An interview is an interview, right? It’s a necessary part of an employer determining if you are right for their open position, and you figuring out if their opening fits your career goals, objectives and so many other variables. However, a second interview is fairly different from a first interview, and there are things that you’ll want to focus on and prepare for that aren’t the same as meeting your potential employer for the first time.
- Real life work examples
If you’re working with a recruiter, when they prepped you for the interview, they likely told you to have real life examples of a time when you exceeded expectations, saved the company money, improved a process, overcame a disagreement with a manager or co-worker, and/or told you to have a really good handle on your overall job responsibilities complete with actual examples. You probably went over a lot of the typical interview questions in your first interview that allowed you to provide examples of what you have accomplished in each one of those areas. However, in your second interview, the “example questions” are likely going to be even more focused on aspects of what will be required to succeed in the role you’re interviewing for. Ideally, after your first interview, you sat down and wrote questions that you had about the role after your first interview, and have a better understanding of how your background aligns with what the employer is looking for. Conversely, you hopefully also understand the weaknesses in your experience or personality that the employer might seek to ask more about in your second interview. Your second interview is your chance to further align your experience with what you heard during the first interview, and dissuade your interviewer of any fears they might have about your background. How do you do this? The first step is to come up with different examples of your experience that demonstrate that you can do the job, and that you want to do the job. Merely demonstrating that you’re able to do the job won’t set you apart as the rockstar for the job, but showing that you’re excited about being the one who gets the opportunity to handle it will set you apart from the competition.
- Why do you want the job?
It’s unlikely that you were asked this in your first interview, but if you were, the answer you gave probably helped get you to the second interview. In your second interview, you’re answering this question with every response you give your interviewer. If you can frame your responses knowing this, it might change the way you talk about your current employer. We always tell candidates to talk about what you’re excited about moving to in a new role, rather than what you’re excited to escape from in their current one. See? It’s a totally different way to think about your answer to a question like, “What do you like least about your role now?”
- When the interviewer asks. . .”What questions do you have for me?”
If you sat down after your first interview and thought about the questions that it spurred for you about the role itself, the company, and the culture, this is the time to ask them. If you didn’t sit down and complete this exercise after your first interview, make sure you make it happen before your second interview. Your second interview is not the place to ask questions like, “How does your role fit into the overall structure of the organization?” A question we do recommend asking might sound scary, but it will give you insight into how you stack up against your competition for the role. You’ll want to ask, “Do you have any concerns about my ability to do the job, or thoughts about how I’ll work with your team?” The interviewer will likely tell you what they think is missing from your experience, or give you more insight into personalities that you’ll be working with. You will then have the opportunity to address whether or not you have the experience they think is missing, and/or give more detail about how you’ll handle working with a difficult personality. Your answer should further convince your interviewer that you’re the right person for the job, and give you a leg up on your competition.
- What do you want to accomplish in the first 30, 60, and 90 days?
This might seem like an impossible question to answer. However, your interviewer(s) likely left you breadcrumbs to pick up during your first interview. They likely made statements like, “It’s really important for this person to. .. .,” “We are really struggling with . . .,” and “We know we want to get to a place where. ..” and you can use the ends of those statements to craft the framework of a plan to answer that question. It can feel intimidating to craft a plan for an organization that you’re not yet a part of, but part of what they’re trying to determine with this exercise is to see how much of their organization you already understand and what ideas you’d want to put to work based on what’s worked for you in the past.
So you see, you’re second interview isn’t “just an interview” at all. Your second interview is likely going to bring a bigger microscope on your experience to understand how your background aligns with the employer’s open role and should prompt you to prepare differently for the questions your second interview is likely to bring. Being ready to answer the questions above in addition to having specific questions that you had as a result of your first interview will help you stand out from your competition in the second round of interviews.