Prepare for Your Interview Like An Actor
Me in a college production of Love’s Labour’s Lost as proof of my past acting career. It took me 525,600 minutes to find this photo.
I used to be an actor. Everyone who has met me in real life is unsurprised by this.
When I graduated from college with a degree in theatre, I moved to Seattle to be a full-time actor with barista-ing on the side; I quickly realized that it wasn’t the life for me and no, I did not want to move to Poughkeepsie for 6 weeks to be Ophelia.
The good news for me is that there are a ton of transferable skills from a theatre degree to the working world, and I’ll tell you about one of my favorites now - how to prepare for an interview like you’re an actor prepping for auditions.
Typically, auditions consisted of me walking into a silent room of strangers staring at me, introducing myself, then launching into one or two monologues that I had memorized and rehearsed for hours. Sometimes I sang, with hours of voice lessons and practice behind those 24 bars of song. The people smiled (sometimes) and said thank you (sometimes) and I walked out of the room and waited to hear if I’d be called back. This was a grueling and terrifying process, but what made me feel calm and ready was hours of preparation.
I use the same preparation process now to feel interview-ready. And I’ll teach you how to do it.
First, make a list of all of the typical interview questions that you will very likely be asked. You absolutely know what they are, but here’s a start:
Tell us about yourself. Why are you interested in this role?
Tell us about a time when you’ve experienced conflict/a challenge at work. How did you approach this?
What’s your management style? And/or how do you like to work with a manager?
Tell us about a program/initiative/project you successfully got off the ground. What made it successful?
Give us an example of when you have worked cross-departmentally or with multiple teams to drive something forward.
Here’s where the acting part comes in.
Start with writing or typing your answer to each of these questions. Include real-life examples to back up what you’re saying. This is your script.
Begin rehearsals. Start with reading your answers out loud, making edits as you see fit.
Yes, out loud. This is really important. You can read and review your answers a million times in your head, but if you don’t actually work on speaking them, you won’t be as ready. Find a quiet room, use your commute time alone in a car, or borrow a friend’s basement - whatever it takes, find a spot to feel comfortable talking out loud as if you’re responding to an interview panel.
Then, go off-script - that is, hide your notes and answer without them in front of you. Pretend you are talking to a real person - this isn’t about memorizing your lines and repeating them like a robot, this is about getting really comfortable with your succinct, out-loud answers so when you’re nervous on interview day, you have the muscle memory and practice behind you to make sure you cover the important points.
Time yourself - in a 60 minute interview, give yourself about 3-5 minutes of answering per question, leaving time for you to ask questions of the interview committee. If you have a multiple-interview day, try to think about what each group is going to want to know about you and prep questions for each - for example, a team that you would manage if you got this role wants to know how you manage people; your potential boss wants to know how you problem-solve and think strategically, etc.
This will suck the first many times. You’ll forget a bunch of what you wanted to say, get tongue-tied, and probably feel silly about talking to yourself. Press on with rehearsals. It works.
By the time you are headed to that interview or waiting for the Zoom room to open, you’ll feel confident and ready. You have a solid and rehearsed (but not robotic) answer about why you want the job, you know what examples you’re going to use from your past experience to make your points, and have practiced all of it enough that you’re confident and secure.
Break a leg - you’ve got this.
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