Interview Secrets That Make YOU the Top Candidate

Career coach and former recruiter Emily Durham shares actionable interview strategies covering every stage of the process, from preparation to post-interview follow-up. Her advice focuses on building genuine rapport, communicating confidently, and mastering the small details that help candidates stand out from the competition.

Transcript:

There is a way to hack every single interview to basically guarantee that you get the job. And there's a lot of BS, really bad advice on the internet. I can guarantee this video is not one of them.

My name is Emily Durham. I worked in HR for 10 years, was a top performing recruiter, and now I'm an international career coach. And these my friends are the interview secrets that get you hired every single time.

I'm going to talk about everything in order, starting from preparing to the interview, going all the way to after the interview. If you know my style, you know, I like to jump right on in. Every single person is going to tell you to prepare for the interview.

However, not enough people are going to warn you of the dangers of over preparing. Do you know how many times I've conducted an interview where someone is clearly reading off of a script or just rehearsing notes that they've taken and they're automatically out of the race? Because the whole point of an interview is for it to feel like a conversation, not an interrogation. So if you're the kind of person who's going to spend 10 plus hours preparing for each interview, take a breath.

That is not what you're going to do effective immediately. Coming from a career coach, I'm telling you, limit your prep for this interview to one hour. And in this hour of preparation, you should be able to tell me what this company does, who their major competitors are, why you want to work there and what skills you need to work at the company.

And this will all make sense in just a second. On the note of preparation, if you are not in the interview five minutes early, you are late. I promise recruiters notice those things. And when you show up dress one level more senior than the actual job itself.

Now, this interview secret is so underrated. It drives me crazy. But at the beginning of the interview, before the recruiter even asks anything, they're going to ask, Hey, how are you? And the worst thing you can do is say, Oh, I'm fine. Yeah, I'm fine. Yeah, good. How are you? Instead, you are going to use this as a prime opportunity to create a meaningful relationship with them. If you answer that question correctly, you are guaranteeing that you're going to have the ice broken between you and the recruiter, which is an amazing way to help you stand out. That gives the recruiter a chance to say, Oh, I watched the game too. I was gutted or, Oh, I'm not much of a baseball person. I'm more into hockey. The teeny, teeny things that make you a person and not just a piece of paper that helps build rapport, break the ice and actually alleviate some of your nerves.

Now you already know my tried and true formula for answering the tell me about yourself question is a couple of sentences to describe who you are, what you do and what you want. Remember how we did a little bit of research on what the company does and what you would be doing in this position? Well, we're going to bake that into your answer. My name's Emily. Thank you so much for having me in the interview today. I'm a senior marketing manager who is passionate about building end to end strategies in the tech space. And when I was reviewing the job application for this role, I saw there was opportunities to work on international social media strategy, which is truly my area of expertise and my passion point. So I was really excited as part of the work I do at my current company, I'm managing a team of 15 individuals, and it's been really rewarding. We've actually grown our social media business from 12,000 interactions a month to 40,000 a month. And because I have so much experience in scaling, I really resonated with your company's mission to double in size over the next couple of years, which was another selling point for me right now, I'm looking for an opportunity to build an international team in scale with the skills that I already have while continuing to grow as an international leader.

The trickiest part is coming up next when the recruiter is going to ask you specific questions about the job that you've applied to. Maybe it's something like, tell me about a time you did blah, blah, blah, or when was the last time you blah, blah, blah. Now all of that can be really easy to freak out over because no one has a crystal ball to perfectly predict what questions you're going to be asked before your interview, go to the job description for this role. And once again, take a look at the skills they're looking for. Also what some of the requirements of the job are, basically what skills do you need to have and what outcomes do you need to produce? And all of that, I guarantee is in the job description. Get that list and then just think for two seconds, okay, what are the skills they're assessing for? For a team player, are they looking for someone who's good with data? And then on a little piece of paper or on your phone, on your laptop, write a list of specific examples that you have, whether it's in your work or internship experience or in school, definitely not in your personal life, that exhibit those skills. Now you don't need to memorise your answers, but you do need to memorise those examples because if and when they ask you questions, you immediately have an example to pull from, which is going to alleviate a lot of anxiety.

So that's what you say, but how you say it also matters. In fact, one of the biggest contributing factors to determining whether or not someone is getting the role is not just whether or not their answer is correct, because your answer is never perfect. It's about how they communicate. Is this person clear, easy to understand? Are they someone I can see myself working with easily? And above all, does this person communicate like they know what they're talking about? Because the reality is recruiters are not experts in what you do, they're experts in recruiting. So even if you make a tiny mistake, they might not even notice, but what they will notice is that you communicate in a really not confident way.

