FREE Job Interview Preparation Course: Interview Tips and Sample Answers

Summary

Highlights

• Greg Langstaff shares free, valuable insights from 15 years in recruitment to help you ace interviews! 🤑
• Predict interview questions by analyzing job descriptions and practice with sample answers! 📋
• Utilize the STAR method to structure your success stories during interviews! 🌠
• Get interview-ready with prep tactics and what to avoid doing in interviews! 🚀
• Learn how to spot red flags in potential employers during your interview! 🚩

Key Takeaways

• Don't panic about job interviews - predict likely questions using the job description and prepare your responses! 🔮
• Master your answers with the STAR method - Situation, Task, Action, Results! 🌟
• Use the interview to not only show your skills but also evaluate if the company is right for you! 🤔
• Avoid major no-nos like discussing salary too early or failing to prepare adequately for online or in-person sessions! 🚫
• Remember, it's a two-way street – interview them as much as they interview you! 🔄

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Overview The introduction and overview chapter is presented by Greg Langstaff, a certified resume strategist and job search coach. He welcomes viewers to his free job interview course available on YouTube. With 15 years of experience as a hiring manager, recruiter, and job search coach, Greg aims to share his knowledge about job interviews, which are often a nerve-wracking part of job searching. This chapter aims to equip viewers with the confidence and skills needed to excel in job interviews.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Topics Covered: Predicting Questions This chapter focuses on the art of predicting questions that may arise during a job interview. It provides a formula for effectively answering these questions and deals with specific tricky ones such as 'Tell me about yourself' and 'What is your biggest weakness?'. The chapter also highlights the best questions to pose to a hiring manager and, importantly, lists actions to avoid during an interview. Additionally, it includes sprinkled instructions on enhancing interview skills throughout the discussion.
• 01:30 - 02:30: Goals in a Job Interview The chapter "Goals in a Job Interview" focuses on refining strategies to achieve success in job interviews. While getting the job is the ultimate goal, the chapter emphasizes the importance of demonstrating interpersonal skills as a crucial objective during the interview process.
• 03:30 - 06:30: Predicting Interview Questions The chapter titled 'Predicting Interview Questions' focuses on the importance of personal compatibility during interviews. It stresses that interviewers are looking for potential colleagues they would enjoy working with, often spending more time with them than with their own families. Therefore, candidates should aim to be personable, agreeable, and collaborative during interviews. This approach is crucial because regardless of a candidate's intelligence or capabilities, personal likability plays a significant role in the hiring decision. The chapter advises keeping this in mind for successful interviews.
• 07:00 - 09:00: Formulating Interview Answers Using STAR Method The chapter highlights the importance of evaluating the potential workplace during a job interview. It emphasizes that the hiring process is mutual, and candidates should be alert to any negative signals or 'red flags' that might suggest a toxic work environment. The chapter advises maintaining awareness and ensuring that no opportunities pursued will result in long-term negative impacts on one's mental health or career. It underscores the critical nature of choosing a job based on the workplace environment as much as the role itself.
• 10:00 - 13:00: Tricky Interview Questions This chapter focuses on the strategies for tackling tricky interview questions. It emphasizes the importance of storytelling in interviews to highlight a candidate's strengths and accomplishments. The goal is to make the skills and experiences more tangible and real for the interviewers, especially since the candidates are already considered top prospects. The chapter suggests that sharing personal success stories can effectively communicate a candidate's abilities and suitability for the role.
• 14:30 - 18:00: Asking Questions in an Interview This chapter discusses the importance of asking questions during a job interview and provides guidance on how to prepare for interviews. It references additional resources such as an ebook titled '101 Interview Questions and How to Answer Them Perfectly' for comprehensive answers and strategies. The chapter also mentions a contest opportunity for a free resume review, contingent upon liking the related video as an initial task.
• 19:00 - 21:30: Interview No-nos and Mistakes to Avoid The chapter titled 'Interview No-nos and Mistakes to Avoid' provides strategies for anticipating interview questions. The narrator addresses the common concern of how to predict potential questions, acknowledging the impossibility of knowing them for certain. However, by following a structured process and utilizing specific tools, interviewees can prepare more effectively. This preparation allows them to formulate appropriate stories and demonstrate relevant skills, thus increasing their chances of success in interviews.

