A big part of interviewing these days are panel interviews. This is a style of interview where you are being asked questions by a panel of two to four interviewers.
One of the things that is different, is the dynamic of the actual interview. Panel interviews are meant to be slightly intimidating.
The reason for this is to see if, while under the pressure of an interview, you are able to show the employer that you can answer their behavioural questions (answering these with your S.T.A.R Examples) around the skills that they are looking for in a successful applicant (hopefully you!).
Remember you can check out where I talked about S.T.A.R examples and how you can create one in a previous post titled What are S.T.A.R Examples and how do I create one?
What to expect
When you get in the room you will placed on the opposite side of the interviewers and will notice each person will have their own set of papers (around seven to eight pages) with questions.
Don’t stress about this, each person has the exact same questions and each interviewer will take turns asking one of those questions.
Before the interview actually starts you will be told by the head interviewer (Chair) what kind of interview is taking place and there will usually be introductions of the other two interviewers.
Each page will have one question being asked, but this will be a long question and is likely to be two to three questions all rolled into one.
An example of one of these questions may be:
“This question is in relation to Customer Service. Can you tell us about a time you gave excellent customer service, what did you do? how did you go above and beyond for the customer and what was the result of this service?”
Be prepared to have a question thrown out at you from any of the interviewer’s. You will notice that one person may be asking the question, one person will be writing and the third person will most likely be writing and/or observing your body language.
Wait .. my body language?? What do you mean??
Ok so it might sound a little intimidating but trust me it sounds worse than it actually is. What the “Observer” will be looking at will be to see how nervous or “shaken” you may be. They may also be watching you to see if your able to keep eye contact with everyone in the room.
You may find that you get asked additional question(s) in regards to your answer, this may be the employer’s way of clarifying what you have said and/or the employer’s way of showing an interest in your answer and as such wanting to hear more.
You will be asked around six to seven (long) questions in total and then at the end of the interview you will be given an opportunity to ask questions yourself. This last question is really important. I will create another blog post in the future around this subject.
Once the interview is over you will then leave and the employers will then deliberate about your answers.
That about does it for this post, if you want to know more keep tuned in! Hit that subscribe button and also feel free to comment or a like.
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