Preparing for a job interview is a crucial step that should not be taken lightly when applying. Discover all our tips to help you overcome the stress involved in interviews and help you prepare effectively.
Prepare well before your job interview
The success of a job interview is largely ensured by good preparation beforehand. If you are interested in the position you have applied for, we strongly advise you to practice in advance to present yourself in the best light and thus talk about yourself more easily.
That said, the key word for successful interviews is: training. Even if you demonstrate natural fluency in speaking, you will not be able to improvise in the moment and give concrete examples or arguments on the fly to support your words. This requires real work of reflection and taking a step back from oneself. Taking the time to prepare reasoned and structured answers to possible questions helps you maximize your chances of success.
Anticipating all the questions is certainly impossible, but some of them come up so often that it would be a shame not to have thought of them and to be caught off guard on the big day.
Even if you won’t be asked certain questions during the job interview, having them prepared will make you more confident in dealing with recruiters. Unconsciously, your brain will find arguments that you would never have thought of. Indeed, it is by digging deep within yourself that you succeed in bringing out your strengths and assets. This will allow you to direct the conversation towards subjects that you understand and where you will feel more comfortable.
The 4 questions to ask yourself to properly prepare for a job interview
Before a job interview, it is essential to have taken stock of your future ambitions and vocations. Answering each of the following questions thoroughly and seriously will improve your chances of succeeding in your interview.
1. What are my goals?
Setting goals is a step that we must all go through to align our desires with the needs of the job market, a difficult exercise, but essential for choosing the right vocation and not taking the wrong path.
By defining a very precise trajectory, you determine the means to achieve it. This includes the training to follow, the skills to develop and the experience required.
2. How to stand out from other candidates?
It is by taking stock of your skills that you will highlight your strengths, your know-how and your interpersonal skills. This retrospective exercise will allow you to stand out by explaining in a clear and concise manner the reasons why the position suits you.
There is no point in making a long and uninteresting presentation for the recruiter. It is strongly recommended to be synthetic and brief. So, you have to get straight to the point and only talk about experiences related to the position in question. Focus on concrete and quantifiable elements that the mind quickly retains. At the end of the interview, the recruiter must say that you have been a key element during your career.
If the position in question requires, for example, organizational and initiative-taking skills, make sure to find situations where you were at the head of a project and where you had to manage a team while respecting deliverables. Your skills are not limited to what you learned at school, but go far beyond. You must therefore base yourself on your internships, your student jobs and the everyday situations that bring out your character traits.
3. Why this company and not another?
Before going for an interview, it is strongly recommended to find out about the company, its history, its sector of activity, its values and its specificities. Recruiters appreciate it when a candidate shows interest in the company. You can therefore easily earn points and stand out from other candidates by finding out about the company you want to join, by coming into contact with employees of the company, for example. Your speech must be consistent with its core business and its fundamental values. It is by showing sincere interest and a real desire to join the company’s workforce that you will maximize your chances of being selected.
4. How will the job interview take place and with whom?
How an interview will take place is an essential question to ask the recruiter when making an appointment. This will facilitate your research and preparation and will allow you to stress less on the big day. You will therefore be mentally prepared to face the interview with complete confidence.
Finding out about your recruiter is just as important. This will allow you to adapt your speech according to their profile and career. If you are in front of an HR manager, you will be more likely to talk about your skills and personal qualities. Whereas if the contact is made with your future supervisor, focus instead on your technical knowledge and your expertise in the matter.
The 5 questions you need to prepare for before a job interview
Preparing in advance the questions that may be asked during a job interview can help you overcome stress and face the recruiter calmly. Here are five questions to prepare to become more efficient on the big day:
1. Tell me about yourself
This question remains an essential question during interviews. Recruiters want to know you and have an overview of your professional career.
This is an opportunity for you to showcase yourself and present your most rewarding experiences. Select those that bring out your ambitious and determined side. The recruiter will then use these leads to ask you questions and explore further with you.
Your pitch must be formulated in a structured and synthetic way and must include elements such as: who you are (qualities and assets), your past experiences (professional, associative, humanitarian, etc.) and your future ambitions (added value that you will bring to the company).
