The job interview can be one of the most daunting and stressful aspects of finding employment. Getting the job depends on how you answer any number of questions that you can't fully anticipate. How do you prepare to answer questions that you cannot see coming? How do you prevent a loss for words that results in sputtering and stammering during a job interview?
Put your mind at ease and increase your confidence by creating power statements.
What are power statements?
Power statements, according to the LDS Employment Services Career Workshop, are short statements that quickly demonstrate your skills and experience to the interviewer. Power statements are made up of three elements.
- Strength
- Example
- Result
Strength – These are the skills, abilities, and experience that qualify you for the job. They take the form of single words or short phrases that describe you, such as creative, organized, problem-solver, responsible. Strengths can be based on a personal trait or characteristic, I am...; they can be based on past experience, I have...; or they can be based upon what you are capable of doing, I can...
Example – Stating a strength is a good start, but by itself it's not enough to make an impression on an interviewer. Everyone else is doing the same thing. Provide supporting evidence of your strengths by giving an example of a time when you successfully used them. Make the example brief, no more than one or two sentences. The idea is not to provide great detail about what you accomplished but to support your claim to the strength while leaving the interviewer wanting to know more. If the interviewer wants more details about how you accomplished the task she will ask.
If your strength is problem solving follow it up with a supporting example. "I am a problem-solver. In my last position I identified that the company's encryption software was being used inefficiently and proposed and implemented a solution." The idea is to take one of your skills or abilities and to progressively develop it into something that takes on life in the interviewer's mind. In two steps you have gone from reciting power words, just like everyone else is doing, to illustrating your skills. When done briefly and succinctly this intrigues the interviewer and makes her want to know more.
Result – The question behind every interview question is what kind of impact will you have on the organization? The interviewer is thinking and evaluating you in terms of your potential impact on the business. When you demonstrate the impact that you've had in the past by describing the result of applying your skill and experience, you are speaking in terms that mean the most to the interviewer.
Providing a result answers the question, "So what?" You have skills and experience, you've used them, but until you demonstrate the impact of your action the power statement is incomplete. The interviewer will remember the impact of your skills and experience above all else. To make the statement of your impact even more memorable make it quantifiable, numbers speak louder, and are remembered longer, than words.
To illustrate your achievements and business impact give examples showing how you increased quantity, improved quality, enhanced productivity, reduced costs, and/or increased volume.
Example – In the case of the problem solver your power statement would go something like this: "I am a problem solver. In my last position I identified that the company's encryption software was being used inefficiently and proposed and implemented a solution. As a result of this action productivity in my department increased by 10%."
Answers to interview questions for all occasions
After you have created a few power statements and are familiar with using the strength plus example plus result formula, identify 20 to 30 skills or traits that benefit the employer and create a power statement for each one. How do you know if your skills and traits benefit an employer? Employers evaluate candidates in terms of the following:
- Will the candidate help the organization?
- Will the candidate fit in with others in the organization?
- Will the candidate cause trouble?
- How quickly can the candidate learn?
If your skills or experience can help the employer in any of these areas, use the strength plus example plus result formula to turn it into a power statement. The process of creating an arsenal of 20 to 30 power statements not only prepares you for a wide variety of job interview questions, it also builds your confidence by helping you realize what a fantastic candidate you truly are.
Source: The Career Workshop Participant Workbook. Salt Lake City; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2004.
Jared Munk - Jared Munk has several years of experience writing sales proposals and presentations for corporations including General Electric and ...
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