1. Why do you want to work here?

You googled the company you’re interviewing with, right? This is your chance to talk about all the information you gathered. Mention their competitors. Discuss something that interests you about the company rather than what you think they want to hear. Avoid talking about something obvious, like their new slogan. Perhaps they’re doing something different in the industry that stands out to you? Don’t regurgitate soundbites from their website. Be honest and genuine.

2. What are your strengths?

There is a way to answer this question without sounding arrogant or vain. One tip is to think about your favourite manager. If the job interviewer was to chat with them about you, what would they say is your greatest strength? Answer truthfully and try to make your response relevant to the role.

3. What are your greatest weaknesses?

No one likes talking about their weaknesses. But, it’s important for potential employers to understand what you can and can’t do. In this question, what you mention as your strength may impact what’s assumed as your weakness. So, if you say ‘attention to detail’ is your strength, the interviewer may think you aren’t a big-picture person.

Consider discussing your biggest development area. Or areas you need the most support. Give an example of how you manage it. Such as, one of my managers would say I have difficulty with xyz, and this is how I manage it. This way, it sounds more authentic.

4. What are your achievements to date?

Don’t shy away from answering this one. It’s your chance to sell yourself. Respond to this question with passion and drive. It’s worth spending extra time preparing. Jot down a handful of examples and make the connection to how they relate to the job. When you’re explaining your answer, bring your achievements to life – be excited and don’t be monotone or flat.

5. Tell me about a time where you x, and how did you x?

The interviewer may ask this question in several different ways. Tell me about a time where you handled a difficult situation, and how did you manage it? Tell me about a time when you were successful in a project, and how did you achieve this? They’re looking for insight into your on-the-job behaviour. Concise storytelling is essential. Try using the STAR Interview Response Technique to keep your response on track.

6. Have you ever worked with a difficult person?

This is tricky. Interviewers ask this because they want to understand how you react to conflict. They want to hear what steps you took to resolve it. It’s okay to talk about the conflict. Focus more what steps you took to resolve the dispute, rather than the situation.

7. Why do you want to leave your current employer?

Regardless of how you feel about your current company, the number one rule here is never to throw them under the bus. Constructive reasons are best such as looking for new challenges, transferring into a different area, wanting to join a more prominent company. Make the reason you’re leaving your job about them, not about the company you’re trying to leave.

8. What are your goals for the future?

You don’t need psychic abilities to answer this question, just a little ambition with a dash of hope. Interviewers may also frame this question as ‘where do you see yourself in five years?’. They want to know you’ll be happy to stick around in the role for the short to medium term, but they also want to hear that you’re driven. Try to frame your response so that your ultimate role is something they could offer you. If you’re aspiring to be a general counsel and the company doesn’t have an in-house legal team, that might be tricky. Be considered and realistic.

9. Do you have any questions for me?

Always, always ask questions! You need to prepare at least three questions to ask the interviewer. It’s okay to bring in a notepad with pre-written questions and thoughts to discuss. This shows initiative and preparedness. Feel free to ask about the culture, team, expectations, direction of the company, career paths etc. Don’t ask about salary, bonuses, how long is the lunch break and what time you will get to leave the office.

10. What do you like to do outside of work?

This is your chance to express yourself and see if you will be a good culture fit for their organisation. Be honest and be yourself. What are you passionate about? Do you volunteer? Are you involved in sports or recreation groups? Whatever you share, steer clear of mentioning your love of all-night raves, or drinking three bottles of wine a night. These activities are likely to frame you as an unreliable candidate.

1) Sharing is caring

Whether it’s knowledge, resources or ideas, encouraging a culture of sharing is the best way to increase collaboration in your business. If someone has a problem, encourage those with more experience and knowledge to help them out. Set up meetings where everyone is able to put forward their ideas and showcase their creativity without judgement.

It helps to nurture an atmosphere of mentoring and coaching into your everyday operations. There’s both formal and informal mentoring. Formal mentoring has clear roles and responsibilities – for example, senior staff members might spend 20 minutes each week talking things through with your junior employees. More informal processes could involve integrating mentoring into the normal working day, whether that involves showing other staff members how best to tackle a particular task, or setting aside a few minutes of each day to let your other team members ask you questions.

Creating partnerships across departments is also a good way to encourage teamwork. Different departments will have different ways of looking at things, and when you collaborate you’ll come up with much better solutions and ideas.

2) Set an example from the top

Often, the success of a team relies on the person leading it – if you make a concerted effort to work closely with your team, this will slowly filter down to the rest of your staff. So, make sure you’re always offering help where you can give it (without being too pushy). This could involve sending round a weekly email with some tips and tricks to help your employees with their work, or sharing great resources that you’ve used before.

3) Shift the focus to the group

One of the simplest (and most memorable) ways to encourage collaboration is through setting up group events. These could be an after work sports team or a company day out – getting your employees to socialise together outside of the office means they’ll work much better on the job.

It’s also important to ensure the focus isn’t all on the individual. For instance, consider setting team targets. Once you’ve decided on these, you can then work out individual aims much more easily, and each team member will be able to see exactly how his or her performance is contributing to the success of the group as a whole.

