If and when you are accorded an opportunity to interview for internal promotion, more often than not, you are considered - by the powers that be – ready for greater responsibilities. In short, you are on the cusp of entering the game for bigger and better things. And to finally get a chance to play the game (for even bigger and better things on the horizon), you just need to score one more win in the promotion interview.
To boost one’s chance at success in interviews for internal promotion, it helps to keep these five things in mind going into the interview:
1. Avoid being your own worst enemy by acting insecure or unconfident. By virtue of having been invited to the interview, you have met the basic eligibility requirements for the promotion. The worst you can do to sabotage your own career advancement at this stage is having less confidence in yourself than your superiors do. Don’t over-prepare yourself for the interview, appear to be too eager to please or impress the interviewer(s), or act unnecessarily nervously in answering questions.
2. Give adequate, concise, and insightful/intelligent answers to all questions posed, but no more. Volunteering unsolicited information on unrelated subjects is almost always viewed less favorably that you think it would, and often results in derailing your otherwise well-prepared presentation. So, instead of going on a tangent, stay focused, and keep your answers short and to the point.
3. Do be engaging, upbeat, and positive throughout the entire interview. Every manager, regardless where he/she stands on the organization’s food chain, wants to recruit a winning member to his/her over-achieving team, and in picking his/her next team member, one of the first signs he/she watches for exclusion is any indication of unwholesome attitude. Negativity gets no one anywhere but dragging the whole team down. Granted, this may sound less important since, as a candidate for promotion, you have established a track record of your past success. Just the same, however, a weakness shown in an interview is a weakness magnified, and should be avoided at all cost.
4. Do be forward-looking and visionary in sketching a picture of the future. By definition, promotion is taking a step forward, and it entails responsibilities at a higher level than you have hitherto assumed at. Therefore, it is imperative that you demonstrate abilities to perform at the next level. And being able to see the big picture from here and now goes a long way to buttress your claim that you are ready for the game for bigger boys and girls.
5. And, above all, be yourself. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this really is easier done than imagined. Again, remember this: you would not have been invited to the interview if it were not for the fact that you are exactly who you are, with all the accolades you have already collected along your career trajectory. So, when the opportunity knocks, just take a deep breath, follow the flow, and cruise along to the end of a successful interview for internal promotion.
Good luck, and best wishes for the game for bigger and better things.
