Interview day

Greg Wyatt • June 11, 2024

Last week’s article was about interview preparation and now I’ll share my best advice on the interview itself.

Or rather the day of the interview, because that’s just as important as what’s in the interview.

This is mainly about in-person interviews; however, I’ll add a section on video interviewing at the end.

Today we’ll cover:

  1. Moving from preparation to interview

  2. Interview pre-flight checklist

  3. How to give a good non-interview interview experience

  4. Managing interview nerves

  5. How to sell yourself, and why that’s the wrong way to think about it

  6. STAR and CARL, why and why not

  7. Answering questions through relevant stories

  8. The questions you should ask and why they matter

  9. On video interviews

Next week is on what happens after the interview.

  1. Moving from preparation to interview

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” Mike Tyson

Preparation is key, for sure.

But as soon as the interview starts, you can only influence how you are perceived.

Sometimes a decision may have nothing to do with your efforts, and everything to do with what’s happening elsewhere in process.

There’s a lot stacked against job seekers, which is why it’s so important to focus on the steps and processes you do have control over.

That’s one reason why this series is called Jobseeker Basics.

As complex as it can be to find a job in this market if you get the basics right, you give yourself the best odds.

  1. Interview pre-flight checklist

  • Set your clothes out the night before - use your smartest clothes, unless they’ve said otherwise, and have them presented as well as possible, whether ironed, cleaned, polished

  • Plan out your route to the interview allowing you to arrive 10-15 minutes early

  • Make sure you’ve read through all the documentation and done suitable preparation

  • Prepare killer questions (this gets its own section)

  • If possible, print them out with you, together with two copies of your CV (one for and one for them), and notes on where to go / who you are meeting

  • Good night’s sleep with little to no alcohol, and a healthy meal

  • Wake up at a normal time (unless the interview dictates otherwise)

  • Allow time for solitary activity, like a walk or Sudoku

  • Check traffic reports / public transport delays early and leave with plenty of time

  1. How to give a good non-interview interview experience

When does the interview start?

Is it when you are greeted by your interviewer?

Perhaps; however, I’d treat the interview as starting the first time you engage with the employer.

How you apply, how you respond to invites, how you confirm your availability, all contribute to influencing a process in which flawed humans have biases caused by our experiences.

Perhaps not if it were fair and even, yet your responsiveness won’t work against you, and may help.

A key element in any interview is to understand what you are like to work with.

It goes to follow you should show your best self at interview.

Yet, interviewers are canny to this and will find ways to find out what they believe your real self to be.

This means you have to be canny to their canniness.

Where you can, win over:

  • The security guard who lets you in the gate

  • The receptionist

  • The HR admin team that arrange the interview

  • The person who brings you through to interview

  • The interviewer’s first impression of you

  • Their last as you say goodbye

  • The person who lets you out the door when you leave

Perhaps it’s unfair for employers to ask what the receptionist thinks of you, in their effort to find out the ‘things unsaid’ part of an interview.

But if you know it can happen, make it work for you.

  1. Managing interview nerves

Nerves can be a problem for many at an interview, even affecting how you prep, your rest and your sustenance.

Now, I am not a medical professional and you should seek advice reflective of your circumstance, such as if you have high blood pressure.

However, I recommend reading into:

  • Mindfulness meditation for better sleep. Example.

  • Box breathing. A proven technique used by the Navy Seals to centre them in times of stress. It may even, over time, change how your body reacts to stress:

    • 4 seconds in through your nose

    • hold for 4

    • 4 seconds out through your mouth

    • hold for 4

    • rinse and repeat.

  • Take a breath, or a sip of water, to centre yourself before answering a question.

  • Regular exercise, if you can, to manage stress levels

I haven’t interviewed for some time, as a candidate, but I don’t mind saying that I sometimes have anxiety, occasionally panic attacks, and difficulty getting to sleep during times of stress.

The meditation technique is so effective at bedtime, when I need to use it, that I’m often out like a light moments after thinking I’ll never get to sleep. Really useful for ‘big day’ nerves.

