Selective Skills – The art of cracking the interview

Preparing for the simulated interviews my mind was cast back to my first ever interview, over 14 years ago for the retail store NEXT. I was reminded of the nerves and excitement I had going into it, my preparation on the history of the company and why I wanted to work as a Christmas temp. All to be completely thrown to the side when I arrived and realised it was going to be a group interview and instead of questions it was a live action task of serving ‘customers’ at a fake till. Which I was highly unprepared for as I had not shopped in NEXT prior to the interview, and was unaware of things such as offering the customer a store card or trying to upsell the selection of gift items at the till.

Luckily, I have not experienced an interview process like this in the years to follow. I have however, learnt a great about what seems to work for me in interview scenarios. Having finished my first degree in 2013 I moved to London with high hopes of making it in the world of fashion, armed with a degree and a mixed bag of skills developed over the course of my degree and the running of my own successful fashion brand. I interviewed for roles which I knew I could thrive in, such as graphic t-shirt designer for River Island or marketing assistant for Matchesfashion.com. I began to hear the hear the same thing after my interviews, “we were very impressed by you, however on this occasion we have decided to move forward with someone else..”.

I couldn’t understand where I was going wrong, I was applying for jobs which I knew I could do and thrive at only to be cut down at the first stage. As time went on I realised that the reason I was getting rejected wasn’t that I was under-qualified or unprofessional in my approach, it was that I wasn’t giving the interviewers what they wanted.

I’ve learnt that the majority of people employed in a job see it just as that, ‘a job’. Therefore, why would they want to make their job harder, they want to hire smart and hire well. They want to hire someone who has either been in a similar role prior or has come recommended by a trusted recruiter / source. Neither of which I could offer to the employers.

Therefore, I changed my tact. Instead of applying to jobs with a CV packed of my skills in design, photography, marketing and international sourcing, I focused in on the individual jobs I was applying for and any skills that weren’t relevant I would remove. I made it easier for the interviewer to picture me in the role. Once I began to do this I started getting offered jobs.

This is what I did for my application in the simulated interviews. The role I chose was ‘Photographer / Videographer’ for an online clothing brand in Dublin.

I began by dissecting the job description, picking out the key skills they were looking for and reworking my CV to only highlight my relevant skills. I then carried this over to the day of the interviews, I had my keys skills in mind, as well as answers in mind for the typical questions such as ‘why do you want to work for us?’ or ‘where do you see yourself in 5 years?’

At the interview I made sure to make eye contact, shake the employers hands and speak clearly. I learned from the process to properly prepare for the interview and to be as open and honest as possible.