How to prepare yourself for a job interview 

Laura Williams, school leadership coach, trainer and SBL podcast host, gives advice on how you can put your best foot forward when going into a job interview 

Read the full article below or on page 14 in our April magazine

The biggest trap I see SBLs fall into when preparing for an interview is trying to predict every single question that they’ll be asked. Sure, there are some classics like: 

What would you say is your biggest weakness? And…

Tell us about a time that you made a mistake and what you learnt from it.

But to try and forecast every scenario and memorise every possible response is just going to turn your brain to spaghetti at the worst possible time. Couple that with good old imposter syndrome, and the fact that SBLs generally aren’t comfortable stepping into the spotlight and talking themselves up (which is what an interview is all about!) then we’re really getting into scary territory!

If you’ve got an interview coming up, here are my top tips for SBL recruitment readiness.

Apply an analytical approach to job searches and job applications

Forget what you think you know. Don’t make assumptions. When it comes to how we view ourselves, it’s easy to talk ourselves down and out of applying for a job at all! Instead, look at what’s on paper in front of you and work from that. 

Read through the job description and person specification and highlight where you think you’ve got it covered and where you feel you may not meet the criteria. This will give you areas of focus for your CPD such as attending a course, studying for a qualification or requesting input into areas currently outside of your remit. 

If you feel that you’re ‘kind of’ matching what they’re asking for, consider why that specific thing is on the list. What do they want you to demonstrate? What is it they’re actually looking for? You might have to meet a prescriptive criterion but, in terms of how you meet it, you can be creative! If you’re really not sure if you hit the mark or not, ask someone you trust for their perspective on it.

Forget question prep, focus on you prep

As I said before, there’s no way of knowing what questions are going to come up in an interview. I’ve walked out of a lot of interviews and been gutted they hadn’t asked me specific questions because I had knock-out answers prepared and didn’t get the chance to get across everything I wanted to – so, instead, do this. 

Pick some of your career highlights – eg, managing a big project, leading a new team, implementing a big change. Make sure they’re meaty. For each highlight (ahem, example of your awesomeness) – write down all the great things you did, the issues you had and how you fixed them, the impact you had on the school. 

Now write down the key things that each example might demonstrate to an interview panel such as overcoming adversity, recovering from a mistake, evidence of negotiating skills, managing a difficult team member, saving a large chunk of money (always a winner!) and if you can hook these examples up to your personal statement in your application, even better. If you can use the vocabulary referenced in their person specification, double points, but keep this subtle. 

You can summarise all of this in a notebook and take it with you into the interview if you feel you need to. You can’t know what they will ask, but you can prepare your answers to pretty much any question by focusing on you and the impact you have! 

A recruitment process is about telling them what you know, talking up what you’ve done and showing them what you’re actually capable of

We’re good at the first two (mostly!) but when it comes to talking about how great we’ll be in that new job, how much value we’ll add and how much of an impact we can have…well, we either forget because we’re too busy trying to prove we’re worth interviewing in the first place, or we’re scared to take that extra step and be so bold as to tell them what, if they were to give us the job, we’d actually do with the opportunity. 

When you wrote your job application and as part of your general interview prep, you’ll have conducted lots of research and accrued lots of information about the organisation. Broadly speaking, you should know what they’re good at and where their strengths lie, what they’re not so good at and where their weaknesses lie and, crucially, what their current priorities are. Based on this, you should be able to match up the notes in your notebook to these areas with ease. 

How can you make the organisation stronger? How can you help them fix their vulnerabilities? What new ideas do you have to help move them forward? How can you get them where they want to be faster? If you find yourself struggling to weave this into your answers, pose some questions to the panel at the end and use them as openers to show them how much of a match you really are.

Finally, if you do all of this and you still don’t get the job, don’t take it personally

I know you just tutted when you read that!

The thing is, when it comes to recruitment, if you’ve hit all the criteria, and you’ve proven you can do the job and are a credible candidate then, fundamentally, there’s only one question left to ask. Are you a good fit for the organisation? If there’s more than one credible candidate then the question becomes, which candidate is the best fit? 

This comes down to a number of things but it’s not something you have any control over. In truth, you should be sitting there thinking along the same lines. Is this organisation a good fit for you? Can you see yourself working there? Will you be able to work and progress the way you want to there?

Sure, it’s going to hurt if you’re saying yes and they’re saying no, but all it means is that this role isn’t the one for you. You’ve probably sat on the other side of the table and made similar decisions but, for it to be the right role, it has to be right for both sides.

It doesn’t mean you’re not capable, it doesn’t mean that you’re unemployable, it doesn’t mean that you should stop applying for jobs or that you’re not interview-ready. It just means that you haven’t found ‘the one’ yet!

Allow yourself to be disappointed. Consider the feedback…then brush yourself off and go again. The right role in the right organisation is out there, I promise – and when you find it, it’ll be so worth it!

If you need help through the process, then reach out – to me, to your SBL friends, to your network, to a trusted colleague. You don’t have to go it alone, so don’t!