These techniques have been helpful for me over the years, and I hear they help many job seekers too.

  1. How to sell yourself, and why that’s the wrong way to think about it

Interviews are fundamentally a negotiation, where you propose your value in exchange for the value offered by a job.

The give and take of an interview has a large part in the outcome.

I mentioned Chris Voss, and ‘Never Split the Difference’ in last week’s article, which gives great insight into negotiation.

A key element of negotiation is deep listening. Listening to understand and respond, more than listening to answer.

Getting to the root of what an interviewer wants is key to giving them a suitable answer.

You can read more about this here.

While some employers do have tricky interview processes, most just want to find the most suited person for their role.

Most hiring managers are busy people who aren’t trained in recruitment, so flaws in their approach often aren’t down to intent, more down to habits and practice.

Think about when you were hiring - did you deliver the perfect interview? What were you looking for in your candidates?

It’s often said by jobseekers that “I don’t know how to sell myself.”

I suggest selling is not a skill you need at an interview (unless it’s a commercial role, of course) - mainly you need to be the version of yourself that is good at your job, and how you are at work. Professionally authentic, rather than your unvarnished self.

Focus on listening to understand, then talk about how you can help solve their problems like you would in a constructive meeting at work.

Which is good sales, ha!

  1. STAR and CARL, why and why not

You’ve no doubt read about STAR (situation task action result) and CARL (context action result learning).

They are helpful to understand, especially for competency questions, because they allow you to convey your answer in a way that has meaning for an interviewer.

Situation : the background to the example you are sharing, as it relates to the question you are asked (similar to context)

Task : what you had to do to solve the problem alluded to in the question

Action : the steps you took to achieve this

Result : what actually happened

( Learning : how you’d improve next time)

However, it’s a mode of thinking, NOT a framework to apply rehearsed, monotonous answers to every question.

The words have to be balanced with how you say them naturally.

A robotic, over-practiced answer will only be memorable for how you said it, not for what you said.

Indeed, these are better described as storytelling frameworks, than interview answer frameworks.

Learn how to tell your story with STAR and CARL.

Listen to what the interviewer wants, and give them what they need to see you as a viable future colleague.

Oh and if they go bananas and ask what fruit you’d be, forgive them and play the game.

I’d be an orange because nothing rhymes with orange.

  1. Answering questions through relevant stories

Ensure you understand how your skills, achievements and experience will fulfil the role you have applied for.

Something talked about in last week’s article - here’s the link again

Often the criteria to demonstrate are set out in the job descriptions.

Often by the challenges facing a business, which you might glean through research.

Often through the gaps in between - context that may be missing from visible evidence, but you might understand through the listening principles above.

If you’ve prepared fully, understand what they are looking for and know how to access the knowledge you have: answering questions is simply about interpreting how you can help, in a way that has meaning to your audience.

This is where STAR is useful, as a way of interpreting your story. If you don’t have sufficient information to convey answers clearly, make sure to clarify.

Think of your story as a short snappy tale.

To the point and told in under a couple of minutes.

Audiences remember good stories; few remember dry statements, told through waffle.

Tell your story in the right way.

  1. The questions you should ask and why they matter

If you were to ask me the one common element that I find memorable in candidates, it’s the questions they ask me .

If you are allowed to ask questions, it’s a chance for you to change the narrative.

You can do so at the start of an interview:

  • before we start, may I ask what outcomes you want from this role? I’d love to hear your priorities, so I can show you how I can help

You can do so at the end of a question:

  • could I confirm my understanding? Do you mean….

You can do so at the end of an answer:

  • does that answer your question?

You can do so at the end of an interview, by asking questions to help learn if the role is right for you.

If employers aren’t willing to answer questions, there’s a snapshot of their culture.

What I wouldn’t ask is questions that leave you memorable for the wrong reasons.

[Try not to put interviewers on the back foot with questions like “Do you have any concerns about my candidacy?”]

The benefit of questions, for me, is that it moves the interview to more of an unrehearsed conversation.

Interviewers know the questions they want to ask, and if they work to a robust framework, you’ll be measured fairly from your answers against other interviewees.

