Do you ever wonder what you need to do to prepare yourself for an interview? Do you find yourself googling for tips to nail an interview and find mostly just generic and probably outdated advice on how to prepare? Interviews can sometimes be nerve-wrecking even for experienced applicants; you have many good qualities and success stories that you would like to share, but you are not sure how you can structure and fit in an hour interview. I understand that, I was there too and I am here to share what I know to help you.

My name is Gio, currently I am a Talent Acquisition Partner at Opn. Where I am responsible for connecting Opn with top tier tech talents across Southeast Asia. Prior to my joining at Opn, I had over three years of experience working with world leading recruitment agencies where I helped match candidates with many leading global companies across various industries such as healthcare, FMCG, marketing agencies, etc. What I did on a daily basis was to help my candidates to prepare for an interview, to make sure that they could display their full potential and hopefully be selected as a finalist. Today, I want to share some tips that you can use from my experience to help you ace any interview at Opn. I will start by going through the preparation that you can make before attending the interview and later advise on how to best tackle the Q & A section of the interview.

Understanding an introduction interview

An Introduction interview is, as the name suggests, an introductory meeting between you and our hiring team. It is the interview where our interviewer wants to get an overview understanding of you as a person and your professional experience. Below are some ways you can apply in introducing yourself to the interviewers.

Quality over quantity

Going full-on detail can sometimes overwhelm the interviewer especially if you have over 10 years of experience and have been a part of various projects. I highly recommend that you prepare a short but concise introduction for the interview. What I mean by short and concise is that you pick the part of your experience that is relevant to the position you are applying or to the organization. For example, after sharing about the position that you are currently working on, you can also highlight that in the past you have experience in working on a project relating to payment gateways.

Review any available material

Relating to my previous suggestion on providing precise introductions, in order for you to know which part needs to be highlighted, you can start by reviewing job descriptions or company websites. This can give you an overview understanding of key requirements/responsibilities of the position you are applying for, as well as the core services that Opn is working on now, so you can easily identify which experience you need to highlight.

Stable environment equal stable communication

With the recent trend of a hybrid working environment, most interviews are not conducted in person but via video conference instead. This is a factor which many people often overlook as part of their preparation. Here at Opn, we do use Zoom and Google Meet as video conferencing tools, so your first step is identifying the type of video conference that will be used as a venue for the interview. Make sure you have a reliable internet connection and minimize the background noise. Trust me, you would not want this to ruin all the preparation you have made. Always be mindful of your surroundings to ensure a smooth communication between you and the interviewer.

Understanding core values, vision and who we are

Values and vision, these things can help with your preparation to highlight how your value and what you do fits with Opn. Having similar core values or understanding of our values and culture can help you to structure your answer better for an interview. I have attached the links to our site that can help you better acquaint yourself with who we are:

• Who we are

• Opn’s Newsroom

What to wear

Although people often associate interviews with suiting up, I would says it’s depending on the company you are applying for. Here at Opn, we don’t put heavy emphasis on what you wear so a simple T-Shirt is okay for us.

How to Ace Q&A section and how to answer questions in general

Part two of this guide is a tip on how to best tackle questions. Answering questions, as easy as it sounds, is the part where it requires the most attention. Providing great answers does not mean only providing right answers to the questions but also how you structure and convey your answer. So this section of the guide will help you construct and formulate a “great answer” to your questions.

Short and concise is king

As I highlighted before in the first section, a short and concise introduction is a great way to highlight yourself. The same principle applies here as well. Always review and understand the questions so you know what needs to be communicated to answer the questions. It’s better to give a minutes answer than to take five minutes to explain and reach the same answer. Don’t be concerned that giving short answers may hinder the opportunity to share extra information. Interviewers will often ask you to expand further on the topic then you can use this opportunity to elaborate further. This is better as it helps to break down a large and detailed answer into easily digestible information. Giving short and concise answers also displays a good communication skills as it shows that you really take your time to understand the question and are able to select information relevant to convey your point effectively.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions

Another often overlooked but very important part to do well in an interview. There will always be a time when you encounter a question or assessment that you will be uncertain about. It is perfectly fine to ask and reconfirm your understanding before attempting to answer. It is much better to take extra time to evaluate the question instead of giving an answer to the question that you are unsure of. Often this leads you to giving an irrelevant answer and missing the point on the question. I cannot stress this enough, it is perfectly fine to ask questions that helps to confirm your understanding.

Supporting materials can help you succeed in interview

What I mean here does not necessarily mean you have to prepare all your certificates of degrees for an interview, but it simply means an example of a situation or your past project that helps strengthen your answer. Take, for example, a question about leadership for the lead engineer position. You could pick one of the past examples where you went out of your way to help coach junior engineers in your team to wrap themselves around new technology or tech stack that they were inexperienced in. This help solidify your answer and create an opportunity for further discussion on the topic.

Q&A Section

Q&A session usually takes place in the ending section of the interview. Feel free to ask anything that was not discussed during the main interview section. But do not feel that you have to ask anything just for the sake of asking. You do not want to make the question feel forced. So it is important that you note down during an interview what you want to ask during the Q&A section.

Conclusion

This guide covers what you can do to prepare yourself for the interview and what you can do during the interview. I hope that this guide can help you succeed in more interviews and best highlight your potential. At Opn, we are always eager to speak with top talents. If you are someone who is excited by fun and dynamic culture and want to work on creating a life changing technology, please feel free to reach out to us for a discussion. I am currently recruiting for our engineering department, especially QA Engineering.

You can follow Opn on Opn's Linkedin Page and check out our career opportunities on Opn's Career Page.