I’m not going to re-hash the usual job interview tips that most websites will share when you do a Google search. You’ll find plenty of those. Instead, I’ll share some of the key things I use for community management roles.

Change your interview mindset

Nowadays, I go into job interviews pretty relaxed. For the first few years, I was a nervous mess who was uncomfortable and awkward.

What changed between one and the other was my mindset: I see interviews as less of an interview of me and more of me interviewing a company.

That dynamic change puts all the power in your hands and for me, at least, gave me the reassurance that the ones who would be nervous going in are the interviewer, not me, lol.

What to bring with you to an interview

In saying that, you could have social anxiety, generalised anxiety disorder or panic disorder and this may not help as much. What will help whether you have any of these conditions or not is the following:

  1. Research, research, research - Look through a company’s websites, social media and public relations much like how an interviewer will be researching you. Get a good vibe for the company so that you can mentally align yourself before the first interview. I also often use things from my research as talking points or questions to ask during interviews to showcase the legwork I’ve done.
  2. Come prepared - Along with the research you’ve done, be ready for some tricky questions and bring along some STAR examples (more on this below) that include some stats or data.
  3. Breathing mindfulness exercises - This is just a good skill to have as a community manager in general. You’ll find plenty of resources or even apps online you can use just before an interview or during more trying times when you’ve finally landed the role.

STAR examples

Ah, the STAR example. This format is one I learned years and years ago back in uni during one of their career and job hunting courses. It stands strong to this day and it’s something you should practise using.

STAR is a method for responding to interview questions that highlights how you applied yourself and your skills in a situation. It stands for Situation, Task, Action and Result. How it works is how it reads on the box:

  1. Situation - explain the scenario or the challenge
  2. Task - explain your role/responsibility
  3. Action - explain the actions you took to respond to the challenge
  4. Result - what were the results of your action(s)?

I highlight the last one because it’s extremely important that you use this section to share some hard data. Here are some examples of some hard data you could share:

Because of my actions, the results were…: