or less when it comes up in the interview.  In the actual interview, the questions may differ, but this exercise will help you to weave your well thought out responses to key accomplishments and traits into your actual responses helping you to sound more professional.  Follow this guidance and you will improve your interviewing skills!

*STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action & Results

For more information on the STAR system, see the link below

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/interviewing/how-to-use-the-star-interview-response-technique