It’s important that your rewards system isn’t exclusively based on the achievements of the individual. While you should definitely still be rewarding the progress of single team members, it also helps to have a reward in place that celebrates the success of the team. Again, if these are still tied to individual achievement as well, your staff will be able to see exactly how their role fits in with the wider group’s.

Sharing knowledge and experience as well as creating a collaborative atmosphere that people are happy to work in are all things that are relatively easy to implement, but will make a huge difference to your team and your business – both in terms of employee engagement and productivity.

If you’re looking to recruit a new team, the experts at Talent can help. Contact us today for more information.

Vision, Values, Belief – getting the fundamentals right!

Start-up founders and entrepreneurs are often portrayed as enjoying lavish and excessive lifestyles and recent fallen angels are testament to this.

However, as someone who has started a company from nothing I can tell you that you need to keep your head down. It will take extreme hard work, plenty of self-belief and the backing of genuine supporters. Apply all of this in the right amounts and the rewards could be beyond your wildest dreams. And I’m not talking about financial rewards but the pride in seeing something that you started and invested your time, heart and soul into grow and develop into something that is making a real difference.

So if you are thinking of launching your own venture, or you have already taken that leap, I have some advice that might help you on your journey.

Clarify your vision

You have to have a clear vision and purpose to be successful in business otherwise you will risk falling by the wayside in the early stages. You also need a strong sense of conviction or people won’t join you on your journey, including both employees and customers. Belief in yourself and your venture is vital and it’s apparent to others when you walk into a room and begin talking.

When I started Talent our funding was limited but we had belief and purpose. It has always been a focus for me in terms of mapping out our journey whether short term or long term. Talent’s first logo was a spinning globe with an orbit track coming out of Australia. Even back then – from a home office in Perth, whilst survival was the key, we also knew where we wanted to go. But it’s more than that, vision is about finding and understanding, as Simon Sinek says, your ‘why’ and then building everything around it. Your purpose, your values and your vision should be clearly defined and something you keep front of mind every day.

Failure is part of success

No business has ever existed that got everything right. You will have failures and that’s a not a bad thing as long you take lessons away with you. How will you learn if you haven’t fallen and figured out what you did wrong so that you can fix it? Treat each failure as a way to learn and get better and don’t let it get to you – keep getting up and keep going. However it is important to know when to reassess your model and change focus.

Persistence is a great trait but make sure it doesn’t become mindless. For us at Talent this may have been reflected in our Asian excursions. We kept throwing funds into our expansion into places like Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong where there was never likely to be a great return for the nature of our business. As an Australian company it seemed to be the thing to do and we subscribed to the hype. Wrong! Those funds were always going to be better invested in innovation or places like the US and Germany where the potential returns for us are enormous. This is exactly what we have done.

Grow at the right speed but prepare for more

Businesses are not created overnight. Things will sometimes take longer than you expect, whether that’s finding the right team, building a strong customer base, raising funds, or making a profit. A lot of start-ups these days are focused on short-term quick growth, unrealistic valuations or immediate exits. If you are starting a business, my advice would be to spend time and resources getting your foundations right. Those who have patience, strong foundations and resilience are more likely to find success.

When we expanded to Sydney from Perth we made a decision to move HQ there and set up a back-office infrastructure that could handle a contracting business 20 times larger than we had at the time. It seemed a little crazy but I wanted to make sure we could handle the growth I was confident we would achieve. Sure enough, it happened and for many years we added 50 contractors a month which we absorbed without missing a beat. Many of that infrastructure team are still with us today.

Build a great team

The key to building a successful business is finding great people. This is everything! No one can do it alone and being able to build a strong team with the right dynamics, diversity and synergies is perhaps the greatest ability a leader can have. From my observations, many entrepreneurs and start-up founders focus too much on hiring people who are and similar to them in their thinking or will do what they’re told. You must be challenged whether you like it or not! There is often too much focus on breakneck growth, valuations and endless pivoting and not enough on building a true and lasting culture based on trust, respect, and long term value systems. Look at the person and personality first, and specific work skills second. Then hire people who will complement the existing team and yourself. Find complementary people who work well together. Make sure that the team feels ownership and is involved in the hiring process so there is buy-in. Also if you have a geographically dispersed business bring your people together regularly and get them on the same page. This was a challenge at Talent but also something we invested plenty of time and energy into. It’s been well worth it!

Take advice but be selective

Tune in and get connected to the business community that’s relevant to you. There are a lot of people who have done it before and can give you great advice. But at the same time be selective about who you ask advice of and who you listen to. Too much of the wrong advice and ideas can choke your creativity and your beliefs. Feedback and advice are important when you are starting up or in the early stages of your business, but you need to be able to put the feedback in context. If you can identify a good mentor then do so. Remember advice can come from the unlikeliest of sources – even from within your business and often from young or junior staff. It is very tempting to gravitate to highly successful wealthy people in business or your field, but they can sometimes be disappointing and prone to dine out on their own stories rather than listening to yours. Your customers can also be a great source of advice – never be shy about asking them how you can do a better job

And finally don’t forget friends, family and loved ones. They know you better than anyone and are likely to have the best handle on your emotional capacity – a vital component for a successful entrepreneur.

Be brave and good luck!