By Michaeline Shuman, Assistant Provost and Director of Career Development
One of my favorite parts of my job as a career coach is collaborating with students as they prepare for interviews. It’s exciting to know that the hard work they put into developing a targeted application (cover letter or personal statement, resume or curriculum vitae, etc.) has led to an invitation to interview for the opportunity
they are seeking.
Plus, I enjoy reminding them that being offered an interview means that you have demonstrated your ability to be the right person for the intern- ship, job, graduate school program, or fellowship.
The interview allows the employer or admissions committee to confirm whether or not you are the right person for the opportunity and for you, as the candidate, to determine whether the opportunity is one you still want.
While the types of interviews have expanded, adding video based interviews via Skype or other soft- ware and taped response interviews to traditional phone or face to face interviews, the majority of inter- views still follow a format of three phases that is important to consider while preparing.
The first phase is brief and allows you to establish rapport with your interviewer(s) through a compelling introduction and small talk. It generally includes some version of your response to the “tell me about yourself” question and the prepared candidate targets their response, or elevator pitch, to the opportunity, including specifics about the organization, how their skills and abilities align with the needs of the opportunity or program, and their enthusiasm to learn more during the interview.
The final phase, the wrap up or closing, is also relatively brief and usually begins when the interviewer asks “what questions do you have?” You can finish strong by having well developed questions to ask and by being sure to have asked for the interviewer’s contact information for appropriate and timely follow up.
Those new to or inexperienced with interviewing struggle most with the second and longest information gathering phase, when the interviewer asks probing questions and reviews your answers against their critical success factors.
These questions are described as behavioral or situational questions which need to be successfully answered in order to move to the next stage of the process – a second interview or an offer!
Behavioral questions focus on how you handled various situations in the past, oftentimes focusing on areas such as communication, team- work, leadership, conflict, creativity, failure and problem solving.
The logic behind this interview tactic is that your behavior in the past reflects and predicts how you will behave in the future. Examples include “describe a time when you used strong communication skills in a group setting?” and “discuss an example of a time when you creatively solved a problem.” There are several strategies or methods of responding to behavioral questions, each of which has its own unique acronym (STAR being the most well-known, others include CAR, PART and SHARE). Each of these methods provides a framework for answering questions that allows the interviewer to solidify their first impression and dispel any possible doubts about you.
My favorite, and one which is easy to remember, is the BAR strategy (and no, I’m not referring to tray night at Bot’s). This method provides an easy framework to shape your stories and experiences for the interview and gives the interviewer what they want – evidence of your past behavior in situations similar to those you may encounter in the opportunity you are seeking.
Dynamic stories make people listen. When telling a story, you also become more animated, engaging and smile more. Interviewing in this way will be more enjoyable for you since you will be able to express the attributes you have that are desired by your interviewer(s). All stories have a form: a beginning, middle and an end.
A simple way to construct your stories for interviewing is using the BAR approach or method.
Background: Summarize the situation you were in or the problem you faced. What information does the listener need to understand the context of the situation you are describing? Think of it as setting the stage and use enough detail and description for your listener to have a clear understanding.
Action: Describe how you developed a strategy to solve the problem or address the situation. Then discuss the specific actions you took to execute it or to achieve results. It’s very important to use “I” statements when describing
your action steps as interviewers want to know what you did.
Results: Explain what happened as a result of your actions. Always quantify and qualify your results and accomplishments so the listener has enough information to make meaning of your response!
It communicates your value in a way that increases confidence and helps interviewers remember your strengths. If responding to a question about conflict or failure, you should also discuss what you learned and what you would do or have done differently in a similar situation.
In this phase of the interview, and for behavioral questions in general, there are often no right or wrong answers. The interviewer is evaluating how you describe your experiences and have used the skills you have developed in and outside of the classroom, again, as an indicator of future performance. By constructing BAR stories, you will certainly raise the bar to a new level of interviewing success!
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