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Interviewing With Your Current Employer

Preparing for an interview with your current employer poses several unique challenges. You know the company and the interviewers. The process is clearly defined. You even have insight into the position that outside candidates would never have. Despite this, many people struggle with internal interviews.

Preparation is the key for internal interviews. You need to be able to talk about your experience in detail. Interviewers will expect you to discuss your accomplishments and experiences as if you were an external candidate. You need to prepare thoroughly.

In an internal interview, it is likely you will know some or all of the interviewers. They will also know you and have an impression of your abilities, experience and performance. Most interviewers will also recognize that they may only have a partial picture of your performance. Managers do not have the opportunity to see the full performance of every person within a company. They often form impressions of people based on a few isolated accomplishments or failures. It is possible that the interviewer is someone you see every day, but because they are in a different functional area, they may have little to no understanding of your day-to-day work.

Current or Past Experiences

One of the most common questions individuals have about internal interviews is whether to talk about experiences at their current employer or focus on experiences at prior employers. Many assume that the interviewer knows what they have done in their current role and only talk about past employers. This is a huge mistake. It leaves one impression above all others… you can tell a good story but have accomplishment nothing in your current role.

Focus on your experiences at your current employment. The most important assessment criteria in any interview is the value you will offer in the role. If you cannot show any value you have provided in your current role, no matter how impressive your performance in past jobs, you will not convince an interviewer that you will add value in a new role.

Focusing on your current experiences does not mean you disregard your past. Some interviewers will only know you by your current role. If you are interviewing for a position in a different functional area, you should discuss your experience with skills critical to that area. This may require discussing past jobs.

If you have been with your current employer for less than a year, you should prepare to discuss your current role for 25-50% of the interview. Experiences with prior employers will fill the remainder of your answers. If you have been with the company for 1 to 3 years, try to focus 50-75% of your answers on your current role. If you have been with the company for more than 3 years, you should target 80% of your answers from roles with your current employer.

As you discuss your experience with your current employer, prepare all the details as if you were interviewing with someone that knows nothing about you. Don’t assume that the interviewer knows the details and background behind each of your experienes. You are better off providing more detail, including information the interviewer already knows, than leaving out details that make your answer confusing or less effective.

Interview Tip #6

Interview Tip: Demonstrate your potential in an interview by showing your past successes.

Interview Tip: Demonstrate your potential in an interview by showing your past successes.

Many job seekers only state their qualifications and potential. The candidate that stands out will show their qualifications by presenting examples from their experience. Successful candidates will also demonstrate their potential by providing specific accomplishments in situations similar to those they will encounter in the new position.

Behavioral Interview Questions for Nonprofit Careers

Working for a nonprofit organization has a lot of similarities to other industries, but there are some significant differences. Behavioral interview questions are a good tool to assess a job candidate for the specific skills required in a nonprofit. This makes these questions common in interviews with nonprofit organizations.

Behavioral interview questions are a good tool to assess a job candidate for the specific skills required in a nonprofit. This makes these questions common in interviews with nonprofit organizations.

Preparing for a behavioral interview is essential for success. You need to be able to discuss very specific examples from your background. Without adequate preparation, your performance will suffer. To prepare, look at each of the questions below and develop a 2 to 3 minute story from your background to answer the question. Then, practice the stories. Once you know stories inside and out, try to apply them to other questions. This will help you learn how to answer questions you don’t expect. As you get better, complete a few mock interviews. The more practice you get, the better you will preform. Unfortunately, most job seekers improve their interview skills by going on a lot of interviews. They use their failures to teach them. A better way is to work with a coach and complete mock interviews so that you improve prior to a real interview.

Below is a selection of questions you may encounter:

Fundraising

Tell me about a time when you led a successful fundraising campaign.
Tell me about a time when you missed a fundraising goal.
Tell me about a time when you tried a new approach to fundraising.
Tell me about your most successful fundraising effort.
Tell me about the most innovative fundraising activity you have utilized.
Tell me about the most challenging target group you have approached for fundraising.
Tell me about the biggest donation you have ever obtained.
Tell me about a time when you recognized the contributions of donors.
Tell me about a time when you wrote a grant proposal.

