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Wed, Sep 3, 2008 13:28 EDT
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Posted by: reCareered in Best Practices Topic: Personal Management
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Ever get all excited for an interview, only to be frustrated that it didn’t go as well as planned? Maybe your experience wasn’t portrayed in its best light, or your many accomplishments weren’t valued.
How can you avoid this outcome, and take control of the interview?
It’s really not that hard….partially it’s how you approach the interview, and partially how you employ some interview tactics.
Change your approach:
So how do you change your approach to gain control of an interview? Stop being defensive – most job candidates take a defensive interview stance and answer questions that the interviewer asks. The stronger candidates go on the offensive…they interview the company.
So take a strong offense in your interview approach. As a candidate, interview the company to see how the fit is for you. Get a feeling to see will your skills will be valued? Do you see a mentorship relationship with anyone you’ve interviewed with? Does the company “feel” right? Can you succeed here? Does the company’s management style and culture fit your personality comfortably? Is there growth potential for the company, and for your career?
Change your tactics:
Most candidates rattle off their life story, going through every job they’ve had since they delivered papers in Junior High. Not only does this not help you demonstrate subject matter expertise in an interview, it bores the interviewer to death. Worse yet, it wastes valuable time for you to interview the company and make an impression as a leader. If you could take control of the interview, would you try a different tactic?
So how do you interview the company? Ask questions - Lots of them. Especially ask questions where you already know the answer, based on your research. For instance, let’s say you’re a Director of IT, interviewing with a public company that stated in its last 10Q that they plan on growing 25% per year. Could you ask “If your President predicts 25% annual growth, how does that affect IT systems? Are your internal systems prepared to handle that growth? What implications does that growth have on IT, on IT security?”
Of course, you’ll want to make some advance guesses to the answer, so that you can next comment “Oh that’s interesting, I solved that problem at Company X by doing Y”. Do that 2 or 3 times, and you’ve uncovered a company’s top initiatives, problems, and risks. Better yet, you’ve subtly shown that you’ve been there and done that. All of a sudden, you’re the leading candidate, because you’ve shown foresight to anticipate the companies issues….and, by the way, you’ve already solved their problems for prior employers.
If the interviewer tries to gain control of the interview, take it back. Answer the question very quickly, don’t go into details, and quickly ask a related question back to the interviewer.
Let’s say you get a pat interview question (hiring managers use these as filler, HR use these because they don’t always know detailed technical questions to ask) like “What’s your greatest professional challenge?” As long as you’re not going for a job in PR, you could answer something like “Public speaking - I’m taking classes to improve. What are the companies (or department’s) greatest challenges?” Or “I see that industry reports project a downturn in your markets. What is the company doing to prepare? What implications do those plans have on department X? If you aren’t able to pull off this strategy, what’s plan B? What are the implications if this strategy doesn’t work?”
You’re probably not going to ask these kinds of detailed questions of HR, unless you’re interviewing for an HR job. So what do you take control of an
As a recruiter and President of my own firm, I really liked this article. I think the point about being proactive in an interview is the number one weakness that we see as we coach and advise our candidates. This article alludes to it, but didn't specifically mention one thing however, that every candidate must prepare for..."Tell me about yourself." That question or a close varient, when asked--and it almost always is--can be practised and rehearsed in advance. The unprepared will rehash their resume. Ho Hum. The prepared candidate will give a response, that in about 3 mins time, sets up a favorable image and starts to answer fundamental questions that WILL come up in any interview...why I am the best candidate for this position; what experience I have that will benfit you, the company; and what kinjd of person I am to be a fit on your team.
The articles point about having questions for the company is important. Too often we see candiates be so concerned about "winning the job" that they fail to ask themselves is this company right for me? However, I think the timing and presentation of questions is important. Too many too soon, can create an impression that it's all about you the candidate, before the company is sold that you're the right person for them.
Mark,
Thanks so much for the kind comments and for adding to the conversation.
I go into much more detail about candidate interview preparation tips, the kinds of questions to ask, and how to stand out in my blog http://reCareered.blogspot.com.
Phil Rosenberg