But you can stand out through how you take control of the interview, appropriately with questions.

When I think back on most of my business wins, from client meetings, it’s been from the questions I’ve asked - not how I’ve pitched my services.

What kind of questions would I ask?

I’d want to know about the outcomes they want to reach, the problems they want to solve.

The structure of the team, and how the role has come about.

Their culture and how their teams experience it.

What challenges the hiring manager has, and how this role might help.

How this role might develop over time, and what my future might look like.

How they measure and reward success.

The challenges the company has, or any recent wins.

How things are changing, and how that might affect the role.

I’d want to understand their time frames and who else they are interviewing.

Everything that would help me make an objective decision.

  1. On video interviews

Many companies rely solely on video interviewing, especially since the pandemic. Convenient, easy to arrange, people can interview from different locations. Great!

They do invite a more casual approach to interviewing for better or worse, and while your interview might reveal things they didn’t mean to through their background, that’s not something in your control.

Consider:

  • check you have good, stable connectivity, where you intend to make the call. Any issues? How about interviewing from a friend’s if your internet access is poor?

  • try out their system beforehand. Make sure you won't have access issues on the day

  • practise with friends. See how you come across on a call, where interviewers are more reliant on the tone of voice than body language to gauge your personality

  • ensure your lighting is adequate with a suitable background

  • frame your head and shoulders centrally on-camera

  • look at the camera for a semblance of eye contact

  • use sticky note reminders around your screen - your interviewer can’t see them

  • treat it as a formal interview. Attend as you would in person, with a suitable dress code and presentation

That’s it for this week. No doubt I’ve missed something - feel free to reply if you have any questions, and I can work on improving the article.

Note - I haven’t included elements like presentations and tasks. These are so contextual, that you are better off researching elsewhere on the internet for specific preparation.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Jump the shark. A Recruitment AiDE, pt 13

