3 Techniques to Ace your Interview
Interviews can be tricky at any age. At Pembroke Tutors we have helped prepare pupils for school interviews, university interviews, and even job interviews. Here are our top 3 techniques for acing your interview at any level.
Speak with Confidence
There are a few steps to seeming confident in an interview. Some are obvious:
Greet the interviewer with a smile and handshake or elbow bump
Sit up straight and face the interviewer so they can hear your voice clearly at all times
Our technique for speaking with confidence and clarity can be explained with an acronym: PARE.
P - Pause and Breathe
A - Analyse the Question
R - Reason your response (in your head)
E - Explain!
Be prepared to justify your opinion, and also be asked the 3 W questions that matter in interviews (Who, When, & Why). If you say something particularly interesting, remember that the interviewer may follow up on it.
School Interview Specific Advice
Each school uses interviews to find the pupils who will thrive in their learning environment and are looking for you to be the right person. If you are feeling shy or nervous, it’s okay to take your time answering questions but we recommend signposting this.
Use phrases like:
Can I take a moment to think about my answer?
What a great question. Let me have a quick think about my answer!
This will give you some time to go back to PARE before answering the interviewer’s question.
University Interview Specific Advice
You will probably be interviewed by a panel of interviewers at university level if you have to do an interview. To seem confident, make sure you address each interviewer and potentially refer back to a previous question to make it a conversation.
Techniques like breathing steadily may seem old-school but you can’t go wrong by taking a bit of time to think about your answer.
Another key piece of advice: If the interviewer presents you with new information, you should absolutely stop and consider how it impacts your opinion. They are looking for someone who can learn.
Job Interview Advice
Job interviews can be quite different from school and university interviews but again, taking a moment to think about your answer can make all the difference. Most employers would rather you took your time to answer rather than rushing in to say the first thing that comes to mind.
The reason for this is that someone who rushes straight into things can sometimes miss the nuanced solution.
2. Great Body Language
Experts agree that between 70-93% of communication is non-verbal. Hopefully this highlights how key it is to think about your body language during an interview.
There are two types of body language we think are important which are strongly based on whether your interview is in person or online.
In Person Interviews
We suggest these strategies to impress in person:
Sit up straight with your back touching the chair if possible
Don’t slouch back as this can make you seem uninterested in the interview. If the chair is too deep for you to sit comfortably, try sitting in a position where both your feet can touch the floor.
Use your hands when you talk
Your hands give away more than you know. Try to keep your hands relaxed if possible but if you need to, it’s best to keep them clasped in your lap rather than balled into fists.
Remember to blink and not to stare at the interviewer
Think about how uncomfortable you feel if someone stares at you. We promise the interviewer feels the same way. Blinking, looking around the room, and then looking back to the interviewer can all help to create a relaxed atmosphere.
Online Interviews
Our suggestions for you:
Make sure you are in a well-lit room
It’s much harder to build rapport if your interviewer can’t see you. Taking the time to make sure you can be clearly seen on camera is well worth the effort.
Make sure your head is centred in the screen
Your interviewer will never know that you are sitting in tracksuit bottoms but what they will notice is half your head missing.
Make sure to smile and engage as if they are in the room
It’s easy to forget you are still presenting non-verbal language online. Sitting there with your resting face is easy to do. It’s even easier to get distracted by your own camera. Make sure you are still engaging by smiling, nodding, using your hands and looking them in the eyes (See above: not too much!).
3. Make your point!
We’ve mentioned clear communication a few times in this article and we now want to share a technique that really impresses when used correctly.
The PNP sandwich.
Positive
Negative
Positive
Interviewers will sometimes ask negative questions like ‘Why don’t you like this subject/area?’. This might make you feel like you have to go into all the negative reasons but you can create a positive tone even with a negative question.
Here’s an example conversation
Interviewer: ‘You said you love Maths but you don’t like English. Why do you not enjoy English?’
Example Answer: ‘I do sometimes enjoy English, especially reading. I'm reading a book about Space this week. I don’t enjoy doing comprehension work as much because I want to read the next paragraph and learn more. It would be really fun if I could talk about my reading rather than writing it down because I have so many questions!’
This is a good answer because it shows you are interested in reading even though English isn’t your favourite subject.
This can be applied to almost any kind of question, so make sure when you are PARE-ing to take the time to consider both sides of the sandwich!
