3 Tips to Succeed in Job Interviews
“If you’re anxious, it’s because you haven’t been getting enough tempting offers from consultants.” This was the phrase a colleague sent me, and it made me think a lot about it. On the day I write this, I had an interview that could be a turning point in my professional career and personal life. My mind is making everything difficult, and that’s why I wanted to come here and talk a little.
My current situation is as follows: I am a DevOps professional who left Brazil to develop a career in Portugal. In this move, I didn’t come alone; I brought my wife, who was pregnant at the time, and consequently, I had my child here in Portugal. However, this was the first time I lived far from family, and it affected me a lot, mainly because it wasn’t just one big change but two: I became a father and left my country.
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Now I’m returning, not due to professional problems — quite the contrary, I believe I have evolved a lot professionally during my time here, including technical knowledge, interpersonal skills, and other aspects. However, even with all this evolution, I still have anxiety issues, especially in interviews. Having recently participated in a few, I wanted to share some tips I’ve learned to help.
1. Participate in Many Interviews
When we are learning something in IT, we always have the alert that it’s no use just learning, watching videos, reading articles if these skills aren’t put into practice or even extrapolated. The word we need to almost tattoo in our minds is “practice.”
When we put knowledge into practice in any area, whether a new language, a framework, or deploying a new service, we are repeatedly rehearsing a behavior that helps us learn and improve some skills. That said, know that it won’t be in the first interview that you will be approved. Improving interview behavior comes with time.
When I had the opportunity to come to Portugal, I was hired by a consultancy, and the work method at the beginning was basically to pass a client. What this means is that I already had my work contract with the consultancy signed, but I couldn’t find a project to work on, even though the consultancy’s clients had projects, I needed to pass interviews.
I confess that this beginning was a bit frustrating because there were many projects that I fit into, but it wasn’t easy because I didn’t have the experience to “sell” myself in interviews, I hadn’t done many interviews, I wasn’t used to the different formats of interviews, nor how to organize my resume to sell myself correctly.
So remember, it won’t be the first time that you’ll pass.
2. Understand That You Are Your Product
Understand that any type of hiring is a professional service relationship. As a professional, you need to understand your knowledge, achievements, and experiences very well; above all, you must be able to fit all of this into a package that catches your client’s attention (the company that might hire you).
Just because we don’t have a well-defined “product” doesn’t mean we’re not selling something in an interview. Every good product can fit into these three pillars:
- Need — Do your experiences create a need for the recruiter? Can you, with your experiences, solve the problems that the position requires?
- Transformation — What impacts have your experiences brought to the projects you worked on? Can you bring this impact to the position you’re applying for? What impact would you bring to this project?
- Capacity for Transformation — We must ask the following question: Can you (your product), by yourself, apply the necessary impact for the project you’re applying for? Or does the employer need to “polish” you?
When you, as a product, can affirmatively answer these questions, understand that it will just take time to secure a position. For that, you need to work on your product, work on yourself, study, practice, do everything necessary to have a good product.
3. Give Time Some Time
Regarding time, there are two aspects I always like to think about. First, as a Catholic, I always think on the one hand about the idea that God has the right time for everything, and we can base this on what the Bible says:
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot. — Ecclesiastes 3:1–2
Thinking this way helps me stay calmer about understanding that if I didn’t pass that interview, it’s because it wasn’t meant for me to go, as if something better is waiting for me in the future, as if I needed to have the experiences of those processes where I wasn’t chosen to stand out in the one where I really need to stand out. Anyway, it’s a very religious view, but it’s my view, a way to self-regulate and give time some time.
Another approach to this theme is something I watched in a video by Yudi Ganeko, which cites the following phrase:
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
Thinking this way, prepare yourself. If it didn’t work out this time, it could be that you just weren’t prepared enough to meet the requirements. Go back, start over, but don’t give up; eventually, luck will come to you.
In short, there are countless other ways to prepare for interviews, to put anxiety aside. It doesn’t mean that if you use a method and get approved, and stay with the same company for a while, you don’t have to revisit some methods again or even receive “no” during some processes until you get your “yes” again.
For me, these processes simply represent the opportunity for you to show what you know, and if you know and can control your emotions, you can show what you’re capable of, give your examples, and have the “luck” you need so much.
