Chevening Interview Red Flags | How you fail in the first 5 minutes

0:00 Hello everybody, welcome back. You will fail this evening interview if you don't respond these four questions the right way. After conducting over 7,000 mock interviews with chievening candidates since 2020, I can usually tell you within the first five minutes whether someone is heading toward rejection. And it's not what you think. It's not about their grades. It's not about their work experience. It's not even about their achievements. It is something much more subtle. Something most candidates don't even realize they are doing. And if you are preparing for the evening interview, you need to know what this is because once you see it, you can easily fix it. And if you prefer reading instead of watching, you can find this in my weekly newsletter link

0:51 in the descriptions below. I'm not saying this theoretically. I have sat through thousands of these conversations and mock interviews including passing the shavening scholarship interview twice myself in 2018 and 2019. I was a shining scholar myself in 2019 to 2020. So it all comes from experience and doing mock interviews with thousands of people. So I know what the panel is looking for. Here's what most people don't understand. This evening interview isn't a test of how much you know. It is not even a test of how qualified you are. It is a test of how clearly you understand yourself, the problem that your country or community has and what will you do

1:39 realistically to solve that problem. And that's where most strong candidates fail. Not because they are not impressive, but because they are not clear. Let me show you exactly what I mean. The first ritual. The first thing I notice in failing interview happens in the first two minutes. I will ask a simple question something like tell me about yourself or why she evening and the candidate will give me a list. They will tell me where they studied, where they worked, what projects they did and all impassive things like a job interview. But there is no threat connecting them. It sounds like a resume being read aloud and that is actually the problem. Here's what the panel actually looking

2:28 for or listening to. They want to understand your journey. Not just what you have done but why you have done. How each experience was built on the last. What you learned and where are you going with all these things that you have done. When your answers feel disconnected, it tells the panel something. It tells them you haven't reflected deeply on your own story. You haven't asked yourself the hard questions about to about who are you and what are you building and what problem are you solving for your people. I coached a candidate last year. Brilliant person, top university, amazing CV and essays. By the way, you know that I offer one-on-one mock interview sessions and the

3:14 link is in the descriptions below if you want to book one-on-one sessions. When I asked him, "What problem do you want to solve in your community, city, or country," he couldn't explain it? He just said, "I have always been interested in helping people." That is not an answer. That is a placeholder that you can just fill anything. So, we went deeper. We talked about the moment he realized he wanted to solve lack of access to clean drinking water. The experience that shaped his perspective, the gap, he saw that he wanted to fill in his country or community. And when he connected those dots, everything shifted. His story made sense not just to me or to the panel,

4:00 but to himself as well. If you feel vague or concerned, leave a comment telling me what part of your story you are struggling to articulate or a problem that you don't know which is not specific to you and you cannot articulate it in a single sentence because I read every comment and I will provide detailed response to help you avoid this red flag. And if you found this helpful, subscribe to the channel and hit the like button. The second red flag, the second thing I notice is a generic motivation. A candidate will always say something like I want to study in the UK because of the quality of education or I want to I or I want Shven because it is a prestigious scholarship. Now

4:47 those things are true but they are not specific to you. If I copy paste this response to other 1,200 applicants who applied last year, it fits well to everybody else and that is a problem. Your response should not be a copy paste of others and the same from the others and the panel knows this. They are reading thousands of obligations and doing interviews who all want the same things. prestige, quality education, career achievements. So if that is also your answer, you are not standing out. You are blending in. Just the same with the others. Not with the golden L. So you are not the golden person. You are the rest of them. Do you know that you can easily and

5:36 freely without any costs help me just by writing something or anything in the comment section and hitting the like button to this video. That helps me a lot. Here's what a strong person sounds like. It is specific. It's personal. It's connected to something real in their experience. Instead of saying I want to study public policy at LE because it is ranked the third university in the world, you say I spent three years working in local government and I kept seeing the same problem. policies were being designed without understanding the communities they were meant to serve. I want to study particularly governance at LSE because their research directly addresses this gap

6:26 whatever it is and I want to bring that framework back to my country to solve the X problem. See, that's not generic. That's clear, specific, and tailored to you. And I see this mistake all the time. Candidates think they need to sound impressive. But what they actually need is to sound real. The panel isn't looking for the most polished answer. They are looking for the most honest one. What's your response to this question if you are asked? Write it in the comments section and I will guide you through whether it's perfect, good, or bad. By the way, I've also created a free course on my website that walks you through exactly how to build this kind of clarity. Link in

7:11 the descriptions below. Completely free. The link for the one-on-one consultation session is also in the descriptions below in case if you want to book one-on-one mock interviews with me. And this year, I want to do something more special for my amazing weekly viewers. I've already contacted the two others from the last two weeks. And uh this week we are doing the same prizes again. I'm giving away two incredible prizes. Um a 30 a 30 minute one-on-one mock interview with me. We will practice real questions and strategies and we do a mock interview or brainstorm a session a voucher for my interview preparation course. The these two are completely free if you do the following and that's very easy. All you have to do in order to get into the prices is to

7:58 subscribe to the channel. If you're not, like this video and leave a comment below telling me why you want to improve your interview skills. I will pick one winner for the one-on-one session and one winner for the course voucher in the next seven days from the date of posting this video. Uh don't miss this chance and good luck. And I'm not choosing one person for both of them just to help everybody. The third red flag. The third red flag is harder to spot, but it's critical. It's lack of self-awareness. What I mean is this. When I ask a candidate about their weaknesses or about a time they failed as a leader, they either avoid the question or they gave me a strength disguised

