How to nail your next job interview: recruiting guru JAMES REED gives his best advice

A job interview can truly be life-changing.

How you perform in those 30 to 90 minutes will determine what you do and potentially shape the rest of your existence.

We spend a third of our adult lives at work (half of the remaining two-thirds are spent sleeping), so if you do something you don’t enjoy, much of your existence is negatively affected.

Your job can also determine your income, where you live, your social life, your standing in your community, and even your life partner. Nearly one in five of us meet our spouses at work.

All of this means that people who do well in job interviews tend to do well in life. At Reed, we deal with almost 100,000 job applications a day through reed.co.uk and have helped millions through the interview process.

Many people have told me that they came away from an interview feeling like they were unprepared. But, as scary as it may be to find your destination, at least they tell you about the meeting in advance and give you every opportunity to prepare for it. Here are some of my best tips:

Perfect your CV

Employers typically spend no more than seven seconds looking at an individual CV. Nowadays, they can even be filtered using AI. Therefore, you have a very limited opportunity to win over your target audience.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for the perfect CV, but it should always be clearly formatted and short enough for a recruiter to scan quickly. The most important thing is that it must fit the position you want.

The first thing should be a personal statement, an essential way to stand out from the crowd. Try to demonstrate why it is appropriate in a short, concise paragraph.

Then include all your relevant work experience, listed with the most recent first.

Next should come sections on your education and relevant hobbies and interests.

Remember: a CV is all about your past achievements.

Your interviewer will be looking ahead, toward a future you can probably barely make out right now.

Try a speculative job application

Vacancies have been declining for a record 27 consecutive months and I fear this will continue for some time. Last week I was talking to a middle-aged guy who had applied for 90 jobs. He received a response from an employer: a rejection.

One piece of advice I gave was to go back to the future: decide who you want to work with and then send them a CV or a letter in the post, regardless of whether they advertise any suitable jobs.

Employers now receive many proposals online and by email, but have very little on their desks in terms of letters or paperwork. This is a good way to get their attention and show initiative.

If you don’t hear back, write again and say you’re surprised you haven’t heard back. Show sass – that’s attractive.

play poohsticks

Like the game of Poohsticks, where players throw sticks upstream from a bridge and the winner is the first to reach the other side, finding a successful race means identifying fast-flowing water. What parts of the economy are moving in exciting and dynamic ways and have the greatest potential?

What are the fast-growing industries that will resist trends like AI?

Make sure you place your baton in the best place: where personal progress is driven by structural change. Right now, those areas include education, green energy, healthcare, and medicine.

Previous growth areas, such as technology, are not faring as well.

If you choose the right industry, that fast-flowing stream of water will move you forward.

show enthusiasm

It may seem obvious, but it’s vital to appear enthusiastic from the start.

For employers, enthusiasm is contagious and needs to be demonstrated. Show interest in the company or organization. That means making sure you’re aware of recent initiatives, big hires, or growth plans.

Look to the news for the latest on your potential employer. If you interview me at Reed, I will be impressed if you know that we have recently opened two energy academies to train the next generation of green engineers and that we see this as a key growth area.

If anyone has taken the trouble to find out that I just launched a podcast and interviewed business leaders about what motivates them, you’ll get points.

..and commitment

Demonstrating your commitment to showing up, being there, and being part of a team is crucial.

If their first question is how many days a week you can work from home, don’t expect them to be impressed. Most employers now expect staff to show dedication to the office for a good part of the week.

Especially if you’re a younger worker or someone making a career change, it’s important to be eager to be around and learn from your colleagues.

So instead of asking how much time you will spend at home, ask yourself how much time you will be in the office and whether you can spend more than the required minimum.

A young man I worked with recently got a job that required a minimum of two days a week in the office.

He asked me for advice and I suggested he go every day, which he did. He was soon promoted and got a raise.

Strengths and weaknesses

Be prepared to be asked about these. There are many variations of basic interview questions, and this one is a classic.

Don’t say something flippant when they ask you to identify your weaknesses. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and sometimes weakness is the flip side of strength.

You should always talk about how you seek to mitigate the weakness you admit. In my case, I am occasionally impulsive, so I surround myself with people who have different qualities, including some who are more cautious.

parting shot

At the end of almost all interviews, the interviewer will invite you to ask questions.

It is not about collecting information about the company or its function. This is the time to show that you have knowledge of the company.

Show some personal charm and close your case as the best candidate. Never say you don’t have questions.

Avoid questions that you could have found the answer to on the company’s website. Try to link topics that came up previously or ask what success would look like and how it is judged.

• Why you? 101 Interview Questions You’ll Never Fear Again by James Reed is published by Penguin