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Written by: Patty Bloomfield
Vice President, Account Director
Northlich
March 23, 2005
Interviewing for a job can be many things: stressful, interesting, anxiety-producing or fun. For some, it can be a welcome chance to meet a variety of people and hear about the things they’ve done in their careers and for others interviewing can be the most painful thing they’ll ever have to go through. It can be especially challenging for women who aren’t used to selling themselves and talking about their accomplishments. Women have been taught to give credit to others, to be a team player … not an attention hog. But that training isn’t good preparation for a job interview, which is all about self-promotion. How can we get comfortable talking about ourselves? What’s the right balance between embracing our “female-ness," yet coming across with confidence and authority? Many of the following tips relate to both genders but there are some extra challenges women face that are worth addressing. The following tips are based on my personal experiences as an interviewer and interviewee.
Creating Your Story
The most important part of the interview process is to write the story of your life as it relates to the job you’re interviewing for. You probably don’t want to start with where you were born or what kind of childhood you had … that story will take hours to tell! Depending on where you are in your career search (just out of school, making a job or career change), focus on the key decisions you’ve made in your life and why you made them e.g. why you picked the college you attended, why you chose the jobs you did, what you’ve learned from the experiences you’ve had. Go beyond describing what you did at your job (a little description might be necessary to set the stage); talk about what you learned, what you’re passionate about doing. Don’t worry if all your choices don’t naturally lead to what you’re interviewing for…you can create a story that makes sense based on skills you’ve acquired and what you’ve learned from things you both enjoyed and didn’t enjoy doing. My personal path led me from a BA in Psychology to managing a health clinic to an MBA to a career in advertising. You can make any path work with the right spin on it!
Landing On Your Key Themes
Think about the skills and personality traits that define who you are and make you right for the job at hand. If you’re interviewing for a project management type of position, highlight your organizational skills, attention to detail, and ability to juggle many things at one time. In your story, find examples of where/how you used those skills, leading to positive outcomes. Don’t wait for the interviewer to ask you for examples; take the lead in the interview and provide those examples without being asked. Determine your 3-5 key themes and weave them throughout your story.
Telling Your Story In A Focused, Organized Way
Once you decide what you want to include in your story, come up with a concise way to deliver it. You want to be engaging (all good storytellers find ways to connect with their audience), but stick to your script (without sounding too scripted) and don’t meander. Don’t talk about what you did in every job or position you’ve held; talk about what your responsibilities were, what you learned, and how that helped shape your next move. Your interviewer will likely want to revisit some of your key decisions and themes; by telling your story in a sharp and headline-focused way, you invite the interviewer to want to ask for more.
Striking the Right Balance
Women often have a hard time describing their role in a project. They don’t want to sound too egotistical so they use “we” a lot as in “we created an idea for a product” or “we wrote a proposal that landed the assignment”. Much of what we all do is done in teams, whether in school or jobs, but the interviewee needs to find a way to talk about her particular role that highlights her key themes. So if you were the leader of the project, talk about both what the team accomplished and what you as the leader accomplished. Maybe you had to mediate among conflicting points of view or keep the project on schedule. By talking about team accomplishments and personal leadership, you strike a nice balance between working well with others and exhibiting desirable leadership traits.
Projecting the Right Tone
Along with your skills (leadership, communication, idea generation, organizational, etc.), personality traits paint a picture of who you are and how well you’d fit in with a company or organization. When interviewing candidates with strong backgrounds and experience, it’s often the intangibles that separate one candidate from another. Do I like this person? Do I think he/she will fit into our company culture? How would I feel if our flight was delayed and I had to spend several hours in an airport with this person? Identify the adjectives that describe you (ask your family and friends how they’d describe you for input) and try to project those traits in your interview. Women should not be afraid to come across as confident and assertive if that’s who they are. Ideally, in researching the company you’re interviewing for, you have a sense of its personality/culture and have determined whether you and the company are a good match. Make sure the “who” that you are comes through in the interview. Don’t be afraid to show a sense of humor, to show your human side. Women have many skills/personality traits, which are extremely effective in organizations (ability to multi-task, team-orientation, relationship builders). These abilities, combined with a strong sense of self and an air of confidence, make for a powerful combination.
Looking the Right Part
Your appearance says as much about who you are as the words that come out of your mouth or the text on your resume. Dress as you would like to be thought of. Know the culture of the company or organization you’re interviewing for and dress appropriately. Women who wear low-cut or tight clothes in an interview will be thought of in a different way than a woman wearing a well-fitting suit. Tone down the make-up and jewelry if you’re interviewing in a more conservative industry. You want to look polished, like you’d fit in well. You want the interviewer to focus on what your skills are and why you’d be great for the job … not on the negligee-like camisole under your jacket (a woman actually wore this in a recent interview I conducted). I was so focused on why she was dressed so inappropriately that I wasn’t listening to what she was saying!
Interviewing can be an exhilarating experience if you’re excited about the industry and company and approach the interviews as a chance to meet some really interesting people with a range of experiences. Craft your story, tell it in a focused, engaging way, and be your true self. You may not get a job offer every time, but you’ll leave the interview feeling like you’ve put your best self forward and given yourself every chance to succeed. That’s what you want for yourself, that’s what interviewers want for you.
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This article is © 2005 by Patty Bloomfield and may not be reposted without written permission from the author and may not be reprinted for profit.