Read, re-read and read the JD again and get a good understanding of the company and the market it works within. My experience is if you do a lot of research on the company, they won't ask you anything but if you don't do the research, it is guaranteed you will get lots of questions.

Good luck with the interview

Hi Sophie,

As SLJ has already noted, the job description will be critical to your prep as it will hopefully give you an accurate idea of the level of knowledge, awareness, or experience you need to have. If your job description provides a person specification, have a think about how you meet each of the criteria points and try to identify a good example for each - or even better, an example that evidences more than one criteria.

The role related task could be anything, but I would probably advise having a quick scroll through various types of letters and documents that HR have to put together (such as an offer letter or a variation to contract) - ACAS may have some examples, though every organisation will likely have their own preferred versions. I think it's fairly common for a recruitment panel to ask a candidate to do something with an offer letter or meeting minutes - but again, your job description may be able to guide you better. Make sure you're fairly confident with Word and Excel.

Best of luck!

Welcome to the Communities and well done for securing an interview! Too many forum members are struggling just to get that far! Adding to the answers already provided I would imagine you'll have an in-tray exercise with a number of tasks which you would need to prioritise and explain your reasons for making that decision. One other thing to add: please remember to ask at your interview for feedback afterwards, hopefully they'll be prepared to do this. Good luck and please let us know how you get on. :-)

Thank you SLJ for your advice. I will certainly use it when prepping for other interviews. Sadly I was not successful this time. I failed to mention that it was an internal application so I'm already employee within the organisation but in a different department, so luckily, I already knew quite a lot about the organisation. However, I did a lot of research around the HR department and discovered they are implementing a change programme so I made sure to include that in my application which I was told impressed them.

Thank you Laura, all very good advice that I will willingly take on board for my next opportunity. I was not successful this time around, and I have put it down to my lack of experience in a HR Department. I have asked them for feedback which I am waiting on. I am still quite positive about finding another position though, this was good practice if anything.

Hi Claire Marie, thank you so much for your guidance. Yes, I am very proud and honoured to have even been shortlisted and it hasn't certainly given my confidence a boost. You were right about the in tray exercise, it consisted of prioritizing a set of tasks from some fictional emails and also drafting a job advertisement. I wasn't offered the position in the end, which didn't surprise me but I will keep up the momentum as they obviously saw qualities in me they liked. I have asked for feedback as you suggested, they did say they would provide it so I will keep you updated when that is received. Thanks once again.

In reply to Sophie:

Well done you Sophie! Really sorry to hear this wasn't the outcome you hoped for although utterly amazing you were shortlisted for interview, and all really useful experience. Keep at it tho', it's worth it in the end. :-)

In reply to Sophie:

Sophie, sorry to hear you do not get the job. As someone who worked as a contractor for many years there is one simple truth - there is always another job!

More importantly, what did you learn from the interview, are there things you could have done differently?