What are the most common interview mistakes and how can you avoid them?

Approach matters. One of the frameworks I've experimented with in the past is Knowledge-as-Value (KaV). This approach helps you carve out (pun intended) valuable insights before the interview starts. At the core of this is making it your work to find out the most obscure facts about the company, where are they in their journey etc. This helps uncover hidden pain points, and cultural dynamics and also demonstrates critical thinking skills that go beyond the generic. Finally, you have to be agile during the interview and display dynamism in your approach based on subtle cues i.e. body language.

You should be clear on the markets segments your potential future employer serves, the locations of operational subsidiaries, the size of workforce, roughly yearly turnover and kind of products offered

One of the frequent missteps is failing to prepare and research the company's objectives, vision, and product portfolio. This lack of preparation can come across as a lack of interest, or even worse, as disrespect towards the interviewers. To avoid this, it is essential to thoroughly understand the company's goals, vision, and what they offer. Then, effectively connect this knowledge with your own passions, skills, and vision during the interview.

Try to make a future pace using your past-time experience and draw a picture on how you can use your expertise to make the company´s portfolio shine even more. Address how to further develop strong segments and mention your vision how to add up new opportunities

Ensure you're able to effectively display your contributions in a team project. Sometimes, when we do a walkthrough of delivered book of work, we fail to emphasise on how our contributions shaped the output successfully.

Another prevalent mistake is staying too general in your communication, relying heavily on buzzwords or broad concepts. While starting with a high-level overview is effective for an introduction, it's crucial to delve deeper into specifics. Simply using popular terms without explaining the finer details can be insufficient. To truly build trust and credibility, you need to elaborate on the 'how' and the 'what' of your experiences or ideas. Discussing these aspects in detail is where you can genuinely demonstrate your skills and knowledge, showing that your expertise goes beyond surface-level understanding.

When companies look for experts, they are mostly not very interested in general fluff talks. Show your expertise with proofing figures on the market segment, product range, competition structure. No need to bring everything on the table still focus on the strong bullet points

Product innovation is a critical platform to demonstrate your teamwork abilities. It's essential to highlight your skills not just during straightforward scenarios, but especially in challenging situations where you had to push beyond your comfort zone. In your presentation, focus on what you learned from the experience and how it positively impacted the product. Employ storytelling frameworks like the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) or similar approaches to structure your examples effectively. This method helps in clearly conveying the context, your role, the actions you took, and the outcomes of those actions.

Make clear you are doing the interview to create a win-win situation for both the future employer and you as the future employee. The employer is interested in future success and you are the right person to help make it happen!

Always ask questions! I like open ended ones such as 'talk to me about the culture here' 'How have you found working here?' These allow for the interviewer to speak and let you have some breathing space. They may also say something which you can piggy back on such as 'the developmental opportunities are great', so you can lead with 'can you expand on those opportunities a bit more please?'. Open ended questions are my biggest trick in interviews.

When it comes to interviewing the potential users of your product, I recommend reading The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. It's a book you'll be able to read in 3 hours, and will learn you how to talk to potential customers to validate if your business and prevent people trying to please you (lying to you). The most common interview mistakes it discusses typically involve asking leading questions, seeking validation rather than truth, and not digging deeper into customer needs and problems.