FREE Job Interview Preparation Course: Interview Tips and Sample Answers Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 greetings friends I'm Greg langstaff certified resumé strategist and job search coach and you have found my free job interview course here on YouTube now I've spent 15 years as a hiring manager a recruiter and a job search coach and now I'm going to share everything I've learned about the most nerve-wracking part of the job search the job interview with you here today in this video we're going to go over everything you need to feel confident and in control during your job interviews we're going to be
• 00:30 - 01:00 covering some very useful topics including how to predict what questions are going to come up the perfect formula for answering those questions we'll go over what to do with tricky questions like tell me about yourself and what is your biggest weakness we'll also talk about the best questions to ask back to the hiring manager and of course before the video is over I'm going to tell you all the things to absolutely never do in a job interview now throughout this video I am also going to be sprinkling in some instructions on how you can
• 01:00 - 01:30 enter to win a free resume review from me so make sure you follow along and keep your eyes peeled for those instructions to win that valuable prize so let's Dive Right In and talk about what our goals should be during a job interview obviously I want to get the job yes but in order to be strategic during our job interviews our goals are going to have to be a little more refined than that so as you'll see the first thing we want to do during a job interview is demonstrate our interpersonal skills they're hiring
• 01:30 - 02:00 someone that they're going to spend thousands of hours with over the coming years that might be more time than they get to spend with their family so they're going to want to make sure that they're hiring someone who they like to spend time with now on our end all that means is being ourselves making sure we're personable agreeable and easy and collaborative to talk to we are not getting hired no matter how smart or capable we are if they don't like the idea of spending time with us so make sure that is on the Forefront of your mind during your interviews next our
• 02:00 - 02:30 other our second goal I should say is to evaluate whether or not we want to work there remember that the hiring process is a two-way street and if we're not getting good vibes from them we don't need to take the offer so make sure your antenna is up and you are not pursuing any job opportunities where you've gotten red flags during the job interview if we end up in a toxic environment this could have serious long-term repercussions on our mental health and it could also damage our career so keep your eyes peeled for any
• 02:30 - 03:00 questionable behavior from the interview panel and third we want to make sure we're telling them our best stories during the job interview they already know that we're capable of doing the things that they need us to do in this job or they wouldn't have invited us for the interview now we're among the top five to 2% of candidates and we need to make all those skills very real for them the best way to do that is to tell them stories about our best successes we're going to dive really deep into that in this course in just just a few minutes
• 03:00 - 03:30 now if you want to see a ton of sample answers and formulas on how to answer these questions and many other job interview questions the best way possible check out my ebook 101 interview questions and how to answer them perfectly I've linked to that down in the description and if you're looking to enter the contest to win a free resume review from me the first task is very easy just like this video okay now let's dive into the most important thing we can do in preparing for a job
• 03:30 - 04:00 interview which is predicting what interview questions are going to come up now you might be wondering Greg how the heck am I supposed to predict what interview questions they're going to ask they could ask me anything yes that's absolutely true but if we do go through this process and we do our best to try to predict what questions are going to come up using the formula and tools I'm about to give you we will have a much better chance of having mentally prepared to give them the stories and skills that they're going need to hear
• 04:00 - 04:30 from us to know we're good at the things they need us to be good at to hire us for the job so let me show you exactly how to do that right now this is the hiring manager secret checklist now I've linked to an editable version of this down below which you can make a copy of and edit yourself although please don't hit request share because then the version that you get everyone will be able to see what you're writing so just hit file and make a copy uh and then we're going to fill this in starting with this key skills column and we're going to fill this in with skills that we're finding in the job description of
• 04:30 - 05:00 the job we're interviewing for so make sure when you apply to jobs you're saving that job description somewhere and we're going to fill in this column with firstly job duties or actual tasks that they describe the person in the role doing uh these are the most important and they're going to look like things that you'd actually do like web design general ledger accounting budget management data analysis whatever the tasks are they're talking about in the job description next we'll throw in any industry terminology like if you're in cyber security you might see threat
• 05:00 - 05:30 intelligence or Healthcare you might see clinical strategy something to that effect will add in any software or technical equipment that they are mentioning and then we'll also add in any soft skills they mention so this could be collaborative motivating teams working autonomously this stuff's going to be less important but it's good to keep it in mind and once we've walked through the entire job description we're going to have a big old list that will look something like this so the next step is going to be converting that list into questions using the tell us about a time formula now this is pretty easy
