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5 Tips On How To Answer Interview Questions & Get Your Next Hospitality / F&B Job!

Development, Education, Featured, Job Seeking, Jobs, Personal, Skill / nathangarrod

Are you nervous about a job interview that's coming up? I’m going to give you five tips on how to answer interview questions and get that job!

Crush that job interview!

So if we haven’t met, my name is Nathan, I help motivated Hospitality and F&B professionals build their careers and businesses. I want to offer some practical tips to gain further career confidence. So let’s start talking about ways to crush that job interview and how to best answer Interview questions!

First Impressions

So number one, first impressions matter a lot, and I mean A LOT when you’re going for that job interview. It’s said an interviewers mind is about 70% of the way made up in the first six seconds. That’s a lot!

Now here’s the great part about it. If you make a great first impression all answers afterwards are going to reinforce what they’ve already decided about you. They’re going to see them in a positive light. There’s a study showing that if you give a bad first impression it takes seven good Impressions afterwards to make up for it. So if it’s a bad first impression, you have to give seven awesome answers. That’s really hard.

So let’s give a great first impression. How do you do that?

You’re smiling
You make on eye contact
You’re on time (slightly early). Even if it’s on a zoom get on that Zoom several minutes early. Make sure you’re in frame. Make sure your lighting’s good.

First impressions are super key to getting that job.

When it comes that “Tell me about yourself” question

You need to blow them away when you start to answer interview questions.

If I were to ask you now “Tell me about yourself”. And you had to answer it right now, the chances are you may struggle.

I promise you I have asked enough people, you can tell who practice and who thought they could wing it. I promise you you can’t wing it.

"Tell Me About Yourself?"

So “Tell me about yourself” is the question where you get to really craft your pitch ahead of time. Really explain who you are and what you’ve done that matters to this company.

The really short version of this is that you need to highlight past jobs or experiences. Highlight one thing you did in that job that you learned and that will be important for this job.

So for example… “Oh, I worked at Starbucks and while I was there, it really taught me the value of customer service. I learned how to really make every customer happy every day. I then moved on from there and went to (x,y,z company).”

Then tell them something you learned there

And then end with why you’re in the room today…..“And that’s why I’m excited to be here. This really seems like the next step in my career progression” (provide a reason). Then “I’m ready to move on to that next challenge and (xyz) is something I’m really passionate about”.

So first crush the “Tell me about yourself” part, then you need to answer interview questions that are about behaviour. Those “Tell me about a time when…” questions.

The Star Method

The star method walks someone through a time something happened, highlighting how you successfully handled the situation.

You need to give…

The general situation
The task
The action
The result

So here’s where people sometimes mess up.

They tend to talk about a time and situation that was at hand.
Then they give the task they were told to do or the thing that needed to happen.
They then lastly give their action and they think that’s the important part.

For example “I did this thing, I took initiative. I helped with defusing the conflict”.

You need to tell them what happened because of that action. Did the whole team come together after that? Did they promote you because of your excellent leadership skills? Give the result.

That’s some key tips to answer interview questions in the best way. But it’s not all about the interview questions.

You are not done when you leave the meeting on Zoom or you walk out the door of the office

You also need to send a thank you email within 24 hours of finishing that interview.

It’s great if you can do it in the first couple of hours, but I totally understand, lives are busy. You may have done an interview and have to leave quickly to go to a dinner or similar. Naturally in that case just get a good night’s sleep and send it the next morning. When you write that thank you email keep it short, about four sentences. You’re going to want to say…

Thank you
Restate your excitement for this position
Name something specific from the interview that made you excited.

*So, please don’t try and write these ahead of time.

I’ve heard of people coming out to the front desk and handing them the note saying “can you give this to …..” That’s what we call disingenuous.

Always craft it on your own afterwards, within 24 hours.

And fun fact, I have timed this process multiple times it takes you three to four minutes. So I want you to think about it this way, three to four minutes is what stands between you and getting that job. Because the thank you note can be the dealmaker.

Practice & Prepare

If you’ve recognised anything from the things I’ve already said you cannot just wing this. No one can go into an interview and just be like, “You know what I’m just gonna talk and see what happens”. It does not work.

You need to practice and prepare. So practice in front of a mirror, record yourself, write out your answers. Please, please, please do not let the first time you say those words to those answers be in the room or on the zoom. You need to do it ahead of time!

So to help you with that. I do have a very affordable course called “How To Ace The Interview’. For your next interview I’ll literally walk you step-by-step through my process. This system works. So if you want information on it click below.

It’s a quick course. You don’t need to spend hours and hours taking a course to then have to go practice for the interview. It’s short, I walk you through it quickly and get you to practicing the key areas that make all the difference in the interview.

It lays out all of the most common pitfalls and the questions you will be asked and how to best prepare.

In short it will give you a huge boost in any interview as most people who interview just don’t know how to stack the odds in their favour!

That’s all for today. I’d love to know your thoughts. Let me know what tip means the most to you in the comments below,

Until next time. Bye!

Nathan

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