3 Goals That Will Change How You Approach Job Interviews

An Effective Mindset to be Successful in Job Interviews

Preparing for a job interview starts with clearly defined goals.

Common Job Interview Goals Among Job Candidates

This may seem like a silly question, but what is your goal for a job interview? What are you hoping to achieve? Maybe you’re going into a job interview with mindsets like:

“I’m going to sell myself.”

“I’m going to convince the hiring committee that I’m the best for the job.”

“I’m going to get hired.”

These types of goals create a lot of pressure and can lead to all-or-nothing thinking. They can make the whole interview process feel inauthentic and uncomfortable. If a job interview doesn’t result in a subsequent interview or a job offer, it can feel like failure, and that can be demotivating.

A Different Type of Job Interview Goal

What happens if we delve a little deeper? How could examining your goals change your experience preparing for and participating in job interviews so you experience less stress and demonstrate more confidence?

The good news is that you can do this by developing new, motivating interview goals for yourself!

3 Potential Goals for your Next Job Interview

Read on for examples of job interview goals you might choose to develop for yourself and strategies you can use to prepare for job interviews.

Goal 1: Build Bridges With Your Prospective Employer

An interview is a chance to establish rapport. The interview isn’t just about what you can do or your accomplishments. It’s also about building relationships with your potential colleagues. If you’re interested in the role, you want the interview team to come away saying, “We want this person on our team!”

How can you achieve this? Know your audience!

If one of your goals is to build bridges with the prospective employer, you’ll facilitate that by researching the hiring team in advance. LinkedIn makes this easy. If someone isn’t on LinkedIn or has a profile that doesn’t say much, rely on other sources such as their bio on the company website. Ideally, you find a couple of sources from which to pull information.

Go a step beyond seeing them as an audience. View them as co-creators of a conversation. When you view them as conversation partners, the interview feels more approachable.

“This shift changed my entire approach to interviewing,” said one of my clients.

Guiding Questions:

• What do I have in common with my conversation partners? For instance, do any of us share an alma mater or an area of study?

• What do people at this organization seem to care about and how does that align with what I care about?

Goal 2: Convey Relevant Qualifications

Of course one of the key reasons employers hold interviews is to provide the candidate a chance to provide examples of their relevant qualifications. And yet, the way many job candidates go into interviews, you’d never know it!

When providing compelling examples of your relevant qualifications is one of your goals for a job interview, there are certain steps you can take to set yourself up for success. You’ll want to take a look at common behavioral interview questions and have talking points ready to go (“Tell me about a time you….”).

Writing down the stories and practicing saying them aloud is a worthwhile way to prepare. Beyond that, I advise my coaching clients to distill each story into 3 main points so you can easily retrieve them in your mind and focus on the key themes.

“Your approach for coming up with key talking points made it much easier to keep track of what I wanted to communicate,” one of my clients shared.

Guiding Questions:

• What are the top skills and areas of expertise this employer is seeking for this role?

• What are short examples I can provide that clearly communicate I possess those skills and knowledge areas?

• How can I use metrics and specifics to make my examples tangible?

• How can I tap into emotions through the examples I share?

Goal 3: Gain An Understanding of Whether The Role & Organization Are a Good Fit For You

A job interview is not only a chance for you to share your relevant accomplishments with the hiring team, it’s also an opportunity for you to learn more about the role and the organization. The information you gather through a hiring process can help you as the job candidate come away with increased clarity about whether it seems like a good culture fit.

Think of the job interview as an opportunity for information sharing. The transfer of information goes both ways — from the employer to you and from you to the employer.

During the interview process you may discover that an organization or role don’t seem like a great fit for you, and that’s OK. It can be useful to find that out before you accept a job offer. This awareness can help you determine what type of role and organization could be a better fit for you.

Note: Sometimes even with due diligence you may need a few months within an organization to discover whether or not it feels like a good match. If you find out that it’s not a good match, it’s possible to make a change and move on with this new awareness in a direction that’s a better fit.

Guiding Questions:

• Do these seem like people I would like to have as colleagues?

• Does the organization’s mission, vision, and values seem aligned with mine?

• Can I envision myself in this place doing this kind of work as part of this culture?

• Does it seem like I will have sufficient opportunities for professional development and growth?

Case Study:

My client Polly, a single parent, wanted to make sure that a prospective employer would afford her a sufficient amount of flexibility in her schedule. Before becoming one of my coaching clients, she was a finalist for a few positions but she wasn’t landing job offers and wasn’t sure what to do differently.

Through our work together, we examined her approach to interviewing and identified some adjustments to make. She clarified her priorities and built up her confidence, which empowered her to ask the necessary questions as a finalist for a role she was excited about. She got the information she felt she needed and felt great about saying yes when the offer came in, just a few weeks after we started working together.

Clarifying what’s important to you before you get to the final interview stage is crucial for helping to determine what to focus on in your questions. Asking the right questions will help you have the information you need to make well-informed decisions.

Recap

There are a number of benefits to re-framing your goals for a job interview so it’s less about performing and more about relationship building and information sharing. Benefits include reduced pressure, improved ability to focus on how to prepare effectively, and a more relaxed and relevant presence in the interview.

For your next job interview, what if, instead of focusing on “selling yourself,” you focus on goals such as:

• Building bridges to your prospective employer

• Conveying relevant qualifications

• Gaining an understanding of whether the role and organization are a good fit for you

How might this shift in mindset influence your experience preparing for and participating in a job interview?

Support to Prepare for Your Next Job Interview

In addition to developing new goals for your next job interview, it’s necessary to carefully craft your narrative so it is clear why you are applying for this role at this organization at this moment in time. Interview coaching with an experienced career professional can help you craft your narrative.

Mock interviewing is a valuable activity because it enables you to refine your statements and gain outside perspective.

Working with an experienced career advisor can also help you prepare for questions you may not anticipate.

Tip:

You may be surprised to learn that you don’t have to wait for an invitation to start learning how to prepare for a job interview. In fact, you can be more thorough and prepared when you are proactive and use one of your target opportunities as a chance to practice interviewing. That way, when you actually do secure a job interview, you already know how to prepare and you have already laid a solid foundation.

If it’s been several years since you’ve gone through a formal job interview process, it’s best not to leave your preparation until you receive an invitation to interview. As soon as you start submitting applications for target roles, it’s advisable to start preparing to interview. This will allow you the time and bandwidth needed to approach the interview process more strategically.