• 05:30 - 06:00 basically for every item on our list we're going to flip it into a question by adding tell me about a time at the beginning for Budget management could say tell me about a time when you effectively managed a budget for social media marketing the question could be tell us about a time you built a successful social media campaign certainly have more questions than they'll ever ask in a job interview I often get from 15 to 30 questions on my list now this is great because we may not have perfectly guessed exactly what
• 06:00 - 06:30 the questions are that they're going to ask in the interview but we have very likely touched on most if not all of the topics they're going to be asking us about and as we move forward and start to pick out stories that can answer these questions and speak to these topics effectively we are far more likely to be ready no matter how they phrase the questions when the interview begins and if you're having trouble brainstorming all of these topics and formulating questions you can skip the headache and grab my super helpful ebook 100 one job interview questions and how
• 06:30 - 07:00 to answer them perfectly I've linked to that down in the description and if you're enjoying this class and you're finding my teaching style useful I have an even more in-depth job interview masterclass webinar which you can take which has even more example questions and answers and worksheets and in-depth advice both of those are linked down below and I've actually bundled them for a discount if you want both uh now let's talk about how to formulate the perfect interview answers now the best interview answers are typically when we are telling stories about times when we used
• 07:00 - 07:30 our skills successfully in past jobs now in a moment we're going to go back into the hiring manager secret checklist and start to fill that out with example stories that'll show off the skills we have but first I wanted to share with you a very effective formula for conveying those stories in a way that the hiring managers are going to be able to follow they're going to remember and they're going to enjoy so let's talk about the star method and other options we have for answering these questions oh the star method tried tested and true so
• 07:30 - 08:00 star is an acronym which stands for situation task action or actions as I like to say because it's typically lots of actions that we'll describe in the answer and a results now in this scenario situation is really just us saying what company we worked for when the story takes place that we're about to tell and of course the job title we held task is going to be what we were trying to achieve in this story it could be a problem we were trying to solve or a project we were working on and actions
• 08:00 - 08:30 are all the steps that we took to complete this task you might weave in some explanations of decisions you made and why you made them but mostly we're going to be walking them through the steps we took and then of course the result This Is Us wrapping up a story in a nice clear way that explains to The Listener that everything went well now this part is pretty critical because if we're trying to win over these hiring managers we want them to think oh wow you did that for them well I need to hire you to come do that for me so here's a quick example of what a star
• 08:30 - 09:00 method looks like when we're telling just a simple story situation this morning I slept through my alarm task I only had 5 minutes to catch my bus or I would be late for work actions I threw on the first outfit I could find I brushed my teeth as fast as I could skipped coffee and just grabbed a granola bar for breakfast on the road put on my shoes and I sprinted to the bus stop lots of actions results I made it to the bus in time and I was on time for work now star it's just a natural natural way of telling stories and
• 09:00 - 09:30 telling your stories this way will make life easier for both you to remember all the pieces of the story and for the hiring managers to process what you're seeing so now that you understand the star method our next task is to return to the hiring manager secret checklist and we are going to populate this story of when you use this skill column with stories of when we've used that skill the idea being we want to prepare ourselves to deliver that story in the star method formula if that skill comes
• 09:30 - 10:00 up in an interview and by the way if you can't remember all these details on your own for the interview it is absolutely fine to bring something like this to an interview whether that's virtual or in person it's just going to make you look prepared so that is a good thing now the second of three tasks that you need to complete to enter to win a free resumé review from me is to leave a comment in this video that has the word interview in it now let's move on and talk about some of the most common tricky interview questions that come up what is your
• 10:00 - 10:30 biggest weakness tell us about yourself why do you want this job these three questions have given us nightmares for centuries mainly because it's very unclear what they want to know when they ask these questions so let me walk you through exactly how I suggest you answer each of these in an interview first why do you want this job or often phrased why are you interested in this position this is secretly a three-part question here are those three parts one what job duties are you most excited to perform
