A lovely lady reached out to me a few weeks ago. She was going through a difficult time and needed to find a new role. We had an initial conversation and it quickly became clear that she was struggling with what she had been through in her previous role and was unable to view her future with a positive outlook.

She booked in a session with me and when the time came around she was actually preparing for an interview.

I asked some questions that I thought might come up in an interview for this type of role. I thought I would share with you some of the things I highlighted to her.

1. Choose positive language – I asked the question “Tell me about your experience in supporting disciplinaries” and she responded with “Well, I haven’t got direct experience of that”. We all know what interviewers do. As soon as you start to answer the question they begin writing. You want them to capture something positive. So I suggested she re-framed it and respond with something like “ah yes, I saw that was on the job description. I’ve taken notes in meetings before and am studying CIPD level 3 so learning more about the ER aspect. Really keen to get exposure to ER meetings. I understand the importance of taking accurate notes in hearings.

2. Believe in yourself – When she was answering some of the questions she sounded quite flat. Her confidence had been knocked in her previous role and this was coming through. She hadn’t healed from her experience. So I suggested that she write down all the things she was good at her. Put on paper what her strengths were so she could see them in black and white. Once she started to list them out to me there were loads of things. Some things she just took for granted, like being able to speak more than one language. You could see the smile come back to her face when we focused on the good things. I told her that when she’s in the interview that’s the person that I wanted to come across.

3. Preparation – This is always key before an interview but there are a couple of things you need to focus on, aside from just thinking about what questions people will ask. Firstly, make time before the meeting to centre yourself, be in a state of calm and to feel ready to put your best foot forward. There is no point prepping answers to questions right up until the time of the interview. Secondly, I think it’s hard to think about every single question that could be asked so you are better off thinking about examples of things you have achieved. You can attach tags to them in your head like TEAMWORK, COMMUNICATION, LEADERSHIP etc, so if you are asked about any of those things you can use that example.

I told her that it was ok to feel how she was feeling. She needed to think about what she learnt from the experience and then allow herself to move on. She should use the experience to think about what she wants and does not want in her next role. She created a list of criteria that she could use for her job search going forward so she doesn’t just blindly apply for every role available.

You need to take control of your career and moving into a job that isn’t right for you can be a really bad move.