 Improving your interview technique may seem like a no-brainer to some of you, thinking about getting a new job. And to others, you might be asking, why does my interview technique really matter? Surely I'll get a job based on my skills, experience and attitude, not how brilliantly I answer questions. In this video, we set out 9 key factors that go into interview technique, how much interview technique really matters to your interview result, and at the end of the video, we'll give you a couple of options on how to improve your interview technique. My name is Jess Coles and I've sat in over a thousand interviews as a hiring manager, hiring all levels from juniors to CEOs. If you're new to this channel, Enhance.training provides online business courses to help professionals, managers and business owners improve their performance. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe and share it with friends. So back to interviews. Interviews are time pressured, highly competitive meetings in which the candidate must convince the interviewer they'll be the best person to solve the employer's problems and the interviewer is trying to find out which candidate can best solve their problems. Because interviews are pressurised, competitive situations, very much like exams we sat at school, your interview technique does actually play a large part in your success or otherwise at interviews. We will explain exactly how much and why in a bit. First, let's go through what we mean by interview technique. Just so we're on the same page, we refer to interview techniques as a set of skills and approaches that go into communicating clearly and effectively how you can solve problems for and add value to a potential employer. In purely economic terms, if an employer is not sure that you can add enough value, you won't get hired even if they really like you. So nine factors we include in interview technique are, firstly, confidence. This is so important because if you can't be confident in what you can do, why should the interviewer be? Two, demonstrating how keen and excited you are to get the job that you've applied to. This again is super important. Put yourself in the interviewer's shoes. If you're not excited about the job and joining this team, they're not going to be getting excited about hiring you, no matter how good you are. Three, how you explain the problems you can solve and the value that you can deliver. Four, being clear and concise. Both make it easier for the interviewer to understand what you have delivered and what you will deliver for them. There's nothing worse for an interviewer than trying to decipher the meaning of a rambling story that doesn't really answer the question asked. I've had to do this too many times. Fifth, how well you match what you can do to the employer's problems when answering the interview questions. Six, the quality of your examples to provide proof or create as much confidence as you can that you can do what you say you can do. And seven, show that you have a good range of core skills such as understanding and solving problems, communication, ability to get on with others, teamwork, likeability, calmness under pressure etc. Eight, showing how you'll fit into the organisation culturally, i.e. how well will your personality fit in with the personalities in the team. And this is about being yourself and also doing your research. And finally nine, demonstrating technical knowledge and the ability to do the job in question. As you can see, there is quite a lot that goes into interview technique. All of the above, apart from maybe cultural fit, can be worked on and improved before you write your CV and go to interviews. So let's take a look at how important interview technique really is in terms of getting a new job. Improving interview technique may be a no brainer to many candidates. For the other candidates, let's go through why improving your interview technique is so important. Firstly, improving your job related skills and experience takes quite a bit of time. If you've got to the interview stage, it means your CV will be in the top 10-20% of CVs received and you're suitable and have job related skills to do the job you've applied for. Everyone at interview should, in theory, certainly be able to do the role. So what is going to differentiate you from the other candidates at interview when everyone is similar on paper? You guessed it, the next biggest factor is interview technique. In fact, 60% plus of the difference between the candidates is their interview technique, 60% plus. The good news is your interview technique can be improved quickly. You know, spend a couple of hours a day working on it for a few weeks and you will transform your chances of getting a new job. In a survey of 1500 mid-level professionals, each were asked how long they spent preparing for interviews with the following results. Up to 60% spent 4 hours or less preparing for a job interview, 28% spent between 5 and 9 hours preparing for a job interview and only 12% spent 10 hours or more preparing for a job interview. Comparing this to my experience of sitting in over a thousand interviews from junior positions to CEOs, I would say that only 10% or so of candidates are well prepared and have good interview technique. 40-50% are OK and the remainder are poorly prepared or have poor interview technique and this applies to all levels of roles. You might be thinking that the more senior you get, the better interviews you get because you have simply gone to more interviews and you are absolutely right. But don't forget your competition are in the same position as you. As you get more senior, the expectations on your interview techniques also rise. So how good your interview technique is only matters in comparison to your competition. So does interview technique really matter that much? Yes it does! Let's take a fairly simple example to demonstrate how much of a difference it makes. Assume that the person in the role requires resilience because they have to support and challenge 20 managers across the business, some of whom are quite difficult. So the interviewer asks, Tell me about a time that you've had to overcome adversity and explain how you went about this. Let's compare answers from two candidates that have both had to deal with adversity and challenges in the workplace and are both good in these situations. Candidate 1 replies with this answer, I have had to deal with difficult people during my job. I currently support managers across four divisions. With the information I provide, I can make decisions together relating to the business units that they look after. This part of my role is really enjoyable. I think I'm good at it and I get a lot of satisfaction from doing a good job. A couple of the managers were difficult which made doing my role hard to start with. I looked for opportunities to help them to prove my worth to them and I didn't allow myself to be put off. I kept showing them how I could help them. This approach has won all of them round and some of them now are my most vocal supporters. Candidate 2 answers, I currently support 20 managers across four divisions providing information and analysis to support them. I use this analysis to challenge the business units performance and make decisions with the manager to improve the business units performance. When I first started in the role, four of the managers were really difficult. They didn't think I could help them to increase the performance of the business unit that they looked after. To overcome this, I was constantly on the lookout for ways to support them and to demonstrate my value. I created opportunities to meet with them, to get to know them and did lots of extra analysis on their business units to show what could be improved. It took me about four months to win them all over and they are now my most vocal supporters. Each business unit performance has increased by over 30% in two years and I'm proud of my contribution to that. I think this demonstrates my resilience and how I overcome adversity in a constructive and successful way. The answers I've just gone through are not that different from each other. Hopefully you've spotted that Candidate 2 employs better interview technique. Candidate 2's answer, firstly is clearer and easier to follow with a better structure using the before, during and after. Secondly, it's more specific and gives me the interviewer more confidence in their ability to deliver what they say they can. And third, it gives me a clearer picture of the outcomes or results of how they have benefited the company. So interview technique accounts for 60% plus of the interview success and creates a large gap between the best performer and the worst performer during each interview stage. Remember, you can improve your interview technique fairly quickly in a matter of weeks once you know what to do. As promised, a couple of options to help you improve your interview technique. Firstly, you'll need to learn what to do differently and then, as a skill, you need to practice it to get good at it. Different ways to learn what is needed include, firstly, read a good book on interview techniques. My favourite is Great Answers to Tough Interview Questions by Martin John Yates. It's a great book and books give you a good amount of knowledge but they do leave you to work out how to put this knowledge into practice. Secondly, take a course to learn interview techniques. I'd absolutely suggest taking a look at our House Race and Interview for a proven job-winning methodology. The course is packed full of exercises and questions to give you a structured and progressive preparation for any interview from junior roles through to CEOs. Just go to Enhance.training and click on courses. And finally, you can just try and try an error. You'll have to go to a lot more interviews and reflect on what went well and what didn't. Keep trying out different approaches until they start working. A lot of my early learning was through this approach. I'll definitely recommend a course or a book rather than this approach because it'll save you a lot more time. Whichever route you choose, the work you put into your interview technique will be paid back with less interviews, less rejection, better job offers and better career progression. The work you put into your interview technique really is worth it. I absolutely promise. And if you like this video, please hit the thumbs up button below and subscribe and hit the bell to get notified of our weekly video releases. This really helps us produce more great videos to help you. Thanks very much for watching and look forward to seeing you again soon.