Interview advice
This is a book about everything that happens before the interview.
I wrote all of this down because I wanted to provide, for others, all of the crucial context that I never knew I was missing. During my job searching days, most of the career advice I came across seemed to incorrectly assume that I had already found a way to score the interview. I perceived this as a pretty giant leap to conclusions.
Attending the interview — or the informational interview, or the coffee date, or the whatever — is not the hard part. By putting the tools I’ve given you to use, you will have got past the hard part. Cutting through the noise, reaching the people you need to reach, explaining in writing why you’re the right person to spend an hour with in the first place? That’s where this game gets won. That being said, I (obviously) have a few final thoughts on the topic before we part ways.
Confirmations, thank-you notes, and next steps
If I’m a hiring manager and I don’t hear anything from a candidate on the day of an interview, I am already planning what I will do with those 45 minutes assuming that they flake on me. I also expect them to follow up the next day to say thanks, that they enjoyed chatting, and that they are clear on the next steps. These might seem like trivial emails that don’t matter. They are not trivial. They do matter.
With a few simple sentences, you can promise you demonstrate that you 1. know how to listen critically, 2. can take direction, 3. can take initiative, and 4. know how to create your own to-do list.
This kind of proactive communication will prove to be one of the most important habits in your career. If I could sum all my good advice up in a single sentence, this would be it: start acting like the dream employee before you ever get the job. Specifically, start communicating like the dream employee before you ever get the job.
For confirming the appointment, to be sent the night before or the morning of the interview:
Hi [First Name],
Just confirming our 2pm interview today. I’m looking forward to it.
Thanks!
[Your Name]
For sending a thank-you note, detailing your next steps:
Hi [First Name],
Thank you so much for today’s lunch meeting. It was a wonderful help to have you to straighten out my industry terminology, to get some tips on the portfolio, and to get some feedback on how to pitch what I’m trying to do.
Invaluable stuff.
As per our discussion, I am going to get to work on putting together this content marketing portfolio. I’ve already been doing some research for admirable examples to replicate. I will have something to show you within the next week.
Speak soon,
[Your Name]
Follow through, follow through, follow through.
Before the meeting and after, I specifically call out timeframes. In the confirmation email, I reconfirm the time we’re speaking. In the thank-you email, I explicitly lay out what my next steps are and when they should expect to hear from me again.
If someone took 5, 10, 20, 30 minutes out of their day to sit and interview you, or give you some advice, or answer a question, or forward your CV to a colleague, you owe that person an email within 24 hours.
I have spoken to hundreds of powerful people about thank-you notes, because that’s just the type of career coach I am. Basic consensus: not every hiring manager seems to think a thank-you note is necessary, but the ones who do care really notice whether or not you send one. If you send one, it might help you. If you don’t send one, it might hurt you. Send one.
When interviews and networking meetings go well, you probably already have more stuff to talk about or follow up about later. Like, in this lunch meeting I reference above. He asked me for a portfolio, so now I owe him a thank you and a portfolio.
If you break down the thank-you note example above, I do a few different things:
I always sign off an email like this with ‘Speak soon’ because that’s exactly what I want it to be — a segue into the next, and potentially more fruitful, conversation. If there was already an email chain happening, I would write this note back on that same thread. It helps the other person from an organisational perspective and you don’t have to come up with a new subject line. And it always, always, always, always gets sent within 24 hours of the meeting.
Scheduling and timelines
As we already talked about during the networking lessons, scheduling and next steps are your responsibility if you asked for the meeting or the favour. You set a date and stick to it: ‘I’ll get you my portfolio by the end of this week. You can expect an email on or before Friday.’
Once you’re at the interview stage, the company will set the timelines — but you absolutely deserve to know what will happen next. At the end of an interview (phone or in-person) or in an email, you are totally okay to ask something like: ‘I’m definitely interested. When can I expect to hear from you next?’
Checking in and chasing down
What do you do if the day comes and goes when they promised you’d hear back?
Remember that you’re the one counting hours and staring at your inbox. Give them a 48-hour grace period — things happen. Remember that they’re not on the same timeline as you are. But if they said you’d hear by Tuesday and it’s now Thursday afternoon, you are absolutely allowed to follow up.
What if you send over your CV to the contact that asked for it, and you don’t hear back?
Give them the benefit of the doubt. Remember that they’re doing you a favour. If you send something on a Tuesday and don’t hear back for a full week, you’re okay to chase them down.
For chasing down an interviewer who hasn’t got back to you:
Subject line: N/A — just hit reply on your most recent email chain
Hi [Interviewer’s Name],
Following up with you here. During my interview, we’d spoken about touching base again this past Tuesday.
I’m still very interested in pursuing the role. If you have any lingering questions before you make this next decision, I’d love to answer them via email or phone.
When do you expect to be making a decision about this next round of interviews? Really looking forward to continuing this process with [Company Name].
Speak soon,
[Your Name]
Interview prep: practice your answer to the ‘Tell us about yourself’ question
The companies you’re dating are also dating other people. They remember why they picked you, but they’ll still need a reminder about who you are when you get in the room.
The ‘Tell us about yourself’ question is not — I repeat, is NOT — a one-size-fits-all answer. Your backstory should be specifically tailored to every situation. The biggest mistake I notice with this question is that people want to go in chronological order, starting from the beginning. As in:
‘Well, I’m from Edinburgh originally, and then I got my degree in York. My first internship was …’
You have to skip over all of that. It may come up in small talk later in the interview, but it’s never the right place to start the conversation. If anything, you want to go backwards through your experience, just like with a CV, starting with your most relevant (and usually, most recent and impressive) experience first.
Try this for a template:
Take this example from when I met with a recruiter in the advertising world:
Well, I’m coming at this from the tech world. I’ve been an independent copywriter for almost five years. I specialise almost exclusively in digital, whether that’s optimising words while building an app or directing content strategy for social campaigns. I’ve never worked inside an agency, and being freelance has given me the chance to experience a lot of projects quite quickly. Now, I’m looking to gauge where I might fit if I decide to pursue a full-time position.
Practise yours in front of the mirror before any interview. Draw inspiration from your LinkedIn summary or cover letter, and remember to always plan it out specifically for that exact situation.
Always remember that this is, after all, a business
A lot of people say they want the job because it’s a great learning or growth opportunity. While that’s wonderful on a personal level, you know by now that your growth is actually not ideal for the business itself. Very few companies want to pay you to learn. What employers really need is people who know their stuff and, equally as importantly, people who will stay engaged with that work for a considerable length of time.
Whether it’s the best company in the world or the worst job you’ll ever have, all companies are trying to combat two huge employee-related expenses that you should know about:
What does this mean for you? Instead of highlighting that you want to learn, talk about how interesting the work looks to you. Talk about how the ideas you already have for helping the team to grow and succeed over, say, the next 18–24 months. I literally want you to talk in the interview as if you’re going to get hired and still be working for the company two years from now.
If you are already asserting from the get-go that you are planning to dig in and engage with your work for the next several months, you stand a much better chance of becoming a long-term asset for the company. And that’s what they really need.
Task list: after-the-interview edition
How’s your energy level, on a scale from 1 to 10?
How’s your motivation today?
What was the last job you looked at that really got you excited and hopeful?
It’s okay if your answers are ‘2’, ‘lower than usual’, and ‘I can’t remember’. This process is hard. It takes a long time to wade through the muck. The important part, as always, is to keep chipping away. And on the days you can’t? Take a break. But then get back to it tomorrow.