The panel interview, what to expect and how to prepare.
My name is Bill Benoist and I am a Certified Professional Career Coach here in Silicon
Valley.
And this is one of the most common questions I'm asked by my clients.
So, let me give you some tips and strategies on preparing for the panel interview.
Number 1: Okay, this is probably the most important, but it's not something that happens
all the time.
However, if you are provided the names of the individuals that are going to be interviewing
you prior to the panel interview, make sure that you research them.
Look them up on LinkedIn.
Try to learn as much as you can about these individuals.
And also, just look to see if there's any commonalities between, um, their profile and
what you have.
Maybe it's connections that you have.
Maybe it's a school that you went to.
Maybe it's some groups that you belong to look for any kind of commonalities there,
because when it all boils down to this.
I will talk a little bit more about this as we progress in this video.
It's more about compatibility than it is about your competence.
And I've said this many times before, but you know.
Oftentimes you are being interviewed by other team members in a panel interview.
These are players that are going to be on your team, and then we're going to make sure
that there's compatibility there.
But with that said, they're also going to be asking questions that may be a little bit
more technical or operational, depending upon what the domain is that you're interviewing
it.
But they're going to be asking questions from their specialty.
So, you know, with a hiring manager, they may be often asking behavioral type of questions.
Oh, tell me a little bit about yourself or what do you think your biggest weakness is?
Um, what was one of your biggest achievements, you know, in your last work, but the individuals
that will be interviewing you, they're going to be a little bit more down to earth in asking
you specifics there, this is a great time to really shine, you know, with your technical
and operational ability.
Just keep in mind that they're coming from their own world.
When they're asking these questions, you know, actually I had a client just a couple of weeks
ago who went through a panel interview.
She was interviewing for an HR position.
So there was a couple of other HR individuals on the interview.
And then there was the hiring manager and then there was actually one person from the
it department.
And guess what the person from the it department was wanting to know.
Well, what kind of experience do you have with, um, with applications in the HR realm
of things?
You know, what are the applications that you used in your PLAs position in HR?
These are the kinds of questions that you can likely face.
So you want to make sure you have your stories correct.
And one of the best ways to do this is just go bullet point by bullet point by bullet
point down your resume and make sure that you have a story, a situation, um, an obstacle
or whatever your responsibility was and the action you took and the results that came
about it.
It's going to help a lot.
And I've got some other videos on creating these kinds of stories and behavioral type
stories.
I'll link it in the upper right corner.
Even if you are not able to find out the person's name before the interview, you're going to
know their names during the interview, whether it's in-person or it's over video, make sure
that you use these names.
Everybody loves to hear their names.
It's a great way, again, to get into report.
You know, when you're meeting these individuals, make sure that you have a warm smile or, you
know, you're in a wave when you are on camera there.
Again, it's not going to be uncommon, especially nowadays to be having this panel interview
over video, if it is in person, however, then I want you to make sure that you are looking
at the individual when they are asking the question, don't focus all your attention on
the hiring manager.
You want to equally focus it around the room.
As individuals are asking you questions or the way you're answering the questions.
Another little trick here, somebody asks you a question and you answer it.
And then a couple of questions later, somebody else asks you a question.
If you can tie your answer to a previous individual, then do that because it all shows that you
are listening and that you're remembering.
And again, it just, it creates that amount of rapport.
Well, as I was mentioning to Gary, one of the things that we did, um, in my last position
was, so you're going back to this individual here, but answering this individual's question
in a new life, and again, balance your questions to an answers together.
This is a mutual conversation back and forth.
And finally, the last thing that I want to talk about, and again, this is if we're over
video, but I want you to be aware, um, four things and we'll just call them a, B, C, and
D a is the ambience of the entire environment that you're creating.
And what I mean by ambiance is I'm talking about, well, lit camera is at the right angle.
You're looking into the camera, please.
You know, keep this in mind.
Don't be looking at the screen when you're answering questions, look at the camera because
especially, especially if your camera's in one spot and your screen is on the other,
or what's something that recently happened with me is the individual.
We had photo on the left side of the screen, and then everybody on the right sentence side
of the screen, and what she was doing is she would be looking like this or like this, rather
than looking at the camera.
And it was just very, very awkward.
And she didn't even, she couldn't even tell this herself.
So what I did was I made her go full screen and then she had just a little block of herself
in the upper top.
So ambience, the other one is background.
Okay.
Make sure that you've got a nice, good background, no windows in the back windows will cause
a lot of shade with you.
So again, prepare in advance your background.
Um, this seat is just clutter stands for clutter.
Make sure that you don't have any clutter be well-organized here.
What they will be seen as what they may think of what your desk would look like.
You know, w when you, when everything around you is cluttered, it really looks disorganized.
And again, you want to come off as professional, you know, remember this, I am a professional,
I have no problems.
I create no problems and I'm here to solve all of your problems.
First step, you need to be a professional.
And then finally the distractions make sure that you are in a quiet zone.
Turn off your cell phone.
Um, turn off the alerts.
This is really important.
If you're on a video call, make sure that you turn off any alerts that, um, may come
up because one of the most frustrating things is you're talking to somebody and all of a
sudden they hear dings and you want to turn off your alerts, turn off your phone, close
your door, make sure everybody is quiet.
Hopefully you're not going to have anybody come and knock on the door and ring doorbell.
I've had that happen many times before when I'd been on one-on-one call and I'm getting
a shipment from Amazon or so, but you want to try to minimize the distractions as much
as possible.
The takeaway though, the main takeaway that I want you to walk away from, with this, your
resume validated your competence, the interview validates your compatibility.
And a lot of times, again, the people that are going to be interviewing you on a panel
are often going to be some of your coworkers and they're looking for compatibility.
So I hope you found this video informative and useful if you haven't already done.
So make sure that you subscribe to this channel, hit the bell notification as a do upload new
career tips and strategies every Tuesday.
And I hate for you to miss one, thanks for stopping by.
And I look forward to seeing you next week.