I have had the pleasure to interview 1000s of people while I was a recruiter, and I now train recruiters on how to interview, and coach people on how to show up as their best selves in interviews.
One of my top tips for building confidence is to create a Success Bank. It serves to boost your self-esteem and also to have a list of potential answers to questions that might come up.
A Success Bank lists your strengths, skills, and achievements. It works best as a living document you can add to whenever you need t. I have mine saved in a Word doc that I add to whenever I achieve something, get feedback, or even do something I was initially worried about.
So, let’s start first with your strengths. Your strengths are the things you are naturally good at. Some questions which might help you understand your strengths include:
List 5 of your main strengths
What do your friends come to you for help with?
What role do you play in your family?
What would your manager say that your strengths are?
Next, let’s look at your achievements. What are you most proud of? You can think about work, personal, educational, barriers you have overcome, etc. Try to think of your achievements in each of your roles. For any role-related achievements, try to quantify them, e.g. increased revenue by X% through X, Y activities, or arranged an event for 200 people, with X budget – The feedback was positive and I was asked to replicate the results in 3 other regions as a result. Often our achievements in life can also give us a glimpse of what brings meaning t our lives and where we feel a sense of purpose.
Finally, think about your skills. These are the tasks that you do at work. Again, think about your roles (& your home life, hobbies, and education). A helpful question to ask yourself, is, if you had to write a job spec for your current job, what would be skills required be?
Once you have completed your Success Bank, you have a bank of answers to interview questions ready. If you are really thinking about each of the sections, your success bank should take you quite a while to do. It’s not something that will be fully populated in a few hours. Over the course of a few weeks, I am sure more and more skills, strengths, and achievements will come to mind.
If yo have an interview coming up, check out my new interview skills workshop which is packed full of all the tips, techniques and workbook you need to wow the interviewers.
