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Nail Your Job Interview By Standing Out From The Crowd!

Written by Adrian Petrie, November 9, 2019

Interviews are scary. I get it. You know you're being closely judged, and the next 45 minutes with this panel could determine the trajectory of your career. There's a lot riding on how you perform, but you feel you're ready.

You know you'd be incredible for the job and you'd make an amazing hire. You have all the skills and experience that the company is asking for, and you're excited to show them why you're the obvious choice.

But as you enter the room, you suddenly feel nervous - maybe even a little sweaty. You feel your heart rate increase as you shake each panel members' hand, and you stutter through your first couple of answers.

"It's ok," you tell yourself. "Everyone is nervous at the beginning, I've just got to get through the first couple of questions, then I'll be back to my normal self."

But you never quite get there. Your confidence is shot from the first few mumbled answers, and things only seem to get worse as you cringe at your own responses. This isn't how it was supposed to go. You know your stuff, so why is this interview not going according to plan?

Can you relate to any of the above? Be honest with yourself, because I've certainly been in that situation before. It was like my life was flashing before my eyes - in an instant I went from "I've got this!" to "What the hell just happened...I know I'm better than that!?"

That actually kept happening to me, time after time until I learned the right framework for standing out from the crowd.

But what if I could give you a SIMPLE framework that you could take into every interview, and use for every single question, regardless of its complexity or how nervous you're feeling?

Would you like that? Would that framework change things for you?

Would it mean no more nervous nights before the big interview? Would it give you the control of where you work, instead of hoping that a hiring manager chooses you? Would it mean that you could turn down that arrogant interviewer, because you knew you'd have more opportunities around the corner for you to choose from?

You could be in complete control of your own destiny, simply by nailing your interviews. And I want to show you how.

Before we get into the framework, I want to arm you with the typical questions I see hiring managers ask candidates, time and time again. Beside each question, you'll see my commentary on what you'll need to consider in your answer:

“Tell me about a time you were faced with a challenge and how did you deal with it?” - this is where our framework comes in later, keep reading on...
“What were some of your key successes in your previous role?” - hiring managers want to see passion and enthusiasm in your response. They want to understand your 'why,' and what makes you tick. Let them know who you really are by sharing how proud you are of the work you do/have done.
“How would you juggle conflicting priorities, or urgent, unplanned issues?" - employers want to know that you have a plan in the first place to minimise surprises, but also that you have the ability to adapt when they inevitably arise. How will you communicate with your stakeholders and what are you prepared to do when the going gets tough?
"Tell me why you're interested in this job." - this trips up more candidates than any other question, so be careful with this one. You want to show the hiring manager why you want THIS role. Show them why THIS organisation is the place for you, and that you're not just trying to get any old job. Why have you applied to this organisation and why do you want to work there? Get to the nitty-gritty's of your values here.
"What do you view as your own strengths and weaknesses?" - connotations are everything here, so how you frame your response will be key. Always be honest with your answer, but frame your response in such a way that focuses on how you're working hard to either maintain your strengths (so you don't appear over-confident), or how you're working to improve the areas that you're currently struggling with. Employers want to see that you have the potential to learn and grow, they're not looking for perfection.
"Do you have any questions for us?" - hint: you'd better. Have some well-researched questions about the role or the organisation, that show you're already thinking of how you can add value to the team. Don't ask about the minor details of the role (pay, parking, holidays etc). Instead, focus on the clients or portfolios the organisation is responsible for, what would be expected of you if you were successful, and what others bring to the team that sees them have success in their roles.

As you can see with these six common questions (and there are many more), there's a lot of ground to cover to make you stand out. So how do you do that without dictating a novel to the interview panel?

You follow the SAR Rule

No, I didn't spell that incorrectly.

Most of us have heard of the STAR method, but I like to simplify things wherever I can. I don't know about you, but I want my frameworks to be as easy to recall as possible when I'm in a stressful situation like an interview - and believe me, having only three things to remember is a lot easier than four.

