A panel interview can feel a bit like an interrogation. You’re sitting across from multiple people, all of whom are firing questions—or worse, are simply sitting in silence, forming private opinions of you as you squirm.
While panel interviews can seem daunting, they don’t have to be. With careful preparation, you can master the panel job interview. Here are five steps to success.
- Find out who will be on the panel. Talk to your recruiter to obtain the name and job title of each person on the panel; then use LinkedIn and the company’s website to learn more about each person’s role in the organization. When you know more about your interviewers, you can better prepare your approach.
- Consider which panelist is most likely to ask which questions. When you know who will be interviewing you, you can make educated guesses as to what each person will ask. For instance, another legal support professional might ask about your day-to-day work, while a supervisor will want to know how you handle deadlines and challenges or how you communicate with other departments.
- Connect with each member of the panel. During your interview, use active listening skills and nonverbal communication to indicate your interest and engagement with each person on the panel, just as you would if you had only one interviewer. Planning one or two questions to ask each specific panelist also demonstrates you’re interested in them as individuals and the roles they play in the organization.
- Speak to the entire panel, even when answering individual questions. When listening to questions, use nonverbal active listening cues to connect with the speaker. When you answer, however, include everyone on the panel in your response by speaking to the group as a whole and by drawing connections between answers you give to different panelists’ questions.
At Kent Legal, our recruiters can help you connect to the best law clerk job openings in Toronto and prepare to give your best performance in interviews. Contact us today to learn more.