Interview or no Interview?

This blog is dedicated to helping you through your advertising grad scheme interviews.

By now some of you will have received first round interview offer from the likes of DLKW, AMV and McCann. Congratulations.

If you have heard back, post your name and which agencies you've heard from in the comments. It'll help others work out where they stand.

If you haven't don't worry. If you're really keen on getting into advertising then you will. If you get onto a grad scheme, brilliant, if you don't there are other magical ways in. These will be explained, but for now, let's talk, or type, interviews...

The advertising grad recruitment process is normally split into three parts. The first is your application form. Only you can really know how you want to go about filling these odd concoctions of bizarre questions in (Q: "How would you advertise beer if alcohol advertsing was banned?" A: "What the bejesus is this supposed to mean? *cries*"). Suffice to say, an agency somewhere will be looking for someone like you. Therefore, try not to be to tactical and change how you come accross in each application, because if you're just yourself, the agency that you best suit and best suits you will pick you up.

When you're through that bit, the surreal bit stops. For a while.

The first round interviews are designed to make sure that what you said on you application was true (although this is not a consultancy, they won't check. At one particular consultancy, let's call it MkCinsey, your CV is guilty until proved innocent.). They'll ask you about what's on there.

This means two things. Firstly, make a list of things from you application form you want to go into more detail about. Talk about specific examples of things that you think will impress them and show your personality. Secondly, have a think about anything that wasn't on there that you want to slip into conversation. You first round interview is a big chance. Remember, they still don't know if you can do the job or not. They want to invite you back for second round, but you need to prove to them that the potential they saw in your application form is a true reflection of you.

When you turn up at the interview, you'll sign in and wait in reception. It's a bit daunting, but with any luck you won't have to wait more than half an hour. There might be other grads there and you'll all be nervous. Don't worry about the ones who appear to be full of confidence and very loud, bragging about everything they've ever done to anyone who will listen. They are normally the most nervous ones, and don't let it put you off.

You'll probably be interviewed by two people, either together or one at a time. They will most likely be the people who are running the scheme, and are unlikely to be senior mangement. They may even be grads from the years before, so will know what you're going through. Remember, it's their job to make a good impression on you as well as vice versa. The best candidates will get job offers from more than one place, so if you're good this will be the first round in the fight for you. While this gets more intense after second round interviews (when, for example, DDB give you champagne and M&C Saatchi take you all out for a cracking dinner), do remember that you're checking them out as well. More about second round interviews next week.

Your whole first round interview will probably last no more than 45 minutes, and will normally be less. You could be hanging around for half an hour or so, so the whole process should take no longer than 90 minutes.

Be confident, but not cocky. If you get an interview, you're the (wo)man. The people who you sent your application form to think you might be the future of the industry. And you might be. But you've gotta show it.

Always try and answer questions in the following way:

a) What you DID (eg, I was vice-captain of the hockey team at university)

b) WHY you did it (eg, I wanted the responsibility and got voted in)

c) What you CHANGED ( eg, I realised we weren't training enough so got funding for extra sessions)

d) What that ACHIEVED (We came second in a national competition that we'd only ever come 10th in before).

They'll be looking for measurable examples of your character. The key here is MEASURABLE. If you can show that you had a positive effect on something, and only you could have had that effect, you'll be in.

Always remember that the people running the grad scheme will be assessed on the quality of the candidates they put in front of their seniors at the second round interviews. If you can make them look good, the decision to offer you a second round will be easy for them.

"So", I hear you cry, "quit your waffling and tell me what questions they're going to ask!" Well, here goes:

1. They will ask about their own agency's work. This may be print, or TV, or even online. Look at their website, look at their accounts, look at their adverts. This will help you understand what your interviewer does for a job: Make great (hopefully) ads. If you know what they're passionate about, you can be passionate about it too. If you're both passionate about the same things, you'll be best of friends.

Or at least get a second round interview.

2. When you're looking at their adverts, try to understand what they concept, or 'big idea' is behind them. That is what the interviewer will be trying to find out from you. For example, the concept behind Lynx advertising at BBH is seduction. This leads to the Lynx effect. If you start an answer about Lynx (or Axe, outside the UK) advertising with this, you can only do well. Another example would be HSBC. The 'big idea' is that they are a truly international organisation and that benefits customers. This leads to 'The World's Local Bank'. With Sainsbury's, the 'big idea' is to try and get people spending more by buying more items. This leads to 'Try Something New Today'. I'm sure you're beginning to get the picture...

3. Look at the following competency based questions. Almost all interviewers, for all good industries, will use them in some form. There are only a few different topics they can ask about (team work, leadership, respect for others, etc) but lots of different ways they can ask them. If you can identify which area you're being asked about and have an example in mind, you'll rock it.

