How I Prepare for a Job Interview
Prepping for interviews has always been stressful for me. Especially when money is tight, they literally feel like hoops to jump through to make sure bills are paid. Like just GIVE ME THE JOB! It has been a bit challenging for me to really comb out my thoughts from a tangled mess into smooth understandable points. So while on this SECURING the Job journey I have had to learn what works FOR ME when it comes to preparing my thoughts, settling my anxiety, and defeating the negative thoughts that may enter my head trying to count me out from a role. Every time I go through this process I get a confidence boost because I uncover things about myself that can be of value to the role and org and get a better command over my story. Here’s my workflow. I hope this Helps!
Identify What Sparks Joy or Excitement
This can be words, sentences, and even skills. Identify what stands out as your point of connection between your expertise (I like that word better than experience lol) and the job. This also helps me with getting my thoughts together around my WHY because they will ask that in the interview.
Also I look up the company. I make sure to have a good idea of what the company does and it’s mission. You don’t need to be a whole historian on the company. But I do like to focus on the parts of the company that draws my interest most- so for me it would be their sustainability goals and projects. It adds to your WHY and shows that you actually care about what they have going on.
EXAMPLE
I’m gonna use the Energy Consultant job interview that I prepped for as an example for this
Phrases from the Energy Consultant job description (JD) that spark joy in me:
Helping utility companies transition to clean energy >> This is stuff that excites me. I read up on a lot of project like this when I was in school
Identifying gaps >> I’m resourceful and all the work I have done in the sustainability space was birthed from identifying the gaps and creating solutions to fill the gap
Understand What I Bring
This is where I elaborate on my past projects and connect them to the needs of the role. I make sure to try my best to be as authentic as possible. I focus on storytelling and connecting my past to what they need for the future instead of trying to wow them with buzzwords and other fancy terms. I’ve found that when I have fun with this part and show some personality I feel more confident. I try my best to treat this as simply sharing my story rather than being interrogated in a Law & Order style interrogation room.
“In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.” *clank, clank*
This part reminds me that I KNOW what I’m talking about and no matter what question they throw at me, since I KNOW my story, I know the answer. I have the cheatcoade. Lol I LIVED the life in question. I DID the past projects. Nobody can punk me on knowing the life EYE LIVED. This is where you gotta get comfortable with TALKING YOUR SH*T. I focus on the parts of the job I can execute VERY well and spend more time there rather than stressing about the parts I can’t. Heck they dont even expect people to have everything on the job description (JD) down pact.
EXAMPLE
What I can bring to the Energy Consultant role:
Experience with storytelling using data and providing valuable insights >> When I interned in grad school I did a project where I combined forestry data, parcel data, and impervious surface data to create a suitability map for the downtown Atlanta area to find the most suitable places for tree planting. The purpose of this project was to bolster the urban tree canopy and enhance shade canopy
Experience with greenhouse gas accounting, creating a roadmap to decreasing emissions, and leveraging data and policy to push towards decarbonization >> My capstone project in grad school focusing on calculating embodied carbon emissions from building on campus and proposing a policy that can help decrease the emissions
Demystify Stuff
If there are terms and phrases that I don’t understand I make sure to look them up just for reference because I found that I actually have experience in certain things but I may not have the right lingo for it. For example, I used to not be familiar with the terms data visualization or stakeholder engagement. They sounded waaaaay above me, but I have actually been doing those things in past projects in roles. I was able to describe the actions in past interviews, but didn’t have the correct terminology. So dissecting the JD helps me make sure I’m not overlooking valuable skills that I have that they need.
EXAMPLE
I looked up terms from the JD that related to energy efficiency
I made sure to understand a little bit about the software mentioned on the JD
Being Nosy
I had to learn to stop seeing interviews as interrogation sessions.
I’m not chicken on a grill being cooked over a hot flame of questions about my past. I’m in a room (or zoom) having a conversation where BOTH sides need to learn about each other.
If I have access to the names of my interviewer I LinkedIn stalk them and sometimes I come across their projects or work that strike my curiosity and might want to ask about learning more. I also think about the things I find important in a job and make a point to ask questions about that. Being that most of my interviews have been an hour, I like to have three questions prepared. This isn’t just to amaze them with the fact that I have questions, but this is to MAKE SURE that I will be getting my curiosities addressed and needs met IF (because job-securers have the power of choice too) I choose to take the role.
EXAMPLE
LinkedIn stalked everybody
looked up the salary range that they offed for the job and what is the market salary on Glassdoor
I came up with some questions based off of what I wanted to know
What are the pain points that the person coming into this role need to address
How are mistakes handled by the team?
What is the trajectory of someone in this role in the company
Bringing in my unique experience
In an interview I tend to leave out some unique aspects of myself out of fear of it not being relevant to the job. But I am realizing that since I am a WHOLE person, even the things that can seem too quirky or mundane can be of relevance to what I can bring to a role. Plus in the interviews I’ve been in, they always have asked me “Is there anything else you would like us to know?” . And honestly that question used to stump me and I would always say “Nope.” like a foolish goat. Literally throwing out an opportunity to bring my uniqueness to the light! This is my chance to show them the things that only I bring to the table. After going over my skills and the basics of why I can do the job (basic stuff), I need to show them how I can ELEVATE the experience for everyone.
EXAMPLE
I volunteer around Atlanta at community gardens and other sustainbility events >> that’s valuable for getting the organization connected to sustianbility efforts in the city
I built an environmental justice org with my friends and did a lot of community engagement work >> this helped me understand how to build something from the ground up and work with people; from what I saw about this role, it’s new and being able to build something up is valuable
