Facing the Unexpected in Interviews or: Building a Palace

Think back to when you've sat in a job interview. Have you faced a moment where an answer to a seemingly simple question just doesn't find its way to the surface? Where you understand all the words being said, but trying to find something that matches this from your experience – which has already matched the job specification well to get the interview – just doesn't come to mind? 

This doesn't just happen if you feel unprepared, but even preparing answers near perfectly for interviews in advance you are still subject to an unexpected question stalling your interview train as you frantically search your career stations and junctions for some kind of pre-planned response that ultimately isn't there. Whilst interview formats and questions may vary, having some form of interview agility is always needed (unlike railway metaphors), allowing you to adapt your experiences in your answers to respond to the question being asked.

A technique that came to mind

Whilst you'll commonly hear of interview techniques like STAR (or CAR), simple ways to research companies ahead of interview, or what to include to evidence that you're the right candidate for the job, there's less out there around how to set yourself up with a strategy to aid in an instance of going blank in your mind. Indeed, it's a common and understandable worry of clients I work with. Whilst I am no expert in memory recall, it occurred to me recently that a technique I was using in a totally different context - the memory palace - is quite intuitive and could help out royally (pun intended) in the job interview context.

Invitation to the palace

Memory palaces are a basically powerful mnemonic technique where you visualise a familiar environment and associate specific pieces of information with distinct locations or objects within that space. By mentally navigating through this environment – the palace – you can retrieve the stored information more effectively. There's science to back this up too, for example showing that using virtual memory palaces in immersive environments enhances memory retention further and also their effectiveness in helping students learn complex information by organising it spatially. What's more, is that all you need is your mind – which is one thing you can (hopefully!) guarantee will be with you in your interview. So, how does it work and how can you use it in interview preparation?Your Memory Palace for Interview Preparation

Choose Your Space

Select a familiar room in your home (e.g., living room, bedroom, or kitchen). This will serve as your memory palace.

Visualise Your Room

In your mind, picture the chosen room. Familiarity is key, as it will help you navigate easily. Choose a direction to 'walk' around the room (e.g. clockwise)

Identify Key Competencies

Before entering the room again, (actually) write down 8-10 skills you will prepare competency interview answers for, based on the candidate specification in the job description (e.g. teamwork, innovation, organisation) and next to each pick one different specific experience where you exhibited this well (e.g. delivering a collaborative project, creating a new process, planning and managing a piece of work)

Select Your Objects

Identify 8-10 distinct objects in the room, which will be where you can individually place your memory cues. For example, if my memory palace is my living room, I may include my TV, sofa, a bookshelf, and so on.

Create Your Associations

This is the key part! For each of the 8-10 skills/competencies, create a vivid image that represents a specific experience for you. Place this image on one of the 8-10 objects. The more unique and memorable the image, the better! Here are some in my living room example.

• TV: On the TV, there's an image of the Shanghai skyline – which to me represents my teamwork interview example working on team delivery of a project in China

• Sofa: Sitting on the sofa, there's a robot with a clipboard – which to me symbolises my innovation interview example in using generative AI to automated a specific admin process

• Bookshelf: Atop the bookshelf is a model ship covered in Mentos mints – which to me is my work planning and managing a mentorship illustrating my organisation interview example (terrible puns work for me, choose whatever may work for you!)

Practice Navigating Your Room

Mentally walk through your memory palace in the direction you chose. As you move from object to object, recall the associated 8-10 experiences in order. As the room is familiar to you, and if the image associations you've chosen are memorable, this enhances your memory recall.

Utilise Your Palace During Interviews

When faced with a competency interview question, if needed, take a moment to visualise your room and walk through it. Note here that it's always okay to take a few moments upon being asked an interview question before you answer! Retrieve the object that represents the relevant experience to prompt your answer.

Let's have an example

For example, if I'm asked a question about innovation, I'll go around my 'living room' until I get to my 'robot on the sofa', which then prompts me to talk through my relevant example of innovative use of AI automating an admin process.

However, if I'm asked a competency question for something I've not specifically prepared for, this technique becomes particularly helpful. If this is a question about, say, overcoming challenges instead of my mind whirring around randomly trying to find something, I can instead attempt to walk through my 'living room' and the 8-10 associated objects. This prompts me to search my experiences in a structured way in what can be quite a disorienting moment in an interview. As it turns out, the project in China, automating the process and managing the mentoring programme all had their challenges, so I can then select one and carefully talk through that experience with a focus on working through the obstacles faced.

Keep it manageable as well as memorable

You might be wondering why I've chosen 8-10 as the number of things to prepare throughout this article. Well, it's a small enough number to work with, and from experience of being an interviewer I'd typically ask a maximum of 8-10 competency questions (and many job descriptions list this sort of number). Also, and maybe most handily, if you have 8-10 different experiences you can recall examples from for your interview, if you are asked about a different skill or competency, you've got a very decent number of examples to navigate and reframe to build a new answer accordingly.

Extending your palace

This said, you could change the number to make it work for you. An extension would be to add a second room in your memory palace (for me, my kitchen comes into play) for other interview question types, like motivation for a specific role or company as a way to recall relevant reasons you have or facts and figures you've researched, associating these with a new set of objects (hello fridge, kettle, and oven). 

Like Frankie said I did it my way

What I'd add here is whilst I've included my examples, I'd not be surprised if some read them and think 'well, it'd make more sense to me if I did it this way', and that's absolutely fine! As long as you're familiar with the room or space you use, can pick the objects and make memorable associations between these and the experiences you're using for competency examples, then this is perfect. I could imagine people having great recall for London Underground lines, sports teams, or recipes – there's no real reason why you couldn't use these as your 'room'. The memory palace idea can also be created as a memory journey!

Overall, this may be something quite novel in your approach to interviews, and I'm sure will feel more natural to some than others.  In any case, associating these memories is one way you can have cues for your interview answers and deal with some unexpected questions.

If you're working for an upcoming interview, thinking about future preparation, or just reading for curiosity, I hope this is a technique you can adapt and use. If you have any questions, or want to work with me to prepare for an interview, do get in touch! 📨