Marketing

Tell me about a time when raised community awareness for your organization.
Tell me about a time when you developed a marketing plan.
Tell me about a time when you expanded the client base you served.
Tell me about a time when you increase public support for your organization.
Tell me about a time when you lobbied a government entity.
Tell me about a time when you recruited new volunteers.
Tell me about a time when you improved volunteer retention.
Tell me about a time when you recruited new board members.
Tell me about a time when you managed a community outreach effort.

Operations

Tell me about a time when you cut costs.
Tell me about a time when you developed a budget.
Tell me about a time when you had a budget shortfall.
Tell me about a time when you improved the efficiency of the organization.
Tell me about a time when you changed a process.
Tell me about a time when you made a significant change in policy.
Tell me about a time when you implemented a new technology.

Virtually any work situation can be assessed with a behavioral question. This makes preparation essential. You need specific examples from your experience that you can discuss and adapt to a wide range of questions. Use the behavioral interview questions above to help identify examples you can talk about in an interview.

Get our book on behavioral interviewing.

Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

Behavioral Interview Questions About Personal Accountability

Behavioral interview questions focus on assessing your performance in past situations. One common topic for behavioral questions is personal accountability. These questions focus on a candidate’s past failures and the candidate’s willingness to admit their mistakes.

Tell me about a time when you took responsibility for a failure.
Tell me about the last time you made a mistake.
Tell me about your biggest failure in your career.
Tell me about your greatest weakness.
Tell me about a time you did something you regret.
Tell me about a time when you received negative feedback from your boss.
Tell me about a time when you learned from a mistake.
Tell me about a time when you failed to meet a commitment you had made.

To be successful with a behavioral question about failure, you need to give a specific example and acknowledge your responsibility for the failure. Some individuals always have an excuse for their mistakes. Trying to deflect responsibility in an interview will usually make a very poor impression. To be successful with an answer about a failure, include a discussion of what you learned from the experience.

Get our book on behavioral interviewing.

Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

Behavioral Interview Questions About Organizational Skills

Organizational skills are an important factor in a person’s career and are a common interview topic. There are a wide variety of behavioral interview questions about your organization skills that you could see in an interview.

Tell me about a time when you managed a complicated project.
Tell me about a time when you worked under a tight deadline.
Tell me about a time when you had to multitask.
Tell me about a time when your organizational skills helped you succeed.
Tell me about a time when your planning led to positive results.
Tell me about a time when you missed an important deadline.
Tell me about a time when you went the extra mile to get a project done.
Tell me about a time when you felt overwhelmed by your workload.
Tell me about a time when you took on more than you could handle.
Tell me about a time when you failed to delegate effectively.
Tell me about a time when you delegated an important task successfully.

Get our book on behavioral interviewing

Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

Interview Tip #5

Interview Tip: Avoid topics where you are critical of your coworkers or supervisors in an interview.

Interview Tip: Avoid topics where you are critical of your coworkers or supervisors in an interview.

Hiring managers want to hire people that will fit in with their team. They do not want someone with an attitude that will cause conflict or personnel problems. Avoid topics that will show you in a situation that calls into question your ability to work well with others.

Behavioral Questions About Values

Behavioral questions can target any potential situation at work. Included are a selection of questions that target a job candidate’s values, attitude and personal courage.

Behavioral questions ask the job candidate to provide details of a specific situation they have encountered. The interviewer assesses the candidate based on how they performed, since past performance can be an excellent indicator of future performance.

Behavioral questions can target any potential situation at work. Below are a selection of questions that target a job candidate’s values, attitude and personal courage.

Tell me about time when made an unpopular decision.
Tell me about a time when you stood up for your values.
Tell me about a time when you confronted a superior about something they were doing.
Tell me about a time when you took a risk that worked out.
Tell me about a time when you took a risk that didn’t work out.
Tell me about a time when you did something outside your comfort zone.
Tell me about the most embarrassing thing you have done at work.
Tell me about a time when you didn’t stand up for your values and you wish you had.
Tell me about a time when you had a confrontation with a coworker.
Tell me about a time when you took responsibility for a failure.
Tell me about a time when you discovered a coworker was doing something dishonest.
Tell me about a time when you made a decision you knew would make someone mad.

