Preparing for a managerial interview? Then you will want to stand out!
You have got the Interview, so you want to make the best impression.
Interviews are typically conducted in multiple stages, normally with 2 or 3, but can be a lot more depending on seniority. You will often meet a range of individuals, from line and hiring managers to senior stakeholders and even members of the team you hope to take on.
To help you prepare for a future or current managerial role, we have listed below some tips on preparing for the interview.
- Prepare for the questions
Your success in any interview process is based on your ability to offer detailed examples of the skills and experience laid out in your CV.
Questions that relate a candidate’s past-experience to new situations are common. These might touch upon your leadership or management skills or potential issues within your team or work environment, enabling the hiring manager to gauge your ability to adapt your current skillset to meet the requirements of the role.
A strong candidate should have the ability to be specific when it comes to deliverables. They should be able to give detailed examples of what they were targeted to do and how they achieved it.
- Own your mistakes
it’s only natural to try to focus the discussion on your successes, talking up your most impressive achievements and avoiding those you are less proud of.
However, talking about your challenges might make you a more desirable candidate than someone who appears to have not been challenged in their career. Indeed, overselling yourself might cause interviewers to doubt your experience. It takes confidence to acknowledge previous mistakes or failures and talking about how you bounced back from or overcome these setbacks can be positive.
A positive attitude and resilience are important in today’s market and a candidate who is forthcoming in showing his or her vulnerability and ability to survive might convince a hiring manager to hire them over someone who sells themselves as the perfect candidate.
- Outline your management style
When hiring for managerial positions the interviewers are looking for someone who can work well with others.
Candidates should therefore be able to demonstrate their ability to integrate or lead a team and bring different experiences, or a new approach, that might add value to the team or company.
Candidates should be able to talk clearly about their leadership style and give examples of how they would lead a team. Coming in as an external hire can be quite challenging, so put some thought into how you would manage this so you can explain at the interview.
A common question is what would you do in your first month or two. This doesn’t need to be a detailed strategy, but you should be prepared. By way of an example: “In my first month I would review the team’s strengths and weaknesses. In the second month, I would start putting in place a training and development plan that aligns with the companies’ objectives”.
- Ask good questions
Asking questions during an interview shows a good level of interest in the role however there are some questions that may raise concerns with a hiring manager.
It is good to was questions about the organisation’s culture, or whether the interviewer can describe a time when people from different departments worked together on a project to solve an issue as it demonstrates your interest in the company and the role you’re applying for.
Also asking questions about career progression will demonstrate a progressive mindset as long as they are realistic. However, candidates should avoid focusing too many questions on employee benefits. These are things you can find out about later in the process and could be seen that you are more interested in yourself than the company or role.
- Present yourself as a team player
Whilst it is important to promote your personal achievements, you must also show that you are a team player. You need to be striking a balance when talking about previous achievements by using both “I” and “We” to highlight that you are people focused and don’t take all the praise. Praising other people shows humility and that you are a team player.
- Be proactive
With so much competition for position’s, it is increasingly important for candidates to go the extra mile in articulating and presenting how they might add value to the role.
Whilst not all ideas may be welcomed at the interview stage, to have spent time preparing shows a high level of interest in the job. It also shows initiative and that you are prepared to work outside of work hours to get thing done. It is however important that you don’t come across as arrogant and present your ideas or initiatives as ideas and discussion points.