How To Prevent Panic In the Panel Interview
Nothing says “hot seat” like showing up on the meeting bridge and seeing 3-5 strangers staring back you, waiting to be impressed.
Overview
Welcome to the panel interview where your body temperature will rise, your words will jumble, and your confidence will undergo repeated scrutiny. On one hand, you’ve made it to what is normally the final interview, congrats. On the other hand, you’ve got to present your absolute best for 1-3 hours, depending on the role you’ve applied for.
“As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you, no matter what is wrong.”
Relax, while it may seem impossible to do, it is necessary to control your emotions when going into ANY interview, more importantly, the panel interview. I will provide a few tips I’ve learned from interviewing and being interviewed in a panel style format to help break down the mental barrier you’ve created for yourself.
Now, in order to perform well in the panel interview, we must first understand what it is not. Panel interviews typically are not:
a simple “Get to Know You” discussion
A one sided monologue provided by you
An attack on the candidate
Focusing on the strategic advantage you have in a panel interview is an easy way to level the playing field and get out of your own nervous head. You read correctly, you have a strategic advantage in a panel interview. I’ll explain…
Anatomy of a Panel Interview
Panel interviews are typically made up of 3-5 people. 3 is the gold standard these days but don’t be surprised if you see a few more (although this is extremely rare and a potential red flag). For this example, we’ll focus on 3 interviewers and you.
Let’s talk personas:
Middle Leadership - typically a your hiring manager or a parallel manager
Technical Lead - typically a senior level IC (individual contributor) who is doing the job you are interviewing for and a potential team member (if hired)
Varied - typically this will either be HR, Senior Leadership or a collaborator (someone from a different department that works closely with yours)
Example: sales, support, marketing etc
The advantage you have is that you are speaking to 3 different people with 3 different personalities. Luckily for you, one of them is statistically bound to match with yours. Where many candidates fall flat in panel interviews is by trying to engage all 3 interviewers the same way and forget that they all have a different mindset of what success looks like for your future position.
Panel Interview Personas
Let’s simplify this concept by characterizing each persona into a sentence that may be of importance to them.
Hiring Manager - “I want someone who can make good decisions, learn the process/product and can communicate effectively”
Why: “If they can’t then additional resources are needed which can hinder the team’s performance overall”
Technical Lead - “I want someone who can handle their own and is good to work with”
Why: “If they can’t then their problems can potentially become my problems and I don’t want to work with someone who make my job more difficult”
HR or Senior - “I want someone who will be good for the companies ongoing vision”
Why: “If they do not understand why we do what we do and why, they are directly working against the company instead of contributing to it”
Tying Everything Together
While the above example is very oversimplified, it does speak to the core question you should be asking yourself on panel interviews.
“What is each interviewer most interested in?”
Once you understand what they’re interests, you’ll understand your audience. Once you understand your audience and their motivations, you’ll understand what to say and how to deliver it most effectively.
You will be nervous, this is normal and your body’s way of letting you know that something important is about to happen. Accept the nervousness, move forward with your plan to understand the interviewers and proceed to provide the information that is worthwhile to them and grab the position that you deserve.
-JT
