It clicked for me while preparing for an interview. In my preparation, I had stumbled on a simple system to condense my past experiences into a simple format, ready for any interview. I could not define “the system” for many years, but that did not stop me from using it to perfectly integrate past experiences into interview question responses.
The CORE Discovery
It was late. I had been sitting at my desk for several hours attempting to plan and prepare for the next day’s interview. The hours preparing ground by as I burned the midnight oil. At that late hour, I still did not feel ready to interview the next day. Feeling defeated, I knew it was almost time to give up for the night.
I convinced myself to pour over practice interview questions one more time and repeat my responses out loud (yes, everyone should role play before an interview). Suddenly, I noticed a pattern. Many of the interview questions I practiced could be answered while responding with an example from a short list of my personal defining experiences.
I could use this limited list of past experiences to tailor my interview response and include a person key experience example. I realized this list of experiences could be used to answer over a million different interview questions. I merely had to identify a few, defining experiences from my past to have all the interview content I needed. What I had stumbled upon were the foundations of CORE Experiences.
CORE Experience Framework
The CORE Experience Framework is not the answer, it is the tool to get you better interview answers.
First, this tool is designed to help interviewee’s compile a list of past experiences. Simply identifying and writing down key life experiences provides a list interviewee’s can use to answer behavioral questions. Consider prior jobs, internships, life events, and service activities that will serve as CORE Experiences.
Second, the acronym “CORE” provides the framework to help job seekers reflect on relevant skills and experiences gained. The framework guides interviewees through the process of uncovering what was learned, gained, or overcome during relevant past experiences. These experiences could include personal leadership, teamwork, conflict management, and many more pillars exemplified by a prized company employee.
A total of 3-5 CORE Experiences is all it takes to generate solid interview responses. After reflecting, job seekers should be able to outline multiple marketable skills, invaluable experiences, and a list of professional challenges overcome. Taking time to write out these accomplishments generates a library of documented examples compiled and ready to use for the interview. The job seeker can then easily pull any of these examples and plug them into a relevant interview question.
Reviewing relevant personal CORE Experiences is a critical step in preparing for an interview. The ability of an interviewee to effectively explain CORE Experiences, will show they are the correct fit for the open position. To learn more or to begin using the CORE Experiences worksheet, access the Polished Interview Prep resources page.