PwC Employability E-learn Interview script - Content

Video - Content

In any interview, the interviewer is most interested in what you’re saying so he or she can evaluate your performance against the criteria; so, although good body language is important, it’s only such if you’re answering the question the right way.

Let’s look at these examples from Simon.

When I told the customer, she said that she couldn’t get there as she had other plans that afternoon. I don’t think she’d have been able to get back in time if she had to go to pick up this ingredient.

Well a couple of days later the store manager asked to speak to me. She mentioned she’d had an email from the customer…..saying she was really grateful for my help in getting everything sorted…..and the party went really well! I didn’t expect her to take the time to send an email but I was really pleased to hear everything worked out for her in the end.

What did you notice? You’ll have seen Simon smile, make eye contact, explain his situation and the outcome of his actions clearly. I think you’ll agree that what he was saying to the interviewer provided some good evidence, which was further reinforced by his positive body language.

Here’s an example of Sonia implying confidence through her body language; but something’s missing – what do you think it is?

Interviewer: Please describe a time when you have worked in a team to deliver a piece of work

Okay, sure, last year, during my first year at university, I had to work in a team for a project after a field trip to Iceland studying glacier movements it was part of our climate change module. I was really excited about going somewhere I’d never been before. 

Here Sonia didn’t answer the question asked, giving instead a generic rather than specific example for her response. Whilst she appears confident, we’ve seen that she hasn’t understood the question and has given a generalised response.

So, how can you stop yourself from making a similar mistake? We’ve already heard about the STAR technique. Let’s look at how our candidates have applied this successfully.

In the next clip you’ll hear Simon tell the interviewer about his situation.

That day I’d helped lots of customers when I was working on the shop floor…. and I remember one lady asked me about an ingredient she needed for a recipe. I took her over to the aisle where we normally kept it but then I realised there wasn’t any left. 

The customer said she needed the item for her daughter’s birthday…

In the clip you’ve just watched Simon has used the STAR technique to good effect at the start of his response. He’s provided an outline of his situation making it easy for us to get a sense of what was happening.

Watch the next set of clips to see if you can pick out the candidates using the STAR technique.

Simon: It was the last thing she needed to make her daughter’s favourite meal. 

I sympathised with her….and even though I was supposed to finish my shift in 10 minutes I carried on helping her. I decided to check if it was in stock in the next nearest store. I called them and luckily they had it in stock. When I told the customer, she said that she couldn’t get there as she had other plans that afternoon.

I thought about what else we could do to help her…… I recommended she use the online delivery service…….everything would have been delivered straight from the warehouse to her house by 9am the next day and it was the only way I could think of to get the things that she needed delivered as soon as possible.

Jessica: I set up a shared calendar and added in all the tasks we’d need to complete to get our kit before the first match…..things like completing the proposal for the business, when we were going to pitch to, the pitch dates and catch up meetings to make sure we were on track.

Sonia: I noticed that Meilin looked a bit worried. I specifically asked if she was ok with the timeline ….

Jessica: We were really pleased….I don’t think this would have happened without all my planning and organising. The project plan I created helped keep us on track…..

Did you see Simon telling the interviewer what he did – the Actions he took? Did you notice the same of Jessica and Sonia? How about Jessica sharing the outcome of the scenario she shared?  These are all examples of how our three candidates have applied the STAR technique to structure their response to help the interviewer to understand exactly what happened, what actions they took and what the outcome was. Try using this technique when preparing for your interview – that way it will be easy to apply it when you’re in your interview. Here’s an example of something to bear in mind when you’re asked about team working.

We were all working together on the research…..we looked at different things like temperature, changes over the week, you know the things we needed to cover in our assignment. We sort of just got on with things really, everyone was really reliable so we didn’t need to worry about them not getting the research done….…that was the best part of working together.

In the clip you’ve just watched, Sonia was asked about her role in the team she worked in. What did you notice about her answer? I bet you noticed her say “we” a lot! Here Sonia has made a common error when talking about team work – she’s referred to what her team did, not what her role in the team was – what she did personally. Your interviewer wants to understand how you work with your team, so remember to tell them about what your role was and what you did when working in a team.  

Let’s have a look at Sonia’s response when asked about her role in the team.

Interviewer: but, what did you do?

What did I do? Well I was a team player, I just worked with everyone else to get the research. We explored the town we were staying in, we went to a local restaurant…

Do you think she answered the question? You’ll probably agree that we didn’t learn anything about her specific role in the team as Sonia’s response was very general. Her response implies that she might not have understood the required level of detail being asked for or didn’t listen to the question and as a result talked non-specifically.  What do you think she could have done to help her in this scenario?

Now watch this example from Jessica and see what you think about her response.

I used a small project plan just to keep track of what we needed to have done and when we needed it done by …….nothing too fancy….I sort of worked backwards from our first match…..counted that as my deadline…..then planned when we needed to do certain things by……when we needed to pitch to the potential sponsors all that sort of thing……then added in some time as well as I know it can take a while for things to get going at their end and I didn’t want anything to impact us on getting the new kit.

What did you think? In this example, we’ve seen Jessica give the interviewer a detailed yet succinct overview of what she did to manage a project involving a team. Notice how she also spoke about what she did specifically in the example. 

Bear that in mind when watching the next example

Interviewer: What feedback did you receive?

Well I knew she was happy with the help I gave her……she thanked me before she left. I guess the other feedback was the vouchers I got from the store manager.

Here, Simon talks specifically about the feedback he received in direct response to the question posed by the interviewer. His overly confident and somewhat relaxed manner however, reinforces the need to always consider what message you are giving through your non-verbal communication, as well as your verbal communication.