These are the areas that may be assessed, in one way or another, at your interview:

Adaptability
Communication
Conflict management
Creativity and Innovation
Decisiveness
Delegation
External awareness
Flexibility
Independence
Influencing
Integrity
Leadership
Organisational awareness
Resilience and tenacity
Risk taking
Sensitivity to others
Team work

Don't worry. This is not a bank. Their is room for you to be human in the interviews, you don't have to have a robotic response and they'll be much more interested in you and how interesting and creative you are than your answers to these, but it will help to have a think about them.

The following are some examples of questions, you'll see how the same question can be asked several different ways. They are written for people who have been working, but if you have come straight from uni, use examples from there if you feel like it :


Core Competencies:

Please remember that these are examples and may not all be appropriate to your specific interview! You certainly won't get all of them!

Adaptability
-Tell me about a time when you changed your priorities to meet others' expectations.
-Describe a time when you altered your own behaviour to fit the situation.
-Tell me about a time when you had to change your point of view or your plans to take into account new information or changing priorities.

Client Focus
-Give an example of how you provided service to a client/stakeholder beyond their expectations. -How did you identify the need? How did you respond?
-Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a client/stakeholder service issue.
-Describe a situation in which you acted as an advocate within your organization for your stakeholder’s needs, where there was some organizational resistance to be overcome.

Communication
-Describe a situation you were involved in that required a multi-dimensional communication strategy.
-Give an example of a difficult or sensitive situation that required extensive communication.
-Tell me about a time when you really had to pay attention to what someone else was saying, actively seeking to understand their message.

Organizational Awareness
-Describe the culture of your organization and give an example of how you work within this culture to achieve a goal.
-Describe the things you consider and the steps you take in assessing the viability of a new idea or initiative.
-Tell me about a time when you used your knowledge of the organization to get what you needed.

Problem Solving and Judgment
-Tell me about a time when you had to identify the underlying causes to a problem.
-Describe a time when you had to analyze a problem and generate a solution.
-Tell me about a situation where you had to solve a problem or make a decision that required careful thought. What did you do?

Results Orientation
-Tell me about a time when you set and achieved a goal.
-Tell me about a time when you improved the way things were typically done on the job.
-Describe something you have done to improve the performance of your work unit.
-Describe something you have done to maximize or improve the use of resources beyond your own work unit to achieve improved results.

Teamwork
-Tell me about a time when you worked successfully as a member of a team.
-Describe a situation where you were successful in getting people to work together effectively.
-Describe a situation in which you were a member (not a leader) of a team, and a conflict arose within the team. What did you do?

Developing Others
-Tell me about a time when you coached someone to help them improve their skills or job performance. What did you do?
- Describe a time when you provided feedback to someone about their performance.
- Give me an example of a time when you recognized that a member of your team had a performance difficulty/deficiency. What did you do?

Impact and Influence -Describe a recent situation in which you convinced an individual or a group to do something.
-Describe a time when you went through a series of steps to influence an individual or a group on an important issue.
-Describe a situation in which you needed to influence different stakeholders with differing perspectives.

Innovation
-Describe something you have done that was new and different for your organization, that improved performance and/or productivity.
-Tell me about a time when you identified a new, unusual or different approach for addressing a problem or task.
-Tell me about a recent problem in which old solutions wouldn't work. How did you solve the problem?

Leadership
-Tell me about a time when you had to lead a group to achieve an objective.
-Describe a situation where you had to ensure that your "actions spoke louder than your words" to a team.
-Describe a situation where you inspired others to meet a common goal.

Relationship Building
-Describe a situation in which you developed an effective win/win relationship with a stakeholder or client. How did you go about building the relationship?
-Tell me about a time when you relied on a contact in your network to help you with a work-related task or problem.
-Give me an example of a time when you deliberately attempted to build rapport with a co-worker or customer.

Resource Management
-Describe a situation in which you took a creative approach to resourcing to achieve a goal.
-Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a particular resource management issue regarding either people, materials or assets.
-Describe the options you would consider to resource a project or goal if you did not have the available resources within your own span of control.
-Describe a situation in which you established a partnership with another organization or stakeholder to achieve a mutual goal. What steps did you take to ensure the partnership was effective?

Self-Management
-Describe the level of stress in your job and what you do to manage it.
-Describe a time when you were in a high pressure situation.
-Describe a time when things didn't turn out as you had planned and you had to analyze the situation to address the issue.

Strategic Thinking
-Describe a challenge or opportunity you identified based on your industry knowledge, and how you developed a strategy to respond to it.
-Describe a time you created a strategy to achieve a longer term business objective.
-Describe a time when you used your business knowledge to understand a specific business situation.

If you can think of decent examples for all of these, you'll be able to rock any interview and do whatever job you want. Obviously, some are more relevant than others. You almost definitely will be asked about innovative and strategic thinking. You almost definitely won't get asked about resource management.

So get thinking.

More to follow...