1. HOW TO PRESENT AT
YOUR BEST IN
INTERVIEWS -
7th June 2016
2. About me
• David Gilchrist
• Current careers advisor
• Former recruiter (interviewed lots)
• Certified practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming
(NLP)
• 3 to 4 years of coaching BPTC students around managing
the Pupillage interview experience
3. Goals of this session
• Bank robbing (Derren Brown)? No
• Rewiring our brains to present ourselves more effectively
in pupillage interviews
• Aka “Learning how to get out of our own way”
Image 1
4. Firstly please put out a
for new ways to view the whole
piece around pupillage
interviews
Image 2
5. Self talk
• 80% of the dialogue human beings have is with
themselves. 20% is with other human beings.
• Does it tend to the + or to the -?
• Another term for our – self talk; our inner gremlin*
*“Taming Your Gremlin” Rick Carson
6. Our natural interview self talk
• “This is going to be really tough”
• “This is going to be unpleasant”
• “I’ve heard they like to put you under a lot
of pressure”
• “They really had it in for me last time”
• “There are so many strong candidates.
Can I really compete?”
• “I can’t afford to make a mistake”
• “This is so big – it’s Pupillage or bust”
• “Don’t say this…definitely don’t mention
that…better hide that…”
Beforehand During
Here
Here
Here
Here
Here
Here
Here
7. And if we take these into the interview?
What will
we
LOOK
like?
What will we
SOUND like?
What will
we FEEL
like?
Anything
else?
9. a pupillage interview
a pupillage interview
a pupillage interview
a pupillage interview
a pupillage interview
a pupillage interview
10. Even-ing things up
• One of you and 3 or 4 of them?
Let’s even things up and make it a less lonely experience.
• (?) on your shoulder and/or
• Your very own panel of experts
11. The inner guide to ski-ing*
• Run 1 versus Run 2
• The power of visualisation
*W. Timothy Gallwey and Robert Kriegel
12. Rehearsing your great ‘run’
• Positive affirmations
• “I am calm and prepared. I am my dispassionate
advocate. With skill and flexibility I adapt to the positions I
am asked to adopt. I embrace the challenge, taking the
opportunity to express who I am when the opportunities
present themselves.”
13. Acting out success
• What does confidence look like?
• What does calmness look like?
• What does conviction sound like?
14. Being your own advocate
• Something I’ve noticed…
• If you had to represent this client..?
• How you would tend to structure your arguments?
15. A level playing field of anxiety
Every one
else is so
strong
Every one
else is so
strong
Every one
else is so
strong
Every one
else is so
strong
Every one
else is so
strong
Every one
else is so
strong
Every one
else is so
strong
Every one
else is so
strong
Every one
else is so
strong
Every one
else is so
strong
Every one
else is so
strong
16. Can you control what others have?
• No!
• So stop expending energy on what you can’t control.
17. Can you control your interview
performance?
• Yes! Perhaps with a little help from today?
• So put your energy here instead.
18. The ‘vanilla’ candidate
• If you leave too much out…
• Individuality is important
• Be brave and be prepared to let that ‘wrong’ Chambers go
19. It’s feeling personal…
• 4 of them, 1 of you
• Line of questioning, going for your areas of ‘weakness’,
facial expressions in reaction
But it isn’t…
• Assessing your professionalism as a barrister
• Every candidate will face this
• A dispassionate defence
• You may never see ‘satisfaction’ from them
• The observations from the political realm
20. Breathe
• Feeling anxious? Your breathing will be quick and shallow
• Feeling calmer…slower and deeper
• “Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky.
Conscious breathing is my anchor." Thích Nhất Hạnh
21. In closing…
• Our personal gremlins
• We all have them
• They say different things unique to us
• One to one appointments with a careers advisor can help
address them
• You can be more in control. Once you put your mind to it.
22. Presenting yourself well in pupillage
interviews – top 5 tips
1. Appear like you do want to be there
2. Answer the specific question you have been asked
3. Need time to think? Take it/ask for it.
4. Utilise structures: STAR, compare and contrast,
summarising, giving content in groups of three…
5. One question at a time and save the self analysis until
after you have left the interview
23. The central CityCareers service
• www.city.ac.uk/careers
• Open all through the summer and beyond
• 20 minute and 45 minute appointments
• David.gilchrist.1@city.ac.uk
Establishing integrity with my audience plus intro to NLP as foundation to coaching positive performance in interviews
Most people’s encounter with NLP is via Derren Brown and his tv shows. In one particularly notorious one he trained a group of strangers to wilingly undertake a robbery through his powers ofpersuasion.
With this in mind it’s important to reframe the perception of NLP in people’s minds. In respect to this session it’s about using NLP to positively rewire our brains from the natural ‘negative’ wiring human nature does around interviews.
We tend to get in our own way mentally when tackling job interviews
Asking explicit permission from the audience to open up their minds to new ways of thinking around handling pupillage interviews.
I picked up this stat from a recent workshop I attended and whilst I don’t have a specific reference for it I believe it stands scrutiny.
The point? With us hearing it so much it probably has a very significant effect on us. So we owe it to ourselves to counter balance its effect or learn how to harness it positively.
Some negative self talk I’ve picked up from those BPTC students I have coached around interview performance over the years. Some of its inferred in the wording I’ve used.
Use this slide to try and corroborate what I’ve picked up plus get insights from the audience in front of me.
Action – if this session is in the lecture theatre hand out post it notes to everyone. Get everyone to write at least one bit of self talk like this either in their mind going into the interview or that occurs during it.
Get them to pass the note along to the person at the end of their row. Get the person at the end of each row to read one of them out. Then collect the ones that have been read out. You could/can refer to specific ones during the rest of the session.
