Interview preperation help!

Superly_Vince

Hi, I have a third and final interview for an administrive role tomorrow and I'm absolutely BRICKING IT! I really want this position and will be absolutely crushed if I don't get the job having come so far.

I was advised by the recruitment agency that it will be competency based (which I'm fine with) and also the two interviewees are looking to find out about my personality and the culture fit for the team/company.

What type of questions should I anticipate and what type of questions could I ask them? can anyone please help? I want to do well

purplerose

The competency based questions will be based around tasks you'll have to carry out within the job. So for an admin role I would prepare examples for - teamwork, working to deadlines/under pressure, decision making etc A good way to structure your answers is using the Star technique http://www.quintcareers.com/STAR_interviewing.html

If they are wanting to find out how well you'll fit with their team/culture then I would say if you're asked to describe how you handled a situation, you can throw in a few bits about how it made you feel.

For example, in the interview that got me my last job I was able to talk about working within a team to achieve a specific goal and the team structure made me feel supported in my role and my colleagues asking for advice and support made me feel like a valued team member. I talked about the importance of open communication within the team and how that created a friendly work environment and about how adopting a positive attitude in myself is important as it adds to team morale as it only takes one person to bring everyone down. The result of that being a team I enjoyed being a part of, that works well together and gets the work done.

Personally, I've found that when you mention how a situation made you feel then people can relate and they all start nodding along with you. I think it makes things easier for people to picture in their heads rather than a cold list of what happened.

Other than that I'd say try to relax, be friendly and smile at the bits that require a smile. Something that helps me to relax is taking a long slow deep breath whilst being asked the question - it helps focus and if you're prone to panicking it calms you and it stops your words coming out in a rush and you won't get out of breath.

Good luck, if you're through to stage 3 then they must like you already so remember you've got that in your favour - it means they already think they want you in the job!