Recently, my phone has been showing lots of pictures of my kids when they were really little.  

They look, in my opinion, super cute. 

Now the eldest is a teenager – all gangly arms and legs.  Still loveable but a little less cute!!

It has stimulated lots of, “oh, do you remember when…” conversations.  Which has made us laugh and feel sentimental in equal measure.

When you have a stroppy teenager leaving a trail of lost items and destruction behind them it can be easy to sugar coat the past and wish for ‘simpler times’.  The thing is when they were toddlers life was not always a bed of roses either but the pictures don’t tell that story.

The past had lumps and bumps too but time and memory has eased those out.

When you are interviewing it can be really easy to get stuck in the sugar coated past, but our job is to help the interviewer imagine how we can fit into the future of the company.  

We need to future pace them into seeing how we can create an impact should they employ us.

Now, this can feel difficult if we are being asked behaviour based questions, because we are going to tell them how we propose to handle the situation and then use examples from our past to support the approach we suggested.  Problem is we are stuck in the past.  Very hard for your interviewer to see you in his or her future.

So what can you do to combat that?

You can give your answer telling them how you would deal with a specific scenario and you can use your evidence from your past experience that demonstrates that you have done it before.  Then you can move the interviewer into the future by asking, a version of this question,

“Do you have a current scenario in the team/organisation/role where these skills would need to be applied?”

You should be able to build on their answer by asking more questions until you have a clear understanding of the scenario and then tell them what you think the best approach might be given what you now know.

Be mindful that  you may  not have the full picture at this stage but saying, “from what I understand,” or “I may not have the full picture yes, but…”

Whenever you have the chance, take your interviewer on a trip to the future so they can imagine you in the role and see how you create impact.

Would you like to nail your interview and land your dream role by being present, personable and persuasive?
If you want to book a coffee chat to discuss how you can be more present, personable and persuasive in an interview, then you can do that here.

If you are already sold on the idea then you can learn more about the programme  here.