Let’s talk about interviews. For many people they’re the single hardest part of job seeking, and you might even have found yourself wishing your interviewer could just reach into your mind and pluck out all the good stuff you have to offer to save you from having to try to put it into words. Unfortunately we’re some way off such innovations in the recruitment industry, and interviews are likely to be around for a while yet.
For employers like our Personal & Business Banking business – made up of the NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland branch networks, contact centres, and much of the support and strategy that sits behind them – finding out what you’re like as a person is crucial because we do business with people every day. Our ambition is to be the UK’s number one bank for customer service, trust and advocacy, and it’s only through the strengths of our people that we can succeed. While interview styles might change, we haven’t found a better way of finding out what a person has to offer in a short period of time.
The good news is that forewarned is forearmed, and while it’s not possible to predict exactly what you’ll be asked, there are certain questions that come up time and again because employers find them so useful for learning about you. With a little inside knowledge – and a healthy amount of preparation – you can help manage any nerves you might feel, and put yourself in the best position to make your strengths stand out.
We talked to Jenny Steele and Leah Bracha from our Personal & Business Banking recruitment team to get an insider’s perspective on what you might be asked next time you’re in the hot seat.
This is one of the most common questions asked, and also quite commonly one of the poorest answered. The mistake many people make is to under prepare, or to treat the question as part of the small talk which an interviewer may use to ease both parties into the process. If you’re not ready to answer, you might be throwing away a golden opportunity to state your case as to why you’re right for the job.
Instead, try preparing a personal pitch. You might go about it by providing some background to your experience, with an overview of the relevant parts of your career. For example, “I’ve worked in customer services for over five years, starting in retail and moving into a managerial role three years ago. In my current role I have responsibility for three members of staff.” Or you might prefer to focus on the personal qualities that make you a good fit, such as, “I’ve earned a reputation as someone who cuts through complex processes and makes it easy for my team to concentrate on serving our customers.” Just be ready to support what you say if you’re asked to explain it further.
Another very common question, and one a lot of people can feel very uncomfortable answering. So there’s all the more reason to think about it beforehand rather than try to deal with it when you’re on the spot.
Our advice is to avoid the temptation to go for faux humility, or the ‘humble brag’, as it rarely rings true. That means no “I’m just too much of a perfectionist”, unless that genuinely is your weakness, and you can put an authentic spin on it.
So how should you approach it? It helps to understand why employers ask this question in the first place: they want to know if you’re aware of your limitations, and what you’ve done to improve yourself. Think about something you’ve realised you needed to do better, and how you’ve worked to overcome it. For example, “Time management used to be an issue for me, but I’ve been taking (these) steps to improve it, and now I’m far better with my time. And I’m still working on it with (further) actions.”
28 Alexander Mann Solutions Interview Questions & Answers
Be sure to check out our other company interview question sets
This company typically hires for the following careers, use these career-focused practice sets to help you win your interview
If you want to ace your upcoming interview, practice with our topical-based interview question sets.
Find additional company focused interview questions by practicing from one of our industry sets
Be sure to check out our other company interview question sets
This company typically hires for the following careers, use these career-focused practice sets to help you win your interview
If you want to ace your upcoming interview, practice with our topical-based interview question sets.
Find additional company focused interview questions by practicing from one of our industry sets
The purpose of this page is to help you prepare for your job interview. We do this by creating interview questions that we think you might be asked. We hire professional interviewers (people with multiple years of experience interviewing candidates) to help us create our interview questions and write answer examples. We do not have advertisements on our pages but we do try to make money through paid-memberships.
I think that’s a really good way of understanding whether somebody is going to be the right cultural fit, by them understanding what the organization actually does and where they are in their journey, or their vision right now.
Coming on this installment of The Recruiting Reel is Mark Jones, the Head of Operations across the Americas for Alexander Mann Solutions.
I think some good questions to ask when you’re interviewing somebody and trying to understand the right cultural fit, first and foremost: have they done their research? Do they understand the organization? Have they looked at the social media feeds? Have they downloaded a whitepaper? Can they talk to what the company is trying to achieve, the vision, mission, the goals, etc.?
Every organization has a culture, but finding somebody to fit into that culture, whether that culture is for a specific role or the organization at large, is massively important. It works best when an organization has deeply held, and clearly defined culture and values that everyone in the company knows and strives to embody. For example, our culture is built around our core values of being passionate, authentic, distinctive, and brave. And I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody in our organization that did not know this and did not have their own personal connection to these values. And that personal connection is really, really important.
Mark has an 18-year track record with Alexander Mann Solutions and is currently building their North American service center from the ground up, creating a “Best Places to Work” winning infrastructure which currently employs close to 100 staff delivering services to their clients across the recruitment, sourcing and administration functions.
What do you know about the organisation?
You can get a lot of mileage from your answer to this question, and really let your preparation shine through. Take a good look over the company’s website, and write down important pieces of information to help you remember them. Cover things like the name of the CEO and background information about the company, but don’t feel you need to recite a list of facts and figures. After all, it’s not an exam, and it’s unlikely you’ll be asked for specifics.
Far more important is to build your understanding of the organisation’s values, what it is they do, how they do it, and how they’re building their future. Look for ways in which the things the company places importance on resonate with your own values, and think about how you can show through your interview how and where your values are similar. Do this well, and your enthusiasm and authenticity will make a real difference.
Make sure you spend some time looking at the company’s social media channels, and those of their competitors. Given the speed at which the digital world moves, you’ll often find more up to date information on an organisation’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blog pages than you will on their corporate or careers websites. Following the organisation and reading their updates and articles prior to your interview is a great way to get a strong insight into how they see themselves.