Interviews at AEG
Congratulations on being invited to an interview - we’re looking forward to meeting you in person.
A lot of people find themselves feeling nervous during the interview process, even the interviewers, but here are a few tips to help make the process smoother and give you an idea of what to expect when interviewing with AEG Europe.
Before the interview
Prepare, prepare, prepare!
Read the job description and make sure understand the role fully. From the job description you can work out what areas will be discussed during the interview and some likely questions. (You can still view the job description for the role you have applied for by logging into the recruitment portal and viewing the job advert in your profile, the job description is at the bottom)
On the day of the interview
Breathing exercises can help to reduce your heart rate and calm you. Try this simple breathing exercise, whilst seated: breathe in for four counts, hold for four counts and exhale for eight counts. Try this before an interview for a few cycles and it should help calm nerves.
What you wear can make a difference to how you feel, so wear something you are comfortable in and that makes you feel good. Think smart casual and you can’t go wrong.
Pay attention to body language – smile, try not to slouch or hunch over, sit up straight to ensure you feel the comfortable. When you’re comfortable you’re more likely to feel confident.
During the interview
If you feel nervous at any time during the interview, use these tips below to give you some time to calm yourself:
- Sip some water
- Take a deep breath
- Ask the interviewer to repeat the question to allow you some more time whilst preparing your answer
- Let the interviewer know you’re just going to take a moment or two to think about a relevant answer to give to that question, again giving yourself some time to consider your response.
- Remember, no one is there to trip you up or catch you out – we want to learn more about you and your experience, ambitions and why you want to work with us.
Interview format
Our interviews have four sections, which should take approximately 30-35 minutes to complete. Then there is normally five to ten minutes at the end for you to ask any questions you may have.
PART 1 - Getting to know you
Below are questions from which we pick one or two to start off the interview:
- “Talk us through your career to date highlighting anything you feel is particularly relevant to this role.”
- “What do you see as the key purpose of this role? How does your experience fit with this?”
- “What excites you about this opportunity?”
- “Why are you interested in AEG in particular?”
- “What two or three things are most important to you in deciding on your next career opportunity?”
PART 2 - Our Values
Our Values are very important to us. We want to make sure they are important to you too. So we choose two of four of our values that we feel are integral to the role you are interviewing for and ask you questions about them.
To remind yourself of our values visit: https://aegeurope.com/about-us/vision-values/
Below are some examples of these questions:
- “Give us an example of when you have had to pitch in to support others in your team?”
- “How do you build effective working relationships with people?”
- “Tell us about a time when you went out of your way to help an internal or external customer”
- “Tell us about a situation where you were frustated because you couldn’t provide a customer with what they wanted”
- “Tell us about a recent time where you have had to adapt to a change”
- “Tell us about a mistake you made at work”
- “Tell us about an occasion where you made a committment to someone at work and then had to let them down”
PART 3 - Role Specific Questions
We will then ask you three to five role specific questions. This is where the job description comes in. Look at what you’ll be doing in the role and what skills you need. You will then get an idea of the types of questions we might ask.
Something to bear in mind is how to structure your answer, maybe the STAR method will help you:
- S - Situation: Set the scene and give the necessary details of your example.
- T - Task: Describe what your responsibility was in that situation.
- A - Action: Explain exactly what steps you took to address it.
- R - Result: Share what outcomes your actions achieved.
Try to give as in-depth of an answer as possible, ensuring you cover the points above.
PART 4 - Scenario Based Questions
We ask one or two scenario questions in order to understand how you would deal with a typical situation you will encounter in the role. These are not trick questions; we just want to understand your thinking and how you would deal with a certain situation.
Something to bear in mind is how to structure your answer, maybe the STAR method will help you:
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From the job description have a think about:
- What are some of the day-to-day challenges someone might face in the role?
- What problems or difficult issues come up that it is vital you can handle?
- What are some of the types of problem-solving scenarios you might need to overcome?
- What are some of the difficult decisions you will have to make in the role?
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We’ve included some examples, but again these questions will be based on the specific role you are applying for so may not be covered below:
- “A top member of your Sales team has experienced a decline in their performance over the past 8 weeks. They have started to behave erratically and often come in late. How might you approach this situation?”
- “You’re working on a key project and you are approaching the project deadline. Two of your project team have called in sick and it’s unlikely they will be back until next week. How would you handle this situation?”
- “Let’s say you began working on a project that was due on a tight deadline. You’ve made decent progress when you realize that you’ve made a detrimental mistake that will require you to start over. How would you address this and what would you do about the deadline?”
- “A customer approaches you and explains that they have lost their paper ticket. They show you their booking confirmation email, however this is not an accepted form of entry. They are agitated and upset as the show is due to start shortly. How would you handle this situation?”
At the end
At the end of the interview you will have the chance to ask us any questions you might have. It’s always good to prepare these in advance, although some may arise during our conversation.
If you need to, you can of course bring a notebook into the interview with you if you’re concerned you may not remember them. For example, think about what you want to find out about the role, the manager, the team, the work you’ll be doing, any projects you’ll be working on and what it’s like to work at AEG.
If when you leave the interview you remember a great answer to a question, or a question you wanted to ask but forgot, you can reply to your interview invite or confirmation email and we can pass it onto the hiring team.
Good luck!