To be successful answering behavioral questions, you need to be specific. General answers will not be effective. The best answer will provide a clear, specific example from your experience.

Get our book on behavioral interviewing.

Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

Ordinary vs Exceptional

For almost every career, there are numerous candidates available for each position. Only one will get hired for each job, though. When five, ten or more people, with similar backgrounds apply for a job, there are a number of factors that affect who gets the offer. The factors most job seekers consider as important for a company to make a hiring decision include education, work experience and technical skills. These are all important. In fact, these are the criteria used to select candidates for interviews. In the interviews, though, it takes more than just these.

The factors most job seekers consider as important for a company to make a hiring decision include education, work experience and technical skills. These are all important. In fact, these are the criteria used to select candidates for interviews. In the interviews, though, it takes more than just these.

In every career, there are elements that differentiate ordinary from exceptional. We have all seen this in school, sports, work and almost every aspect of life. There are people we know that, for a given activity, are exceptional and others that aren’t. A hiring manager looks for the person that is likely to be an exceptional performer in a specific role.

It’s easy to find people that can do a poor job, and not difficult to find people that will be ordinary or mediocre performers. Identifying and attracting exceptional performers is challenge. There are two reasons for this. First, only a small percentage of candidates are truly exceptional in a specific role. That’s what it means to be exceptional. Second, many job seekers don’t understand how to demonstrate that they are exceptional. They focus on showing they are qualified, but nothing more.

You need to develop a way of communicating how you are exceptional. This starts by recognizing your strengths and weaknesses, and how you utilize these to succeed. Then, develop a variety to examples from your experience demonstrating how you have been successful. If you do this, you will improve your chances of getting an offer dramatically.

Some individuals do not feel they are exceptional, or worse, feel that they are failures. This is more common with people shortly after losing a job. They internalize the job loss as a personal failure more significant than anything else they have done. This will significantly hinder your job search.

If you do not consider yourself exceptional in a role, there are two possible reasons. First, you could be right and need additional training or experience to move into a new more demanding role or to change careers. Second, you may not be able see the aspects of your career that make you exceptional.

In both cases, there are things you can do to improve your marketability. If you require additional training and experience, get it. This can take time to complete, but is worth the effort to move you forward in your chosen career. If you are exceptional but have trouble communicating this, get some help.

Interview Tip #4

Interview Tip: Assess the fit of the position for your goals as well as selling your potential to the employer.

Interview Tip: Assess the fit of the position for your goals as well as selling your potential to the employer.

Landing the right job is the goal. A job that is a poor fit may hurt your career in the long run. Assess the job for its match to your goals, abilities and interests. In each interview, you are interviewing the employer as they are interviewing you.

If you are having trouble determining the type of job you want to pursue, consider working with a career development specialist. Futures in Motion is a career coaching firm with a number of great resources and services to help job seekers select the right career.

Behavioral Interview Questions For Leadership Skills

Hiring managers often focus on assessing the leadership skills of job seekers. To do this, many use Behavioral Interview Questions. A behavioral interview question asks the job seeker to tell a specific story from their experience, illustrating how they acted and the results they achieved in the past. The goal of a behavioral question is to predict how the job seeker will preform based on their past performance.

Below are a selection of questions targeting leadership skills:

Tell me about a time when you led a team with low morale.
Tell me about a time when you managed two people that did not get along.
Tell me about a time when you fired someone that was very well liked at the company.
Tell me about a time when you helped someone improve their performance.
Tell me about a time when you had to get your team to make a major change that they disagreed with.
Tell me about a time when you recognized the achievement of someone you managed.
Tell me about a time when you hired someone that didn’t work out.
Tell me about the most challenging leadership situation you have faced.
Tell me about a time when you delegated effectively.
Tell me about a time when you made an unpopular decision.
Tell me about a time when you took over an under-performing team.
Tell me about the biggest leadership mistake you have made.
Tell me about a time when you had to adapt your leadership style to meet a challenge.

These questions touch on some of the aspects of leadership. There thousands of potential questions, and it is unlikely you will hear any of these specifically. If you prepare for these, though, you should be able to adapt to a wide range of leadership questions.

Get our book on behavioral interviewing.

Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews: