Interview Skills
Take time to prepare for your interview in advance. Remember that you are assessed throughout an interview not only on what you say but also on non-verbal cues and body language. Be sure to greet each person with a firm handshake and look your interviewer in the eye. Be aware of poor body language or irritating habits. Try to minimize irritating habits such as tapping your pen, twirling your hair, or avoiding eye contact. Sit up straight and talk with your hands naturally.
A Few General Tips for Successful Interviewing
- Always be positive; avoid negative words and phrases as much as possible.
- Maintain good eye contact at all times.
- Be enthusiastic about the position, the institution, your skills, and how you can contribute.
- Smile! A pleasant and relaxed smile will keep both you and the interviewer at ease.
- Keep in mind that it is impossible to control all aspects of an interview. If you encounter a question you are unprepared for, do your best and then move on.
- View the interview as a give-and-take, two-way conversation where you are gathering valuable information to help you make the best career choice possible
Structuring your Responses
When answering questions, be brief and succinct and try not to ramble. By doing this, you show the interviewer that you can listen and quickly organize your thoughts, and it gives the interviewer time to ask you other pertinent questions. Do not speak too quickly as the interviewer may have difficulty understanding you. Pausing briefly will give both you and the interviewer time to think and reflect.
Outside academia, many corporations now use behavioral-based interviewing techniques, which require the job applicant to describe past situations that relate to situations they might encounter in the new position. This approach is based on the belief that past performance is the best predictor of future behavior and is called behavior-based interviewing. Questions typically begin with phrases like "tell me about a time when you. . ." or "think about an instance in which you."
While behavior-based interviewing is less common in academe, it can still be a useful tool to help you persuasively structure your responses to questions.
The STAR Method
The STAR method is a structured manner of responding to an interview question by discussing the specific situation, task, action, and result of the situation you are describing.
- Situation: Set the stage for the interviewer by providing an overview of the situation and any relevant background information. Be specific and succinct.
- Task: What goal were you working toward?
- Action: Describe the actions you took to address the situation with an appropriate amount of detail. What specific steps did you take and what was your particular contribution? Be careful that you don't describe what the team or group did when talking about a project, but what you actually did. Use the word "I," not "we" when describing actions.
- Result: Describe the outcome of your actions and don't be shy about taking credit for your behavior. Your answer may contain multiple positive results.
Make sure that you follow all parts of the STAR method. Be as specific as possible at all times, without including too much information. Oftentimes interviewees have to be prompted to include their results, so try to include that without being asked. Also, eliminate any examples that do not paint you in a positive light. However, keep in mind that some examples that have a negative result (such as "lost the game") can highlight your strengths in the face of adversity.
A Sample STAR Answer
The answer below shows how you can take a very general question you may encounter and provide a STAR answer. Keep in mind that although the question may not be phrased as a behavioral-based question, answering with a concrete STAR answer will oftentimes be much more effective than just providing a more general and hypothetical answer. This question was first answered generally, but then the behavioral technique was employed to provide a specific example.
Question: What is your approach to dealing with students?
General answer: I always treat students with courtesy and respect, and I make an effort to listen attentively to their concerns and not dismiss these outright. I work with them to help them understand course requirements, and my principal way of dealing with difficult situations is to have very clearly defined expectations. When a student does approach with a complaint, I arrange a time for us to discuss their performance and my grading of it in greater depth.
Situation: I can illustrate my approach through an example. Last year, I was a teaching assistant for a 200-level history course, in which I was responsible for teaching quiz sections and grading. Near the end of the term, I was approached by a student who was unhappy with her grade. She thought I had graded her final paper too harshly.
Task: I realized that the way I handled this situation would have very important implications, because if I was too lenient with this student I could acquire a reputation as a pushover. Yet I also needed to listen to this student carefully and assess whether she had a valid complaint.
Action: I asked the student to bring a copy of her paper to me during office hours where we would discuss the situation. When we met, I first discussed with the student the criteria I used for grading, why points were subtracted, and the basic requirements for an A paper. Then we looked at her paper and how I had graded it. I identified ways in which her paper failed to meet the criteria for an A paper and suggested ways to improve her organization and writing.
Result: While the student was still unhappy with her grade, she was satisfied that she had been graded fairly. She no longer contested the grade, and I felt that I had dealt with the student both fairly and respectfully.
Interpersonal Skills
Recent studies of what search committees want have shown that personality and interpersonal skills are important determiners in the on-campus interview. A seasoned department head at a baccalaureate institution commented, ". . . when the final decision is made among the top two or three candidates, in almost every circumstance, all of them are highly or relatively equally qualified. So in the final decision, personality usually plays a big part. But it wouldn't if qualifications weren't so important at all the earlier stages of the process." (Broughton and Conlogue; Sheehan, McDevitt, and Ross).