How ClarusBlue supported Nathalia to boost her confidence and have greater impact in job interviews
What is it about job interviews that make us nervous?
93% of people feel nervous before a job interview, while 78% of interviewers highlight confidence, clarity and positivity as critical to their hiring decision
Can you say hand on heart that you have felt supremely confident and prepared in every job interview that you have ever walked into? Or can you say that you have never been thrown by a question that an interviewer has asked?
If you answered no to any of those, then don’t worry, you’re not alone! Studies show that on average 93% of people feel nervous for a job interview.
It is also worth noting that in the UK, on average 2% of applicants are selected for a job interview and 78% of interviewers highlight confidence, clarity of speech and positivity as critical to their hiring decision. As a result, job interviews are almost a perfect recipe for anxiety, nervousness and frustration, making it incredibly tough to be confident, clear and engaging in interviews.
It may be that you are unemployed and you’re worried about paying the bills, it could be an amazing opportunity that you want to land, or it could be that you’re unhappy where you are and you really want a change. Whatever situation you’re in when starting the process of finding a new role, a job interview is effectively selling yourself and what you have to offer, so the process and the outcome is deeply personal to you, whether the prospective employer sees it that way or not.
Nathalia’s story
“Understanding what I could control and focusing on that, rather than what I couldn’t, gave me about 75% fewer things to think and worry about in the interview process.”
“I had started in a role as an Events Manager at a large corporation and had been working there for about three months when Covid hit. Obviously this was devastating for the events industry, but initially I thought I was lucky as the company I worked for invested heavily in virtual events. However, as the pressures of Covid hit, the company culture shifted in a very negative direction, creating a very unsettled and unhappy work environment.
As Covid began to subside and I began to explore opportunities that came onto the market, I found that I didn’t have the confidence I once had, and I didn’t feel like I was effectively translating my experience in a way that gave me the best chance of landing a role that I really deserved or matched what I had to offer. When I was fortunate enough to be picked up in the process for an amazing role at a leading global technology organisation, I was coincidentally introduced to Rob at ClarusBlue by a friend.
What connected with me immediately was how frankly honest Rob was about the situation and the point we were starting from. Rather than discouraging me, this made it extremely clear what we needed to focus on, what I could control and what I couldn’t, giving me about 75% fewer things to worry and think about as I went through the interview process.”
What we did to support Nathalia
90% of competency based interview questions in a 30-60 minute interview can be covered with 6-7 case studies
The starting point for us was to really understand what Nathalia wanted to achieve. For her it was about more than just landing this job, it was about feeling confident to share her experience and be able to focus on answering questions in a way that really resonated with the interviewer, whether for this job or any other role. As an events manager, Nathalia also loves to have a plan A, B and C, so it was also about helping her to think through different scenarios in advance and be able to react quickly and effortlessly.
To help her with this we focused on three key areas:
Immediate impact: An interviewer will generally make thier judgement on whether they want to work with you in the first 5 minutes of an interview, therefore we helped Nathalia create the ‘Movie trailer’ of her career and who she is. This technique helped her to tell a concise, engaging and impactful short story of her career, with the key ‘hooks’ to set up more in depth talk throughs of her experience later.
‘Hero moment’ case studies: 90% of competency based interview questions in a 30-60minute interview can be covered with 6-7 case studies. What we therefore did was help Nathalia to tell her favourite and most impactful career stories, in a structure that would allow her to use each case study to answer multiple different questions, enabling her to answer almost any question asked.
Visualisation of the day: Picturing the day, from start to finish, anticipating what might go wrong and what contingency plans Nathalia could put in place, helped her to mentally rehearse and prepare for the day, not just the inteview itself.
What was the impact for Nathalia?
“From the moment the hiring manager joined the call for the first interview, I felt different, more confident, more settled and even a little bit excited. By the end of my ‘Movie trailer’, I felt fantastic!”
“From the moment the hiring manager joined the call for the first interview, I felt different, more confident, more settled and even a little bit excited. By the end of my ‘Movie trailer’, I felt fantastic! Even through the Zoom call, I could sense the level of engagement of the hiring manager was different to interviews I’d done before.
As we then went through the interviews, for each question I was asked, I was able to really focus on what was being asked and then choosing the best case study, rather than thinking whether the answer I had prepared matched the wording of the question that had been asked. I was also able to enrich my answers with things I anticipated that the hiring manager would want to know, I felt like this definitely helped me to eliminate some of the trickier questions you tend to get in interviews!
As I went through multiple rounds of the inteview process, my confidence grew and grew. As it turned out, by the time I got to the final interview, my confidence was at a level where I was actually able to step back and question whether this was actually the right job for me. I made it to the final round and the last two of nearly 700 applicants, and while I didn’t get the job and I was disappointed, it was actually not the best job for me. However, after exploring a few more opportunities and turning a few opportunities down, I went on to land a role that I loved with a company that was a great fit for me.
What I gained throughout the process of working with ClarusBlue was the belief that I have a huge amount to offer, I can tell my story with impact and I can go into any room and give a true and confident representation of what I offer as a person and a professional.
Subsequently, as I moved countries three years later and started the job hunt again, I reached out to Rob for a ‘top-up’ coaching session. What I found was that the techniques and approach that I’d learned years before had stuck with me and it was actually just a nice opportunity to refresh and practice these again.”
Do you want to build your interview confidence?
If you’re in the process of looking for a new job or thinking about moving to a new role and you would like to understand more about how we might be able to help you, book a free 20 minute intro call with us to find out more.