8:44 as a weakness. I know a lot of people tell you to do the same thing for the job interviews, but that doesn't work here. things like I work too hard that is my weakness or I am too much of a perfectionist unfortunately you're not good the panel has heard those answers a thousand times and they know what it means it means you are not being honest it means you are performing here's the thing the panel doesn't expect you to be perfect they expect you to be reflective they want to know that you have thought about your blind spots that you have learned from your mistakes that you failed as a leader and it's good to fail. You failed as a leader and learned a lesson to

9:33 do things better in the future that you are still growing. That is what the panel is expecting and they want to learn and they want to know that you know your blind spots. I remember one candidate who told me about a project that completely failed. She was leading a community initiative and it didn't work. People didn't engage. She had to shut it down. But then she told me what she learned from it. She realized she hadn't spent enough time listening to the community before designing the solutions. She had assumed she knew what they needed and she was wrong. That is self-awareness and that is what the panel is looking for. I can say she was selected not

10:20 maybe just because of this question but think of everything as she was doing the same thing. Another leadership failure example. I work in a company government department or whatever. I run projects and I failed to successfully lead and complete the project. As a result I or we lost money time and I or we didn't achieve the goal. As a leader now it's you. I evaluated and found many failures in the project. Failure to delegate power to the team members, failure to listen to their suggestions, failure to distribute tasks accordingly based on expertise, experience and knowledge, failure to estimate costs and predict supply, demand, X, Y, and Zed. This failure taught

11:07 me to learn about it's the time to say the name of every of one of the failures that you did. I learned to do it now differently by doing so and so. So this is how you kind of show off your weaknesses or the response for the question when you are asked failure as a leader because leadership isn't about being perfect. It's about being honest enough to recognize when you are not. So now if you are asked this question, give us an example of how you failed as a leader. What will be your response? Write your response in the comments below and I will review it and give you my own response. Don't forget to hit that like button as well. Furthermore, if you want personalized feedback on how you are coming across in your answers, you can book

11:57 one-on-one mock interviews with me through the links in the descriptions below. Did anything resonated with you so far? I hope so. So, please hit the like button and subscribe to the channel and write something in the comments below that helps me with the algorithms. The fourth red luck, no vision. The fourth thing I notice in failing interviews is when the candidates can't articulate what happens after shavening. I will ask, "What will you do when you return to your country?" or "What are your short-term goals upon your return?" and they will give me something vague. Something like I will apply what I learned or I will work in my field. That is not a vision. That is a hope.

12:43 Here's what the panel wants to hear. They want to know that you have thought this through that you have a plan. Not a perfect plan, but a direction where you want to go. They want to know what specific problem you are trying to solve, what gap you are trying to fill, who you are trying to serve and how Shivvening fits uh into that larger story. Of course, everybody when they return back from their studies, they continue their job. Of course, they share this information. Oh, this way you are giving the same vague response that all other applicants give. And here's the reality. Shavening isn't investing in your education. They are investing in your potential to create a positive change in your country. And if you can't articulate what that change looks like, they have

13:33 no reason to invest in you because everybody goes back and comes and continues their job. That's that's everybody do it. But what do you do to bring that positive change? I worked with a candidate who wanted to study climate policy. When I asked her what she would do after returning, she said I will work in environmental policy. So I pushed her where doing what? Solving what problem? And we kept digging until she could say I want to work with the ministry of environment in my country to design carbon pricing uh carbon pricing mechanisms for small island states because right now the frameworks are designed for large economies and they don't work for us. That

14:19 is a vision that is specific that is something the panel can believe in. So now what is your vision? If you are asked, write it in the comments below and let me fix that for you. If you have really problem with your vision, I highly recommend you to book a consultation or a brainstorming session with me. Uh the link for one-on-one consultation session is also in the descriptions below. So, let me bring this back to where we all start. I can predict failure in the first 5 minutes, not because I am looking for perfect candidates. No, I am looking for clear ones. The ones who knows what they are talking about. Candidates who understand their story, who can articulate their motivation in a way that's specific and personal, not general, who have the

15:08 self-awareness to reflect on their growth, and who have a vision that goes beyond just getting the shifting or any scholarship. And here's the good news. None of these things require you to be more impressive. They don't require better grades or more achievements. Yeah. Honestly, they require reflection. They require honesty. They require you to sit down and ask yourself the hard questions about who you are and what you are building and what problem are you solving for your people. And that is something every candidate can do regardless of your or their backgrounds. So if you are preparing for shavening don't focus on sounding impressive focus on being clear and being

15:56 able to articulate your points clearly. Understand your story. Know why each experience matter any experience that you have had. Be honest about what you have learned and what you will still need to learn and have a vision for what comes next especially to help others and bring a positive impact to the lives of others. quantifiable impacts. That is what the panel is looking for and that is what will make you stand out of the crowd or in the crowd or in the cloud or in so let me do another marketing here. So if you are preparing for avening interview I've created a free action plan that walks you through exactly how to build clarity connect your narrative and articulate

16:46 your vision. It's completely free. link is in the descriptions below. It's a PDF file. And if you found this helpful, subscribe to the channel, like this video, leave a comment telling me which of these red flags you think applies to you because I read every comment and I want to help you fix this before your interview. You are not failing because you're not good enough. You are failing because you haven't done the work to understand yourself yet if you haven't done it. And that is something you can absolutely fix it. I wish you best of luck and success. Please write down in the comments below now the comments I've asked and also in the future when you are shortlisted. You can watch the next video here where I talk about other important tips and tricks for this evening