You can't communicate confidently if you aren't prepared. So like I said, have some examples ready to go and use the STAR method. Some people say the STAR method is dated, they don't like it. I firmly disagree. I think the STAR method is tried and true and it works. This is basically a method of answering interview questions where you say one to two sentences for the situation, the task, the action, and the result. So you never speak too much or speak too little because people tune out your answers when you speak for more than a minute and a half to two minutes. And if it's less than 30 seconds, we're like, what did you even say at all?

Practise speaking slower. A lot of times when people are nervous in interviews or just like speaking in general, they tend to speak really quickly. They're, you know, really like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like we just kind of want to get the words out into the ether and that can actually do way more harm than good. So record yourself answering fake interview questions. You can ask ChatGPT for them, or if you want to comment down below, I'll literally give you like a fake question that you can answer and record yourself and watch it back. Speak more slowly than you think you have to. It communicates that you're confident because confident people aren't scared to take up space.

One of the biggest ways you can speak like you have options is in how you answer questions about where you're at in the process. If the recruiter asks, are you interviewing other places? Bitch, you better say yes. Even if you're lying, never say the specific company name, but definitely say something to the effect of, I'm always having other conversations, or I'm in a couple of late stage conversations. What that is signalling is you are in demand. You are not desperate, even if you are. And psychology shows us that when something is in demand, when something is desired by others, we desire it a little bit more as well.

The same can be said for any questions about salary negotiations. If they ask you what your salary range is, do not immediately be like, Oh my God, it's this, please give me this. No, play a little coy girl. Let's just take a breath. Say, I'm really happy to answer that. Do you happen to have a budget for the role? Just so I know if we're aligned, give them a chance to answer first. If they're not able to do that, if they really push and want you to have an answer, make sure you've done a little bit of research before and share your baseline number. Now, this isn't a true minimum. We're going to inflate this just a tiny bit. Not a lot. Let's say right now you're making $50,000 a year. You did some research online and the market average is $60,000 a year. I want you to say about 55. I'm flexible on salary based on the right opportunity, but right now I'm targeting roles at least at $55,000 a year or more. Does that sound aligned? Why I like that a lot is it gives you buffer to increase that number the longer the conversations go on. Maybe you get more opportunities. Maybe you realise it's not worth it for me to move for only $5,000 more. It just buys you wiggle room.

I feel like it's common knowledge by now that at the end of an interview, it's always a really good idea to ask the recruiter questions. What are some of the strategic priorities of this team in the next couple of years? What are some of the things about this team that really excite you? Do you know what people don't do enough? Is sprinkling in one question about the recruiter specifically. That happens so rarely that recruiters will remember that. You actually looked at my LinkedIn profile. That actually shows a level of interest other candidates haven't. It can be something as simple as you've been at this company for three years. What's kept you there? What do you enjoy about it? Or I've noticed you've been a recruiter for the last 10 years. What drew you to this company?

I've noticed recently that much fewer people are sending thank you emails after an interview. And I get it because it's hard to keep sending these thank you emails to companies that just ghost you. However, those teeny weeny details, although may not be the reason you get the job, can be one of the many things that help you stand out. After the interview, send an honest thank you with a specific call out to something you spoke about in the meeting. And what I like about this is if you haven't heard back in a week, you just reply all to that thread and it's a less weird way to ask for a follow-up.

Acing an interview and getting that job is not about memorizing everything. It is not about having the perfect answer. It's about preparing the right way, communicating the right way, and paying attention to the little details that can actually set you apart. And remember, recruiters want to see you do well. When they hire you, they either have one less job to fill or they get literally paid commission. They want to see you do well, okay? If you have any questions, anything I can help with, or even if you want to give me your sample answer to tell me about yourself in the comments, go down there, click it, click it, click it.

I am so happy that you are here. And I'm sorry, I know I took an extra week off before I posted a video. Usually I post every single week, but it was my 30th birthday. Ow! And I had so much fun and honestly just needed to catch up. And I was also relaunching my podcast. If you've made it this far, maybe you already know that I have hosted the Straight Shooter Recruiter Podcast for the last five years. And this year, I have actually signed to a podcast network. So I am now officially with Rogers Frequency Network, and I am so excited about it. The show has actually been promoted to a new title, Clock In, which conveniently is the name of something else that's coming.

No, I'm not going to be reselling Stanley's, but some stuff is coming. I'm so excited. Thank you for being here. I absolutely adore you. And I'll talk to you in the next one.


If you’re ready to work smarter, not harder, Emily’s book, Clock In: No BS Advice for Getting Ahead in Your Career Without Losing Your Mind, is available for pre order today. Get your copy of Clock In.