Candidate Interview tips for career development

professional interview tips and tricks for jobs and career development in various fields and specializations

1. Smashing your Interview!
Tips, tricks and info that you can use to secure the role.

2. 23 February, 2022
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An interview is like a
driving test…
•Go into it confident of your abilities
•What aren’t you sure of?
•Imagine that you are being scored just like a
driving test: you will be asked various
questions to find out different aspects of your
knowledge and you want as close to 100% as
possible!
Candidate Interview Preparation

3. 23 February, 2022
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The four areas of the interview
First Impressions Your CV
Their Questions Your Questions
Candidate Interview Preparation

4. 23 February, 2022
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First Impressions
•Be memorable for all the right reasons
•Preparation/research that others won’t
have done
•Dress to impress
•Two key questions:
•“what do you know about us”
•“why do you want to join us?”
Candidate Interview Preparation

5. 23 February, 2022
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Your CV
•Relevance
•5 minute overview
•Product/People/Profit
•Practice
Candidate Interview Preparation

6. 23 February, 2022
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Their Questions
•Competency based questions
•STAR technique
•Situation - Describe the scenario and when it happened
•Task - Explain the task you needed to perform and why
•Action - Outline how you responded to the task and any special
considerations you made
•Result - Demonstrate what happened as the result of the action you
took
Candidate Interview Preparation

7. 23 February, 2022
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STAR In Practice
Candidate Interview Preparation
In this example, the candidate is interviewing for an HR role. They have been asked the question:
"Tell me about a time you encountered a conflict of interest at work."
SITUATION
Recently, in my current role as an HR manager, I was asked to mediate a conflict between two
employees. However, one of the employees was a former colleague I had previously worked with for
several years, meaning there was a conflict of interest.
TASK
I needed to ensure that the conflict mediation could go ahead without bias. I also needed to ensure
that a member of staff with the appropriate training could conduct the mediation.
ACTION
I declared my conflict of interest to the HR director. We discussed an appropriate course of action
and agreed that an outside HR consultant best handled the mediation. I helped to source a suitable
mediator.
RESULT
The conflict mediation was successful. The external mediator provided feedback directly to the HR
director and the two employees. I was briefed on the outcome of the mediation, but to ensure no
conflict of interest, I did not ask for details of the mediation process itself.

8. 23 February, 2022
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Your Questions
•Prepared in advance
•Written on paper in a folder
•Product/People/Profit
•Prepare 6 questions at least
Candidate Interview Preparation

9. 23 February, 2022
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Post Interview
•Feedback to me
•Follow up
•Next stages
Candidate Interview Preparation

10. 24 January, 2022
Video Interviews
How to win virtually
•Test your mic and audio
•Chose a professional background
•Be the first on a call (5-mins early)
•Minimise your video display
Candidate Interview Preparation

11. Questions?
1 March 2025 11