How to Succeed in an Agency Interview

Interviewing is hard work. It’s stressful, occasionally high-stakes, and often exhausting. Going in to an interview, you probably know the basics about the job offer, but you hope to leave with a whole lot more. What are the people there like? What’s the work-life balance and office culture?

A typical interview lasts about an hour. That means from the minute you step in the front door, you have 60 minutes to get all the answers you seek, try to impress the powers that be, all-the-while trying to act “natural” in a completely unnatural situation.

I’ve interviewed at more than a handful of places in my career and it’s always a sweat-inducing exercise. Over time, though, I’ve learned a few things being on both sides of the table.

Here’s some tips

#1

Show Your Work

Brag a Little

Get a handful of your most successful projects together before hand. Get them online and be ready to share links with the team. For each project, be ready to answer the following:

• What problem were you solving?
• What was your role in the project? Get specific: Was there a design team you worked with? A product owner? Explain the team dynamic and how you communicated through the development process.
• What was the development process like? Along those same lines, do you use an Agile methodology? Waterfall? What source control did you use? How did you deploy your code?
• What was a problem you encountered during the project and how did you solve it?

#2

Talk About Your History

Who Are You, Again?

As an interviewer, getting a sense of how you’ve worked in the past is the best way to establish your baseline. This may mean questions about your current position, how you work today, and what you’re looking for in a new position. With each question, your opinion on it is just as important as the factual answer. If you don’t work in a team currently, but long to be a part of one, make sure you mention it.

Prepare the Following

• A good explanation of your current work flow and responsibilities
• Include your opinions on what’s good & bad (without sounding bitter)
• If you’re applying for an entry-level position, develop your own career path “origin story.” You should be able to distill your trajectory down to a narrative of some kind. This goes a long way to showing your passion and relating to the interviewer.

Developing Your Origin Story

I’ve always been interested in music. I was in a few bands when I was younger, playing electric guitar. When you start promoting stuff like that around town, you find out a lot of it exists online. In college I started designing videos for the band’s live shows, and promotional material online like our website and MySpace pages. That got me hooked. From then on, I’ve been obsessed with creating things online.

#3

Do Your Research

What Brought You Here?

Do your research into the prospective employer. You don’t need to be an expert on them, but know the basics. What kind of work do they do? What kind of clients do they take on? What was their latest project? Do they have a blog? If so, read it.

Know These Things About the Company

• What interests you about the company?
• What do you love about one of their projects?
• What are you looking for that you don’t have today (more money is a terrible answer)?

#4

Ask Them Questions

Be Heard

It’s often hard to ask meaningful questions to an interviewer. I’m super guilty of this. But, when you think about it, this is your only opportunity to evaluate the employer as much as they’re evaluating you. They need to be a good fit for you. You should like them. You should be excited about working there.

Moreover, asking follow up questions at the end of an interview is a good way to show you’re interested. Plus, I believe, subconsciously, it frames you as an employee already. Odds are you’re being interviewed by someone you’d work with day-to-day, and part of that working relationship consists of questions and conversation. Substantive back-and-forth breaks you out of the “interview” mode and into the “working” mode of conversation.

I’ve discussed this with the guy who’s hired me (twice). He said this:

It seems like the last few interviews I’ve had with people, none of them asked many questions. Not only does that help you gain important knowledge about the company, benefits, culture, etc; it provides you with fodder to keep the conversation going. The longer you can remain in the interview and keep your interviewers engaged, the better chance you have of your interviewers remembering you and having a positive opinion of you
- Killian Grant

If you can’t think of anything off the top of your head in response to the interview, prep a few questions and keep them chambered to avoid appearing slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

Here’s a Few Examples

• How do you guys stay on top of emerging technologies?
• How do you typically handle resource allocation?
• How do you see me fitting into the existing team?
• What’s the best part of your working day/week/year?

Do you have any interview horror stories? What are the ways you avoid a repeat performance? I’ dlove to hear from you @glen_elkins.