Jobseekers feel worried even when it’s a one-on-one interview. And when it’s a panel interview (group interview), it might cause more worry among applicants. One thing that you always need to remember is that employers don’t hold panel interviews to create a fearful situation. They adopt this approach so that you can meet all the important people (who you’ll actually work with) in a single seating. That’s why, it’s important to prepare yourself to achieve success in a panel interview, no matter how many people are there in the group.

Given below are some key tips and useful pieces of advice that you can use to win a panel interview and get hired quickly.

Don’t Stare at a Single Person

A panel interview is a group interview, where you won’t be talking to a single person specifically. Each of the professionals that attend the interview are equally important. If you stare at just one person, you’ll only lose the essence of a panel interview and leave a bad impression.

Be Ready for Further Explanation

Everyone has their own listening style. When you respond, it might be just possible that you won’t send the same signal to everyone. Those who don’t get you instantly may ask you to repeat a response or ask for further explanation. These things happen in group interviews. So, you should be ready for that.

Practice Answering a Range of Questions

Questions asked during a one-on-one interview may be very limited. However, panel interviews are different in that sense. Different interviewers in the group might throw different types of questions at you. Apart from practicing commonly asked questions, also prepare on how to answer tricky, critical and behavioral interview questions to achieve success.

Ask Intelligent Questions

Since it’s a panel interview, you will need to convince most of the people in the group. It may be a little easier to convince or impress when you face a one-on-one interview. That’s why you should never ask very general or common questions. Ask intelligent questions to impress many in the group.

Give Examples

If you want to leave a lasting impression on each of the interviewers in the panel, you need to talk with examples. While explaining a point, talk about your own personal experiences from the past. Also remember to use figures to support the claims that you make.

Write Thank You Notes to Each Panelist

End the interview on a positive note. In any case, don’t forget to send thank you notes to each of the professionals who participated as interviewer. You can also use this opportunity to highlight your most essential skills and build important connections in the industry.

James Tomerson writes regularly on career, education and latest job trends. To read more from him, you can visit Jobdiagnosis.com, which also offers jobseekers a free career test to choose a career which is in tune with their career, aptitude and skills.

The panel interview or group interview is another type of interview you can attend that I alluded to several days ago in the stress interview entry.

The panel or group interview is exactly as it sounds: instead of being interviewed by one person, you get interviewed by more than one person simultaneously.

Early in my career, I experienced a panel interview where I was interviewed by the general manager, operations manager and sales manager for a sales job I was interviewing for. The interview was a comfortable one for me and the three people who interviewed me were very nice people and kept it very informal.

I got the job too, so I’m guessing the interview went ok…

Companies choose to do panel interviews for different reasons but one of the benefits to you is that you only need to answer a question once rather than having different people asking you the same question in separate interviews.

It also gives the other people in the room the chance to ask a follow up question after you’ve answered someone else’s question so I’d be prepared for an in depth discussion. I’d also be prepared for follow up questions and for different styles of interviewing since you’ll be in the room with different personalities.

Perhaps you get interviewed by 3-5 people perhaps representing different functional groups in the company including the group or division you’re looking at joining.

In terms of the people in the interview itself, perhaps it includes the person you’d be working for, one or more of their staff, an HR staff member, among other people.

One of the keys to the panel interview is therefore finding out ahead of time whenever possible:

1. The names of each person attending the interview

2. The role (job title) of each person attending the interview.

This way, you’ll be able to prepare for different kinds of questions knowing who is attending the interview and if possible you’ll be able to familiarize yourself with their names beforehand. If you’re interviewing with several people in a panel interview, unless they’re wearing name tags (!) you’ll probably have forgotten their name the moment they mention it since your head will already be full of everything else that you’re trying to remember.

If you’re lucky enough to have been handed a business card by each or most of the people in the room I’d lay them out in front of you in the order that they are seated without drawing too much attention to it, to help with remembering names.

When answering questions, remember to address everyone in the room and to pay particular attention to the person asking the question.

After the interview, I’d follow up by email with a short thank you note to each person that interviewed you.