I am part of a student mentoring program that involves a significant amount of interview prep discussions. Those entering the class have varying levels of experience and education. One common question is how to compete for positions upon graduation with candidates who have more education or experience?
This is a tough situation. For those with a head start on their peers, the game is theirs to lose. If they bring their A game with a solid resume and interview performance it may not be possible to best them in a head-to-head interview situation. All is not lost. Everyone loves an underdog story.
Here are a number of areas for those in an underdog situation to consider. Just like the classic underdog tale; those with the advantage may be tempted to be overly confident; opening a window for the hungrier and more highly motivated underdog.
Resume – You probably think your resume is good; you are probably wrong. Be relentless about perfecting your resume and seeking feedback. Not only does your resume help land the interview but it is the first impression that proceeds the interview. This is your blockbuster movie trailer and a good trailer sells.
Interview Performance – Your ability to master the interview can raise your prospects above others with similar or more impressive experience. Learn how to take control of the interview by presenting a carefully curated and practiced set of responses.
Body Language – Research positive body language. Smile. Maintain a healthy amount of eye contact. Sit up straight or lean back slightly and be ready to lean in to show interest when others are speaking. Use your hands and periodically return your hands to the steeple position (like Dr. Evil).
Research – Be more prepared than the competition. Network to learn inside information and organizational lingo. Know the company’s mission statement, history, and recent financial standing. Read something written by the current and past CEO. Sound like one of them.
Touché – Practice responding to unexpected questions. Pause to reflect. Ask them to repeat the question. Repeat the question back in your own words. Be prepared to say “I don’t know” but try to keep the conversation rolling. Pivot to answering the underlying question if possible. Do not BS. Do not say, “I’ll get back to you with an answer”.
Side Projects – Get involved with or devise side projects that are closely aligned with the technology or skill you are lacking. This can be a personal project or service project. The main idea is to create something that can showcase your passion for technology and ability to learn and apply new skills. The more impactful and complex the better.
Network – A close cousin to research, networking can be a be differentiator. Seek out and talk to as many people as you can who are doing the job and working for the company you want. Learn the lingo, get tips on learning requirements, organizational structure, job role, and feedback. Ask if there is a formal referral program and ask for formal or informal referrals. Ask them to be a mentor. Find a way to share your networking success story during the interview.
Mentoring – Share stories demonstrating how you have mentored or coached others and how you have benefited from your mentors. This helps demonstrate a desire to help others and that you are coachable.
Learning as a Skill – Consider all of the classes you have taken and independent learning. Make sure to demonstrate your ability to learn new material and skills quickly. Are you an avid reader? Talk about related books and articles that you have recently read. Share your learning style, passion for learning, and any learning tools that you rely on to increase your industry knowledge.
Public Speaking – Make sure to share any experience you have with public speaking, presenting, and classroom teaching. Look for ways to demonstrate speaking experience or any related study or training.
Writing – Share any published works, professional blogs, or other examples of writing ability. Did you write a technical support guide or training curriculum? Maybe you have a thesis or other major written work. Many candidates do not have solid evidence of writing ability.
Resiliency – Interviewers often try to assess how candidates deal with stress and failure. Consider preparing or volunteering a story describing how you rise above stressful situations. Tell a story about how you failed in some important but trivial situation and how you turned that failure into something positive.
Consulting – Have you ever been sought out as an expert on a topic? You may want to discuss how you used expertise that you gained through study or experience to help others.
Planning – Have you every organized a big event, participated on a planning committee, or collaborated with others to accomplish a common goal?
Volunteer Work – Don’t be afraid to share volunteer work; especially if this can demonstrate leadership, mentoring, organizational skills, or other skill that may not be readily represented in your work experience.
Leadership – Talk about your experience leading others whether it is a small team or a full division. What is your leadership style? How have you dealt with problems and roadblocks?
Certification – If you can’t beat them, out learn them. You can learn rapidly with a focused self-driven certification program. Focus on easy wins, certs with 1-2 exam requirements that are closely aligned with your career goals. Just because someone has more education or experience does not mean they are relevant. Especially when it comes to new tech like cloud, AI, and data science (everyone is rushing to keep up).
Creativity – Talk about work or personal activities that demonstrate your creativity and innovative thinking.
Project Work – Devising or joining a personal technology-driven project can lead to an impressive story. What tech are you studying? Find a practical way to apply that technology, even if it has been done before, to demonstrate your ability to apply your education in the real world. For example, if you are applying for game developer jobs you should be working on your own game. If you are studying cloud services, start devising something that relies on or integrates with cloud services.
Entrepreneurship – Have you started or participated in the startup of a business? What did you learn? What worked well and what did not? In what part of the business were you the most skilled?
Special Skills – Any special talent, skill, or amazing experience should be considered. Are you a talented musician, bilingual, speed typist, artist, calligrapher, or Eagle Scout? Maybe you played a sport in college, rode a bicycle across the US, grew up in another country, or jumped out of an airplane. Maybe you saved someone using CPR or someone saved you from a harrowing situation. Your unique skills and experiences may not be directly relevant but they are memorable and usually showcase a relatable skill. Find a way to slip these in without taking too much time away from discussing your professional skills. Just avoid deeply personal stories…
Passion – Being genuinely passionate about the company and the position is hard to hide. Passion can be difficult to demonstrate if you are monotone or low energy by default. Passion can be hard to fake. When someone is passionate about a topic they become visibly excited and often smile and begin to talk louder and faster with more ease. Monotone, scripted, and labored responses are nearly the exact opposite.
What if you are in a situation where you need to fake a little passion? I would first suggest that you may not be in the right interview. Find something about the position, company, or industry that gets you excited. If you do need to muster some passion avoid or downplay talking about things that you are truly passionate about. The contrast between your true passion and your fake passion will be too obvious to overlook.
Emotional Intelligence – Look for ways to demonstrate emotional intelligence and inclusive thinking. Great examples might be participating in a diversity education program, teaching or coaching on resiliency, or working on suicide hotline. EQ is a critical skill that many fail to demonstrate in an interview.
Nail the Core Competencies – Most interviews focus on independence, teamwork, customer service, dealing with change, managing conflict, and overcoming obstacles. Address these areas and shed light on the additional competencies discussed above.
Avoid the Common Pitfalls – Don’t lose your nerve, talk too long, get too personal, speak negatively about anyone, fail to respond to a question, appear disinterested, fail to do your research, or speak in absolutes (no, never, always).
In summary, education and experience are important. They are one of the more tangible and measurable aspects of the interview process. You will likely compete with at least one person with more education and experience at your next job interview. The best offense is to have an expertly written resume and engaging interview performance fueled by superior research, networking, self-awareness, and practice.