Practice for an Interview with Assistant and Manager Role Reversal

The rules for preparing for a job interview as an administrative assistant are no secret. Research the company, think through the answers to expected questions, dress the part and show up on time. If you want to stand out in an interview, however, try tipping your interview practice on its head. Instead of preparing to be the applicant, pretend to be the interviewer looking for a new assistant.

Typical interview practice techniques involve doing mock interviews in which a friend sits in as the interviewer and you practice being the interviewee. While this technique is helpful for interview prep, take a tip from an exercise done in many ESL classes. Because the students are dealing with the stress of a pending job interview and also with the difficulties of speaking a different language, they take turns pretending to be the interviewer rather than just the applicant.

The result of this technique is often a deeper understanding of the job interview process. It shows you what it feels like to be the applicant, and it gives you a new awareness of what it is like to sit behind the desk. Instead of thinking about how you would answer typical interview questions, you are forced to think about what answers you, as the hypothetical hiring manager, want to hear.

One of the key things a hiring manager wants to know about a job applicant is how that person will fit in with the company's culture. A job interview rarely contains specific questions tailored to elicit this quality, however. Pretending to be your own interviewer gives you a chance to think through what you expect to see in an applicant that demonstrates they will be a great fit. Preparing for a job interview in this way forces you to research not just the company's balance sheet but its internal culture, and helps you make decisions easily about what to wear to the interview and how to answer certain questions.

As you put yourself into the role of an interviewer, you also realize that you want to know not just about an applicant's experience as an administrative assistant, but about whether they were any good at their job. Understanding this helps you reply to questions like "Tell me about your experience" with a new perspective, since you now realize the interviewer is really asking, "If I hire you, will you embarrass me or will you make me look good?"

Pretending to interview a candidate for the position you are applying for has an added psychological bonus, as it diminishes the intimidation factor present in any job interview. After all, how can you be stressed by an interview when you have already sat in the hiring manager's chair? While you prepare by doing your research and compiling lists to questions, try to flip the tables and think from the interviewer's perspective for an extra edge.

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