2. Why did you apply to our particular company?
By asking you this question, the recruiter is trying to ensure that you are one of the motivated candidates and not those who have applied to all similar offers.
The answer to this question should refer to your personality, your career ambitions and how the company will help you achieve them. To do this, you must demonstrate very in-depth knowledge of the company and the position offered.
More concretely, you must return to what attracted you to the position from a professional point of view (sector of activity, career development, missions, etc.), but also about the company. This work will allow you to know if the position corresponds to your expectations and the reality of the missions that will be assigned to you.
3. What professional accomplishment makes you most proud?
The goal of this step is to prove what you are capable of when you are at your peak. You have to know how to talk about your successes in a concrete and tangible way. The objective for the recruiter is to be able to clearly visualize what you will bring to the company.
Talk about his chess can also be a good way to prove yourself to recruiters. This is generally a very telling indicator of how you react to difficulties or under pressure.
4. Why you and not someone else? / Why should we hire you?
This question is an opportunity for you to show the recruiter your ability to convince and argue. The best way to proceed is to base yourself on the job description and compare its requirements with the skills acquired during your previous professional experience. Emphasizes the points raised on the job description that make the difference with other candidates.
5. Do you have any questions?
This question is usually asked at the end of the interview, which does not mean that it is less important than the others. It is crucial to respond to the question and not answer with a simple: “no, I don’t have any questions“. The recruiter will interpret this response as a lack of interest in the company and the last impression he will have of you will not necessarily be good.
If you research the company, you will surely find relevant questions to ask. This may concern the company’s future plans, its expansion strategy or simply the continuation of the recruitment process.
Recruitment in a consulting firm
Jobs in consulting firms remain the hardest to land. Once your CV has been validated by the recruiter, you must pass several oral and written tests (practical case) to be selected. Neither aspect (oral and written) should be neglected.
If we take the example of the consulting firm Bain & Company, the group is looking for candidates “committed, passionate and ambitious with diverse profiles”.
The group expects its future consultants to be capable of:
- “resolve problems effectively” complex while offering innovative solutions. The structure of the reasoning must be clear and precise;
- “become a “leader”” capable of contributing to the expansion and development of the group
- “deliver concrete and quantifiable results“. The group needs to see how your recruitment will bring added value to customers;
- “be passionate”, enthusiastic and full of ambition.
The Bain firm also emphasizes the fact that CVs are very important, but that it mainly seeks to assess the analytical capacity when faced with a given problem and the way in which the candidate presents his reasoning and logic.
The consulting firm recruitment process is generally similar. It is broken down into two main phases:
- Classic interview where the candidate presents his background and his motivations for joining the firm
- Fictional or real case study highlighting the candidate’s writing skills and analytical skills
To succeed in your interviews, and maximize your chances of success, it is best to contact consultants and build a solid network. The objective is to obtain as much advice as possible and to acquire a global understanding of the functioning of the firm (missions, values, differentiation compared to competitors, etc.). You also need to take care of your speech. The recruiter will take the opportunity to see if you will be able to clearly structure an idea in front of a client. Preparing your pitch beforehand is more than important. Practice in advance with your loved ones or in front of the mirror to be as clear as possible!
Practical advice and recommendations for preparing for your interview
The day before the interviewprepare all the documents you will need (notification, CV, internship certificate, employment certificate, etc.). This will prevent you from stressing out on the day of the interview and wasting precious time that you could invest in meditation or revision.
To be sure to arrive on time the big dayit is important to anticipate the route that will allow you to return to the company. In the event of a delay, you must immediately notify the person concerned by telephone.
Regarding the outfit, it is important to remain as sober as possible and to take the company’s values into consideration. When in doubt, the easiest way is to choose a discreet and dark outfit. Simplicity is therefore the key to not giving a bad impression. For women, a pantsuit will do the trick and for men a suit remains the best option.
Finally, to become aware of your language tics and improve your presentation, it is important to do interview simulations beforehand with loved ones or alone in front of the mirror. By repeating, you will improve considerably. On the day of the interview, you will face your recruiter with confidence.
If the stress tends to take over, plan breathing exercises or meditation to relax and evacuate bad energies from your body.