By Greg Wyatt • January 29, 2026
May 2023 You’ve heard the phrase, I take it – “jump the shark”? It’s the moment when one surprising or absurd experience can indicate a rapid descent into rubbishness and obscurity. When it’s time to get off the bus. Typically in media. Jumping the Shark comes from an episode of Happy Days in which the Fonz does a water ski jump over a shark. 👈 Aaaaay. 👉 A sign creators have run out of ideas, or can’t be bothered to come up with fresh ones. In movies, sequelitis is a good example of this – an unnecessary sequel done to make some cash, in the hope the audience doesn’t care about its quality. Sometimes they become dead horses to flog, such as the missteps that are any Terminator film after 2. It’s an issue that can lead to consumers abandoning what they were doing, with such a precipitous drop in engagement that the thing itself is then cancelled. Partly because of breaking trust in what was expected to happen next. And because it’s a sign that the disbelief that was temporarily suspended has come crashing down. If you don’t believe that your current poor experience will lead to further, better experiences, why would you bother? Once you’ve had your fingers burnt, how hard is it to find that trust in similar experiences? It doesn’t have to be a single vein of experience for all to be affected. Watch one dodgy superhero movie and how does it whet your appetite for the next? You didn’t see The Eternals? Lucky you. Or how about that time we had really bad service at Café Rouge, a sign of new management that didn’t care, and we never went again? Just me? Did they sauter par-dessus le requin? Here’s the rub – it matters less that these experiences have jumped the shark. It matters more what the experience means for expectation. So it is in candidate experience. It’s not just the experience you provide that tempers expectations – it’s the cumulated experience of other processes that creates an assumption of what might be expected of yours. If you’re starting from a low trust point, what will it take for your process to ‘jump the shark’ and lose, not just an engaged audience, but those brilliant candidates that might only have considered talking to you if their experience hadn’t been off-putting? Not fair, is it, that the experience provided by other poor recruitment processes might affect what people expect of yours? Their experiences aren’t in your control, the experience you provide is. Of my 700 or so calls with exec job seekers, since The Pandemic: Lockdown Pt 1, many described the candidate experience touchpoints that led to them deciding not to proceed with an application. These were calls that were purely about job search strategy, and not people I could place. However, one benefit for me is that they are the Gemba , and I get to hear their direct experiences outside of my recruitment processes. Experiences such as - ‘£Competitive salary’ in an advert or DM, which they know full well means a lowball offer every time, because it happened to them once or twice, or perhaps it was just a LinkedIn post they read. Maybe it isn’t your problem at all, maybe your £competitive is upper 1% - how does their experience inform their assumptions? Or when adverts lend ambiguity to generic words, what meaning do they find, no matter how far from the truth? How the arrogance of a one-sided interview process affects their interest. The apparent narcissism in many outreaches in recruitment (unamazing, isn’t it, that bad outreach can close doors, rather than open them). Those ATS ‘duplicate your CV’ data entry beasts? Fool me once… Instances that are the catalysts for them withdrawing. I’d find myself telling them to look past these experiences, because a poor process can hide a good job. It’s a common theme in my jobseeker posts, such as a recent one offering a counterpoint to the virality that is “COVER LETTERS DON’T M4TT£R agree?” Experiences that may not be meant by the employer, or even thought of as necessarily bad, yet are drivers for decisions and behaviour. I can only appeal to these job seekers through my posts and calls. What about those other jobseekers who I’m not aware of, who’ve only experienced nonsense advice? What about those people who aren’t jobseekers? What about those people who think they love their roles? What about all those great candidates who won’t put up with bad experiences? The more sceptical they are, and the further they are from the need for a new role, the less bullshit they’ll put up with. What happens when an otherwise acceptable process presents something unpalatable? Might this jumping the shark mean they go no further? Every time the experience you provide doesn’t put their needs front and centre or if it’s correlated to their bad experiences…. these can prevent otherwise willing candidates from progressing with your process, whether that’s an advert they don’t apply to, a job they don’t start, or everything in between. Decisions that may stem from false assumptions of what a bad experience will mean. Instead, look to these ‘bad experience’ touchpoints as opportunities to do better: instead of £competitive, either state a salary or a legitimate reason why you can’t disclose salary (e.g. “see below” if limited by a job board field and “we negotiate a fair salary based on the contribution of the successful candidate, and don’t want to limit compensation by a band”) instead of a 1-way interrogation… an interview instead of radio silence when there’s no news - an update to say there’s no update, and ‘How are things with you by the way?’ instead of Apply Now via our Applicant Torture Sadistificator, ‘drop me a line if you have any questions’ or ‘don’t worry if you don’t have an updated CV - we’ll sort that later’. Opportunity from adversity. And why you can look at bad experiences other processes provide as a chance to do better. With the benefit that, if you eliminate poor experience, you'll lose fewer candidates unnecessarily, including those ideal ones you never knew about. Bad experiences are the yin to good experience’s yang and both are key parts of the E that is Experience in the AIDE framework. The good is for next time. Thanks for reading.  Regards, Greg

