Crafting interview answers: From back drop to holstered diamonds
Once you’ve done the background work of considering the complete landscape of you as a whole person and sifting out the diamonds from the good, bad, and ugly of your occupational path this far, you should have a rich backdrop of knowledge and insight. But, how do you turn all that richness into ready made interview answers that are available at your fingertips? Below are typical interview questions, followed by key places in the previous blogs to pull from when formulating your answers. Feel free to use a note card for each, with the question on one side and your answer on the other. Color coding might also come in handy so you can quickly discern which card it is without having to read the title of each.
8 tips for holstering those diamonds
Tell me about yourself: Now that you’ve reviewed your own story on a grand scale and a work scale, you can draw from those two scopes to construct a censored version of where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you would like to go in a way that is most applicable to the job you’re interviewing for with personal snippets sprinkled in for areas of potential personal/professional overlap (i.e. perhaps to explain your presence in the physical area or specific conditions that may end up needing priority over usual job hours at times such as children or health conditions).
Why are you interested in this position?: For this question, you could pull from your passions and professional strengths lists and tailor them to the specific job description as best as possible.
What are your strengths/weaknesses: For strengths, definitely reiterate the items from your professional strengths, making sure to include social and team oriented ones either your or your close friends have provided.
For weaknesses, pull from the times in the past you faced a steep learning curve but make sure to mention what you learned about yourself in the process such as the importance of stepping back and noticing, becoming curious about what’s needed, and providing yourself at least three choices that are within your control of moving forward in a more functional way.
Also, feel free to mention what was or would be helpful from others to support continual growth such as accountability, flexibility on allowing reflection time, and open celebration of growth when it occurs. Remember that mentioning the places you’re sometimes challenged shows others you are self-aware and have good intentions to encourage growth as much as possible. Also remember that to have faults is only human, and what’s often most impressionable is not the mere existence of imperfections but how we respond to them when they show up. So, admitting them as openly and honestly as possible as well as with as much self-compassion and gained wisdom as possible is really the key to this question.
Handle stress: This question follows along with the weakness part. The main point is to show you are aware of when and how stress shows up for you and are taking active steps to support your own self when it shows up. If you also include how others could support you if needed including allowing time and space for self-collection with the understanding that the missed time will be made up for in full in the long run, bonus points are bound to be earned.
Explaining a gap in your resume: Sometimes there are breaks in employment. It happens to almost all of us. The best way to go about answering this question is to be as honest as appropriate even if it’s just that there was an obvious lack of fit between your own skills, interests, and direction and that of your employer at the time and that this knowledge called for some deep reflection, increased awareness, and attention to more basic needs but that functionally addressing these needs in a way that worked best for you resulted in a more functional redirection of your new found skills, sustainability, and self-care rhythm that is now on a much better track thanks to the time you had for the much needed reset.
Money- In preparation for being asked about the salary you are looking for, first,separate your personal worth from any dollar amount and know that you are much more valuable, just as you are, than any number you could name.
Secondly, make sure you research the average range of pay for this position in the past so you don’t name a price that’s way under their norm. Also, have an idea of your monthly expenses as well as all the support you would need to perform at your best and sustainably. This means having the financial resources to take care of your mental, physical, interpersonal, and spiritual well being so you can stay on top of your A game on the job as much as possible. This might include at least two weeklong adequately rejuvenating vacations a year with funds for a long weekend each quarter, mental health therapy sessions, plenty of babysitting money, and a message/manny/petty each month.
Do you have any questions for us?: Keep in mind this is not the end of the interview. The more questions you have about this specific job, the better. This is where you can ask questions specifically about your environmental preferences like how much personal space, noise, and or light pollution the job will entail during the weekday, the expectation of being in office versus working from home or out in the field, amount of available consultation on a day to day basis, time off expectations, style of leadership in times of concern or conflict, etc.
Also, this is a great time to show you have researched this specific job by asking educated questions about past history with this specific position, specific projects you know are already underway, and any other underbelly workings you know of.
Rehearse: Once you’ve crafted ideal answers to these questions, make an appointment with yourself, if only for a span of 20 minutes, reviewing them in detail. You can get creative with this part by recording the questions, playing them back to yourself and responding with your answers, drawing symbolizations of your answers, matching each answer or parts of your answers with a movement, role playing the interview with a trusted friend or family member… the sky's the limit. Have fun with it and find what works best for your brain.
To wrap up, organizing the plethora of diamonds you’ve gathered from your past experience can be an overwhelming task, especially for most of us big idea minded ADHDers. However, the tips above have hopefully provided you with tangible questions and methods for crafting and storing unique answers in ways that work for your unique brain. Stay tuned for next time on managing performance anxiety for interviews.