• 10:30 - 11:00 in this job two what about this company makes you want to work here and three what do you like most about this industry Andor when did you become interested in this industry now if we can specifically speak to these three points they're going to feel like they understand us a lot better they're going to also feel like they believe that we're motivated to do this job which means we're going to try harder and we're going to stay longer and they'll trust us to try our best so even when
• 11:00 - 11:30 things get tough they'll know we're in it because we are interested in this position for all the right reasons so next is tell us about yourself this one can be incredibly difficult because there are so many right ways to do it so if you have something you already like by all means stick to that this is my personal favorite structure gives them a little summary of who we are and gives us a chance to tell them about the key transitions in our life that led us to where we are today uh we could also using this structure elaborate a lot on the skills we've developed along our
• 11:30 - 12:00 path so it may look something like this I am a functional title such as I'm an accountant with a passion for insert industry preferably their industry uh I completed my degree in blank and that is where I developed my foundational skills in blank out of school I earned my first part-time job at company where I added additional skills including blank blank and blank having the chance to develop those skills set me up for a big career move which brought me to next company next job title this was a
• 12:00 - 12:30 fantastic learning experience because that job gave me the chance to experience and then sort of give them more detail on the things you developed in that next job and this might repeat a couple of times I had the chance to really develop an expertise in that type of work at my last employer and that is why I'm so interested in this role and why I feel like I'd be an incredible fit for your team so at this point we're we're circling back to what all our past experiences bring to the table a for them now finally let's move on to talk
• 12:30 - 13:00 about what is your biggest weakness firstly anyone who still ask this question is on my not list uh but of course it's a bit of a trick question obviously they would love to know what our real weaknesses are but uh we're not going to give that to them because we don't want to be ruled out uh by telling them we're bad at something they need us to be good at but at its core what this question is really looking for is just self-awareness and our ability to notice where we have some weaknesses and you know make efforts to improve in those areas so the perfect answer to this
• 13:00 - 13:30 question fits these three criteria it's related to the job so you know if if we're it's an accounting job we cannot tell them our biggest weakness is singing then we've not answered the question and that counts against us but of course we also don't want to say something that is critical to the job so again if it was an accounting job we're not going to say uh spreadsheets that would disqualify us from the job now the ideal answer is something we've been working on since the whole point of this question is to show them that we have
• 13:30 - 14:00 awareness of our weaknesses and we take action on improving them so for this question I typically pick something that's kind of on the periphery of the job responsibilities and then frame it as a weakness that is more of a work in progress than an active weakness key phrase I love to say is this doesn't come naturally to me and talk them through how much work we put in to be good enough at that thing so these and many other tricky questions like why did you leave your last role walk us through your resume can you explain this Gap in
• 14:00 - 14:30 your work history why should we hire you and many others check out my seal the deal interview bundle which includes the ebook 101 interview questions and how to answer them perfectly and the job interview Master Class those are both bundled together links down below check it out now in just a moment I'm going to walk you through all my biggest job interview no NOS but first we need to talk about an extremely critical part of the job interview process which is
• 14:30 - 15:00 typically at the end of the interview the interview panel will ask you do you have any questions for us now study after study has shown that not having questions for the interview panel is rated as the number one biggest red flag among candidates they are not just asking this question because they want to be nice or they're not sure they covered everything they want to know that you've been thinking critically about what it will be like when you're in this room rule so asking these
• 15:00 - 15:30 questions can really be a make or break and please do not ask them when will I be hearing back that does not count as a question for them they want questions about this job so here are four categories that will knock their socks off for questions you can ask them so these are the four categories of questions you can ask after a job interview first obviously questions about the role if there's any elements of the job duties that you're unclear about like the team you'll be managing
• 15:30 - 16:00 or maybe the programs you'll be overseeing those kinds of specific questions about the rule are great and we don't want to ask any broad questions like so what exactly will I be doing in this role we want to show that we've done some research so we're asking a level of question that's a bit more specific second you can ask some generic questions there are some great questions that could really be applicable in any job interview my favorite one is what has been one of your proudest moments working here uh but for a full list of