Regardless of the interview question, you're going to want to provide a tangible example to support what you're saying. This is where the SAR rule comes into play. Let me show you how to use this framework to shape your answers and stand out from the crowd:

Situation (S)

You need to give some background context to the surrounding events of the examples you give. You don't need a long-winded story here, but you do need to provide enough detail so that the panel understands the background information to what you're describing. Set the scene.

For example, let's take our "tell me about a time you were faced with a challenge" question.

Imagine you're a manager and you're having difficulty with a staff member. You're interviewing for another managerial position.

This is how I'd give the background information (the Situation):

"I had a situation where a staff member of mine, who is usually one of my best employees, was beginning to under-perform. He was becoming easily distracted, lacked urgency and he missed his budget two months in a row. He was a fan-favourite amongst the team, so his lack of focus was beginning to impact others around him."

Job done for the Situation, now we need to move onto the Action.

Action (A)

The Action is what you personally did to turn the Situation around. You need to describe the specific, tangible actions that you took. For example:

"I sat down with this employee to have an honest discussion about what I was observing over the past two months. I asked how he was feeling, and what had caused his change in behaviour. He told me about a situation he was having with his family, which was impacting his ability to focus at work.

I had to listen to him, empathise with him, but also explain that his performance wasn't meeting our expectations. I set an eight-week action plan with him that I monitored at the end of each week, and I made a concerted effort to ask him about his family and show my support. We went for coffees twice a week for the first two weeks so he could talk to someone.

I also reduced his business development KPI's by 5 calls per week, created a list of organisations and contacts for him to speak to (a task that would normally be his own responsibility), and assisted him with his administration tasks for two weeks to help him re-focus on what was most important in his role. I set the rules that this wasn't the new norm and he had to meet his revised targets, but I wanted to help him though this tough period by making his life a little easier."

Result (R)

The last step of the framework is to demonstrate what the outcome was of your Action. The Action you undertook is redundant if you didn't get a positive result from it, so make sure you're using an example where your Actions worked.

"The coffees we had together really helped him to open up and get his concerns off his chest. As a result, after the first week of removing administration tasks from his role, he met his revised business development KPI and seemed more focused on his work. The second week he actually surpassed his original KPIs, and was returning to usual helpful self.

By week four of our action plan, he made a huge sale with a key client we'd been trying to crack for some time. This gave him confidence and by week six, he was back to being one of the top performers again. I was able to hand all of his responsibilities back to him which he appreciated, and I just ensured that I stayed abreast of how his family issues were going. We didn't even need the full eight weeks."

And that, my friends, is an example of the SAR rule at play.

This is a framework, so can be applied to any question that you come up against in your interview. Use this framework if you find yourself feeling nervous or pressured in an interview. If you find yourself going off-topic to the question that was asked, use this framework to get yourself back on track and regain your composure.

This method has helped hundreds of candidates I've worked with throughout the years, and I promise it will help you too. Your competition likely doesn't think about how they're going to structure their answers, so your key to standing out is to be clear and concise with your responses, using tangible examples at all times.

This is your new advantage.

Now if you're a talker like I am, then use this framework to keep your responses on target to the question that was asked. Use it to avoid unnecessary rambling by sticking to these three points in your answer only. If you struggle to open up and give enough detail, keep talking until you can check off each item in your mind as you speak.

When used correctly, the SAR Rule can be a game changer, delivering you the role of your dreams that you know you deserve.

Your biggest fan,

Adrian

Adrian Petrie is a Best-Selling Author who helps businesses grow through Digital Marketing and Management Consulting Services.

He is an expert at building, scaling and motivating high-performance teams, and believes that the number one asset of any business is its people. This is why he's passionate about leadership and helps his clients to get the best out of their staff, with proven, easy-to-understand methods.

If you want to learn how to engage your staff to drive exceptional results, or if you need help attracting more leads into your business, contact us today to request a free strategy session.