North West Careers

Doing Well in Interviews for North West Careers

Both a job and a career are considered employment, but there is a big difference between the two. A career comes with the opportunity of moving up the ranks, the opportunity to gain skills and expertise and then use this to move into higher level roles and more competitive and challenging roles. North West careers, defined as career opportunities within England’s North West such as Lancashire and Yorkshire span a wide range of sectors. The area is traditionally industrial, and while it still has its industrial routes, there is also a broad range of creative, technology, sales, marketing, and office roles available, as well as all the business support roles that come with these businesses such as office management, administration, finance, and accounting.

The objective of building a career is to spend time in a role until you have mastered it and then seek an opportunity to move on, by identifying the best role to help you move up in the direction you desire to progress. Being able to demonstrate your skills at an interview is key to helping you move on to the next phase in your career. There might be more senior roles within your current business, or there may be no higher opportunities available. The options then become to traverse across the way, or to get an interview with a different business, in which they don’t know your work skills, expertise and abilities.

To build a successful North West career it is wise to be transparent on what you have achieved so far and what your career aspirations are. It is quite normal for hiring mangers to ask you such questions in an interview, such as where would you like to be in ten years, what is your career aspiration? It is not critical that you provide intricate details here but giving an overview that is aligned to their company too is always beneficial.

A lot of interviews nowadays include a panel, with managers and supervisors from a range of divisions asking questions to gain an understanding of your skills, experience, and how you may respond to particular situations. Individuals can also be asked to undertake assessments or deliver a presentation (you would be given time to prepare this before the interview). What is crucial here, is to try and remain confident, keep smiling and looking at each individual on the panel, as well as ensuring you ask follow up questions if you are unsure what information they are looking for, such as questions to help you focus your reply.

When it comes to more senior roles in your North West career, it is worth remembering that the interview process is a two-way process. It is not just the employer interviewing you, but you are assessing if this is the manager and company that you want to work for too, one that suits you and your career aims.