Use A PR Interview Technique For Your Next Job Interview

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

A out of job of developer asked me about job opportunities at my current company. All I could say to him that he would need to look at the company's website for any openings. However, developer jobs require relocation to Germany or Saint Petersburg.

For some reason, the discussion switched into how to improve his chance, as a developer, during the interview process.

At the same event, the speaker was in supervisor role who also looked to hire developers. Coincidentally, this speaker also shared with me on the "to-dos: and "not-to-dos" during a job interview for software developers.

One of the speaker's peeves when interviewing developers is how often they do "I will Google this" reply to most of the technical questions the interviewees have no idea on how to answer.

Since saying "I will Google this" is becoming common answer, you might probably want to stand out with a different approach.

One such approach is to adopt a PR Interview technique called "bridging" when it comes to a question you can't answer.

"Bridging" is a technique where the interviewee creates a transition to a journalist's question back in line with the original corporate message.

For example, the journalist might ask a speculative question like "Do you have it takes to be number one in the market?" Most interviewees don't want to commit to such a question for if the company doesn't become number one in the future, the direct answer here could come back and bite at the interviewee. The interviewee can reply with a "no comment" but that can be seen as lack of confidence in the market.

As such, the interviewee might want to bridge back to the main message by answering "The number one position will be determined by the consumer. [Bridging] However, saying that, [Message] we are surprised by the results of our initial beta users, the features, etc".

Going back to the main messaging point is tough, that's why practice is required. Preparing for a job interview is also important as you want to also mentally prepare yourself for the interview.

The developer shared how he stumbled on a question that probably could have cost him the interview. The developer was asked if he had experience in transferring a database set to another platform.

The developer told me his approach was to keep asking more details about the database set. However, it reached a point where the interviewer could no longer provide any details, but felt frustrated.

My suggestion to the developer was to use this "Bridging" interview technique for future interviews. If he were to get stuck in a similar interview situation, he could try to bridge the answer with his personal experience of doing something similar to moving a set of database.

I suggested to the developer to ask himself, "Have I done something similar in the past?"

From this approach, the developer was able to recall an experience where he had to move a set of database from one platform to another. From there, I told the developer to expand how he did it.

Hopefully, this would help the developer in future interviews.

Interviews can be daunting, however, do note that interviewers often want to see if you have the experience to do something similar in the past which could be implemented in a somehow similar scenario. The experience you share sets you apart from the "I will Google" competition.