Winning in Interviews - Part Three

Winning in Interviews - Part Three

The final entry in a series of articles by The Times, Spectator, Guardian and Independent journalist Maggie Pagano, detailing the rules of interviewing well with a headhunter.

Confidence, confidence, confidence is all – but not complacency. If you believe you have done a great, transformative job then others will believe you have as well.

Puff your chest out. Stand with your feet wide apart. Take deep long breaths and then clench your fists to increase testosterone levels in the brain but reduce cortisol. So says Professor Ian Robertson, one of the world's top neurologists, describing his ‘brain hack’ Superman pose. Rather sexist you might think, and certainly easier for men than women… but it is supposed to help when giving presentations in stressful situations.

Interviews are stressful, says Lindsay Leslie-Miller, but 'exciting candidates see them as fun. They give them the chance to talk about what they have done. If they are persuasive an interviewer will be able to apply those experiences positively to a prospective job.’

Back to Robertson. 'Turn stress into excitement. Stress is a kind of energy and so you have to change the mindset from threat to challenging. If you are anxious then cortisol is released and makes your performance worse. But if you flip that anxiety to enjoyment, performance is boosted'.

“Interviews are stressful…but exciting candidates see them as fun”

As with everything, preparation and clarity are key. 'Candidates need to stand back and look at themselves as a product or a brand' says Leslie-Miller. 'This is the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and prowess. Certainly we will grill them, that is our job, but like with any exam, revise!'

But this is only half the battle, says Dan Cottee. ‘Do I come away feeling positive about them, and about the time I spent with them? Would a team or key board-member?’ It is easy to see an interviewer, particularly a head-hunter, as an obstacle, and in some ways a good interview is adversarial. But a candidate should seek to win over an interviewer. ‘The lasting impression a candidate leaves is indicative of how they influence and manage others.’

‘Make sure you smile’ is a cliché, but showing humour and a sense of ease sends important signals. ‘This applies particularly to areas of weakness’, says Cottee, ‘which are our job to find’. The strongest candidates will know what these are and will know how to manage them. ‘Not rising to provocation or showing insecurity when discussing development areas shows strength of character and maturity.’

“Does an interviewer come away feeling positive – and would a team or board member?”

It is also tricky for candidates to judge what they should reveal about their wider life. As Gavin O'Malley warns, over-sharing unrelated personal details can be off-putting, but a level of openness drives warmth and personality. 'The more personal elements a person chooses to speak about allows me to judge whether I would want this person as a colleague or stake-holder with whom to spend a lot of time'.