• 16:00 - 16:30 all the best questions the generic questions that I love to ask in job interviews or love being asked as an interviewer uh check out my ebook 101 job interview questions we have a bunch of those types of questions in there as well third impressive questions so these are the questions that we're going to ask to kind of show off a little bit and they're going to either give us a chance to demonstrate that we have a skill that we want them to focus on when they think of us or we'll ask a question that shows we've been kind of doing our research we've already been thinking about how we
• 16:30 - 17:00 can help their company to thrive so a skill-based question could be something like another skill set that I bring to the table which we haven't talked about is blank would it be useful if I gave you a little background on my abilities in this area and a research-based question might sound like I read through your company's strategic plan and I saw that one of your five-year goals was blank how will this department contribute to that goal both of these excellent the fourth question category of course is just genuine questions so if there's anything that you really want
• 17:00 - 17:30 to know that's going to help us decide if we want the job if we can take the job this might cover things like travel requirements remote working Arrangements this kind of stuff is also fine to ask during a job interview as well okay a couple of final thoughts on questions to ask the interviewers because this is very important I would recommend going in with probably six questions ready to go but be prepared to maybe only ask three or four of them Depending on time also write your questions down in advance and pull them out when the time
• 17:30 - 18:00 comes this will make you look very prepared and it lets you actually listen to the question being answered instead of just sitting there while they're answering the question trying to remember the next question you wanted to ask now let's get into some interview no no and then I will move on and tell you the last thing you need to do to enter to win the free resume review from me now one of the worst things that you can do in an interview is throw it all away with a big hairy blunder at some point in the interview so I'm going to share
• 18:00 - 18:30 with you some of the most common interview mistakes and then I'm going to share a few unbelievable ones that have actually happened to me so let's do this first off we're not going to ask about salary vacation days benefits during an interview I know these are perfectly valid things to want to know but until we have an offer we're going to keep that those questions to ourselves once we have an offer before we tell them if we're accepting that's when we can talk about that kind of benefit uh also don't ask when will I be hearing back we covered that that is just a question
• 18:30 - 19:00 that doesn't really serve anyone if they want to get back to you they will whether you ask that question or not next I can't believe I'm going to say this one but apparently a ton of people have been breaking this rule so during an interview no matter how chill the vibe is or how nice they are don't even swear if they swear first four you might do this one accidentally if you're being interviewed by more than one person make sure you don't just stare at one person this happens all the time people are nervous so they'll look at whoever's
• 19:00 - 19:30 sort of looking the kindest at them and they'll just fixate on that one person and it makes everyone feel awkward five don't say I'm nervous this makes us look kind of weak and uh they will not have confidence in US it doesn't add anything if you feel like you're about to say something like that just pivot and say I'm excited six don't be late uh if it's an in-person interview 5 to 10 minutes early is your sweet spot if it's online try to log in like 2 to 3 minutes early I don't underdress of course make sure you dress sort of one level up of what
• 19:30 - 20:00 they would wear every day on the job so if they're dressing casual dress business casual number eight just don't talk for too long most interview answers should be from 1 minute to 3 minutes and if you go over that once in a while or under that once in a while that's okay but that is sort of the range we want to be aiming for most of the time nine if it's a video call don't go into the interview without testing the microphone the camera and the meeting software first okay now let's do some wild ones that I've unfortunately have seen from
• 20:00 - 20:30 people I've been interviewing they did not get hired so number 10 don't yell at anyone I once saw a very highly coveted candidate completely throw away a job that was in the bag because he was hangry and lunch was delayed and he snapped at someone number 11 if it's a phone interview don't be driving don't be walking and most importantly don't be running I once had someone I was phone interviewing who was either on a run or running away from something or running
• 20:30 - 21:00 to something I didn't find out what but I never met this person again because obviously we did not invite them on to the next round of interviews and finally lastly my most important interview no no do not go into the interview without having practiced first you will sound so much more polished and so much more professional if you rehearse your answers if you use the hiring manager's secret checklist if you practice using the star method you will sound so prepared so professional and that is who people want to hire now if you want to
• 21:00 - 21:30 make sure you're nailing every facet of the interview make sure you check out my seal the deal interview bundle this includes the 101 interview questions and how to answer them perfectly and my job interview masterclass webinar that is linked down below and we have a 10% off sale for people who've completed this free interview course the promo code is interview 10 check that out down below and if you want to enter to win that free resume review from me the last
• 21:30 - 22:00 thing you need to do is subscribe to this channel if you need help with your resume I have a very similar free resumé writing course here on YouTube check it out I'll see you over there