Now let’s make the connection between this inner talk and how it can really effect performance in the pupillage interviews themselves. Get the audience to suggest answers to each of the four categories.
End with a very important feature of NLP. We do not dwell on the past. We do use it to inform future action and the sooner we focus on that future picture the better.
This slide leads into the next – in many cases this is the visual representation of what the pupillage interview feels like to us. Big, imposing, intimidating, shadowing.
So let’s do some reframing visually as well. Lower case to represent keeping each one in proportion. An acknowledgment that not only it is likely we will have to do more than one before getting that pupillage offer and more helpfully to allow us the possibility to consider the next one not as “The one I must succeed at” but as another equally important one but where none are necessarily more important than others.
Not sure how many will connect with the feeling of loneliness but I’m sure quite a few will associate with feeling ‘faced’ with a panel of interviewers.
This, therefore, is something to introduce to them that they can then think about in the days to come.
Firstly whilst we may have our inner gremlins who are not our friends we can also bring in friends who are on our side. Who will you take in to metaphorically be with you on your shoulder? A loved one? A particularly supportive academic? A mentor in life? The tip here is to choose someone who has unconditional respect for you and knows why you are great at what you are great at.
Or if you could have with you a ‘panel of experts’, fictional or real, that you know or don’t know, that are alive or dead who would they be? Choose 3 or 4. Who you can turn to during difficult parts of the interview to represent you through you.
Very often we visualise failure. We visualise not being able to answer a certain question well. Even if we’ve prepared well for it. Or visualise being probed on an area of our life we are dreading being asked about. Or more generally visualise crumbling. Again it’s a very natural thing to do. The most natural thing to do.
And when it’s natural we need to consciously prepare a counter balance. This is it.
The story concerns a book about learning to ski. Not practically, but mentally. It tells of an instructor our for a lesson with a holiday visitor to the ski resort. A day or so in and having been given some practical instruction the visitor skis down a section of slope. Internally the instructor notes some practical things that could be improved. A bigger reach forward into the turns. Trusting the skiis more to flow round into the turns. Remaining more balanced in the centre of the skiis in between turns. But when the holiday maker get’s back up to the instructor the instructor asks just one question; “What did you think of that run?”. The visitor mentions a few things and overall is disappointed in the run. Then the instructor says “Ski it how you saw yourself ski-ing it well.” No more technical instruction. No more small pointers to have to remember on top of the ones already flying around the holiday maker’s head. The second run is smoother, flows and looks more natural, is the skier ‘acting’ skiing well. But the acting is reality.
Now let’s put it back into the pupillage interview context. Visualise overall success, not specific failure. And make it tangible. Write it down.
This point of view is based on the fact that many BPTC students have acted/do act outside of their course of study. For some it has even informed their choice of career. It also relates to positive visualisation as well.
Actors are inherently observers of human behaviour. Actors know what confidence in someone looks like. They could use their observations to identify and then act out calmness. Conviction isn’t just what is said but how. Use these skills. Act the way you want to be perceived. Step into that skin.
I have notice student’s getting stuck in faithfully representing themselves in interview. Getting trapped by themselves and the pressure they are experiencing. It’s incredibly first person. So shift it a bit. What if you were dispassionately representing this individual? What would you say were the main qualities they brought to the position of barrister. What were their strengths? Some students find this shift liberating and a chance to step out of themselves for a time.
The second point concerns utilising good practise in advocacy to build strong presentation of arguments/answers in interview. Structuring. Signposting. Summarising. These are all skills taught and developed on the BPTC. But they also are very strong tools in interview as well. Use what already, in another context, comes naturally.
BPTC students are on paper the strongest, most qualified, most able of students. But they all, almost without fail, individually doubt themselves in comparison with their peers. Here is the reality. The playing field is level. They all equally feel less able in ways than each other. Asides from a couple of psychopaths with extreme self confidence in comparison with their peers! This bit is tongue in cheek.
The thought bubbles represent the undeclared thoughts of a room of BPTC students.
Saying that, let us acknowledge that at times on paper some of our peers will have more to offer than us. Yet we waste emotional energy wrestling with this and the conclusion we often reach is a tiring demoralising one. There is no positive for the energy expended. No victory. Instead…
Focus instead on your performance in interview. People are not hired based on what is on paper. A strong cv with a poor interview performance is still a poor interview.
Do yourself justice. Interview well. Represent what you have to the fullest.
You will get/will have got lots of advice from well meaning people. ‘Tips’ from the inside. “I tell you what I wouldn’t mention that”. “That doesn’t go down with them too well believe you me”. The danger? The vanilla effect. Over time you build up a bank of rules of what not to say. Each new rule strips another layer of your individuality away. You are left safe but unmemorable. Distant. No connection.
With common sense in mind let the individuality back in.
“But what if it puts Chambers X off?” If it does then perhaps it’s not the right Chambers for you. Interviewing is a selection process where they are hoping to select the right candidate for them. Blandness is as dangerous as characterful. Show a strong sense of who you are and the Chambers that say yes should be a much better fit.
Two points on this slide.
No point ‘fearing’ that they will go for ‘weak’ areas. They will, Prepare your defense. Relish the duel.
The last point. Politicians will tear into one another on the podium, in the papers and in front of the tv cameras. But it’s politics. What we don’t see are the private conversations between genuine friends or people who at least highly respect one another.
Breathing is our most overlooked sense and our most overlooked tool to keep us calm and in a positive and controlled frame of mind. We all know how to breathe, we just forget to when under pressure. This is also a chance to acknowledge that even with all the other tips pupillage interviews can be pressurised. So give yourself tools to cope with that.
The quote is powerful because of its reference to being anchored. Whilst things in the interview may feel turbulent or out of your control this anchor stays where it is and can be returned to. You own it.