How To Network For A Job - Jobseeker Basics XIV

By Greg Wyatt • January 26, 2026
The following is Chapter 42 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . In a sense it's a microcosm of how any commercial activity can see a better return - which is to put the needs of the person you are appealing to above your own. It feels counterintuitive, especially when you have a burning need, but you can see the problem of NOT doing this simply by looking at 99% of job adverts: We are. We need. We want. What you'll do for us. What you might get in return. Capped off by the classic "don't call us, we'll call you." If you didn't need a job, how would you respond to that kind of advert? In the same vein, if you want networking to pay off, how will your contact's life improve by your contact? What's in it for them? 42 - How to network for a job Who are the two types of people you remember at networking events? For me two types stand out. One will be the instant pitch networker. This might work if you happen to be in need right now of what they have to offer or if mutual selling is your goal. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this but it’s a selling activity pretending to be networking. If you want to sell, go and overtly sell rather than disguise it with subterfuge. Lest we mark your face and avoid you where possible in future. The second is the one who gets to know you, shows interest and tries to add to your experience. You share ideas, and there’s no push to buy something. They believe that through building the relationship when you have a problem they can solve, you’ll think to go to them. It’s a relationship built on reciprocity. One where if you always build something together there is reason to keep in touch. And where the outcome is what you need if the right elements come together: right person, right time, right message, right place, right offering, right price. Job search networking is no different. The purpose of networking in a job search is to build a network where you are seen as a go-to solution should a suitable problem come up. In this case the problem you solve is a vacancy. Either because your active network is recruiting, or because they advocate for you when someone they know is recruiting. It is always a two-way conversation you both benefit from. Knowledge sharing, sounding board, see how you’re doing - because of what the relationship brings to you both. It is not contacting someone only to ask for a job or a recommendation. A one-way conversation that relies on lucky timing. That second approach can be effective as a type of direct sales rather than networking. If you get it wrong it may even work against you. How would you feel if someone asked to network with you, when it became clear they want you to do something for them? You might get lucky and network with someone who is recruiting now - more likely is that you nurture that relationship over time. If your goal is only to ask for help each networking opportunity will have a low chance of success. While if your goal is to nurture a relationship that may produce a lead, you’ll only have constructive outcomes. This makes it sensible to start by building a network with people that already know you: Former direct colleagues and company colleagues Industry leaders and peers Recruiters you have employed or applied through Don’t forget the friends you aren’t in regular touch with - there is no shame in being out of work and it would be a shame if they didn’t think of you when aware of a suitable opening. These people are a priority because they know you, your capability and your approach and trust has already been built. Whereas networking with people you don't know requires helping them come to know and trust you. Networking with people you know is the most overlooked tactic by the exec job seekers I talk to (followed by personal branding). These are the same people who see the hidden jobs market as where their next role is, yet overlook what’s in front of them. If you are looking for a new role on the quiet - networking is a go-to approach that invites proactive contact to you. Networking with people who know people you know, then people in a similar domain, then people outside of this domain - these are in decreasing order of priority. Let's not forget the other type of networking. Talking to fellow job seekers is a great way to share your pain, take a load off your shoulders, bounce ideas off each other, and hold each other accountable. LinkedIn is the perfect platform to find the right people if you haven't kept in touch directly. Whatever you think of LinkedIn, you shouldn’t overlook its nature as a conduit to conversation. It isn’t the conversation itself. Speaking in real life is where networking shines because while you might build a facsimile of a relationship in text, it's no replacement for a fluid conversation. Whether by phone and video calls, real life meetups, business events, seminars, conferences, expos, or in my case - on dog walks and waiting outside of the school gates. Both these last two have led to friends and business for me though the latter hasn’t been available since 2021. Networking isn’t 'What can I get out of it?' Instead, ‘What’s in it for them?’ The difference is the same as those ransom list job adverts compared to the rare one that speaks to you personally. How can you build on this relationship by keeping in touch? Networking is systematic, periodic and iterative: Map out your real life career network. Revisit anyone you’ve ever worked with and where Find them on LinkedIn Get in touch ‘I was thinking about our time at xxx. Perhaps we could reconnect - would be great to catch up’ If they don’t reply, because life can be busy, diarise a follow up What could be of interest to them? A LinkedIn post might be a reason to catch up When you look up your contact’s profile look at the companies they’ve worked at. They worked there for a reason, which may be because of a common capability to you Research these companies. Are there people in relevant roles worth introducing yourself to? Maybe the company looks a fit with your aspirations - worth getting in touch with someone who may be a hiring manager or relevant recruiter? Maybe they aren’t recruiting now. Someone to keep in touch with because of mutual interests. Click on Job on their company page, then "I'm interested" - this helps for many reasons, including flagging your interest as a potential employee Keep iterating your network and find new companies as you look at new contacts. This is one way we map the market in recruitment to headhunt candidates - you can mirror this with your networking The more proactive networking you build into your job search, the luckier you might get. While you might need to nurture a sizeable network and there are no guarantees, think about the other virtues of networking - how does that compare to endless unreplied applications? I often hear from job seekers who found their next role through networking. This includes those who got the job because of their network even though hundreds of applicants were vying for it. While this may be unfair on the applicants sometimes you can make unfair work for you. It can be effective at any level.