Don’t Wing It – Prepare For and Win Your Next Job Interview

Article first published as Don't Wing It: Win Your Next Job Interview on Technorati.

Congratulations! If you’re reading this, you’re most likely doing great on your 21^st century job hunt and you have an interview on the horizon.   You should be prepared and use this opportunity to its fullest.  There are several kinds of questions you should expect to hear, and a few you need to ask along the way. 

Here are some questions you’ll surely get during the interview process, along with suggestions on how to answer them.  Learn to recognize these, even if they’re framed differently.

Why did you leave your last job?  Key points here are not to badmouth your prior employer and to convey information in a way that reflects positively on you.  If you were laid off, say so. If you were terminated, discuss a few points in positive terms why your employer was not a good fit for you.  If you’re seeking more money, frame that in terms of seeking more career advancement.  Be honest but also realize that flakiness and instability are traits that interviewers sniff out like bloodhounds.

Tell me about yourself. Remember your elevator pitch?  You’ll be glad you have one now – use it!  Here’s my prior post on that topic:  http://wotherspoonswords.blogspot.com/2011/03/perfect-pitch-creating-your-best.html.

What is your greatest strength? If you cannot define your key strengths, it doesn’t give much confidence to the interviewer that you actually have any.  Be sure that you can crisply identify 2-3 real assets you bring to a job and that you can present examples of how those strengths have helped you in the past.  Make sure they’re relevant to the job at hand.  You may think your best strength is your ability to make risotto from whatever is in your produce drawer, but unless you’re interviewing to be the next Iron Chef, that’s not relevant.  Also, don’t go too generic with anything remotely like “I’m a people-person”.  You can do better than that.   Bonus point: once you’ve stated your strengths, ask the interviewer how he/she feels those assets or skills would impact your ability to succeed in this role.

What is one of your weaknesses? Again, if you can’t answer this question, the interviewer will assign a couple of weaknesses to you, and they may not flatter you.  Think in terms of what experience or skill you want to enhance that you feel you could improve in your next job.  In other words, frame your weakness as something learnable, rather than an enduring character trait.  If you choose to focus on a personality trait or work-style issue, make it something that could also be seen as a strength in certain circumstances.  Don’t be predictable and say anything remotely like “I’m a workaholic.” Interviewers see that coming a mile away.  

Where do you see yourself in five years (or other timeframe)?  If you don’t have a good answer to this, you’ll appear unfocused and not driven – not a good thing on a job interview. Alternatively, if your answer is very specific and improbable or even in conflict with their standard career path, that may not be great either.  My advice is to answer this honestly and really share where you want your career to go.  It’s perfectly ok to be focused on staying in the exact same role, but achieving greater mastery, and/or better task assignments.  If where you want to go over time is clear to you, and not in line with their plan, this probably isn’t the right job for you anyway, so it’s best to get that out in the open now.  A good way to use this question to your advantage is to flip it and ask the interviewer about the career path in the same timeframe for others in the role.        

These are just the warm-up.  Savvy organizations and smart hiring managers are using structured interview techniques, and/or behavioral-based interview questions to vet candidates.  Here’s how that will go down. In addition to reviewing your resume and asking at least a couple of the questions above, the hiring manager will ask a series of questions to get you to provide real world examples of how you’ve responded to workplace challenges.  Interviewers using this technique are often looking for overarching traits such as tolerance of ambiguity, resourcefulness, customer focus, problem-solving ability, sense of accountability, collaborative nature, and persistence.  The key here is for you to answer these questions with detailed, real world examples of how you’ve demonstrated this trait.  A couple examples of these questions include:

“Tell me about how you handled a dissatisfied customer in the last 6 months.”

“Tell me about a time you did not achieve your goal, and how you handled it.”

“Walk me through an example of how you’ve held yourself accountable on a challenging team task.” 

Here is a link to several more behavioral-based interview questions: http://www.quintcareers.com/sample_behavioral.html.  Take some time and think about how you’d answer all of these, using information highlighted on your resume.  Be specific.  Bonus point: ask the interviewer a couple of questions in this style as well.  You can gather some great detailed information on management style, team dynamics and expectations by framing your own questions in these terms.

That brings me to my final tip: Ask questions!  Remember you’re not just selling yourself, you’re buying a job!  Few decisions you make in life are more important than your career moves so be sure you have the information you need to make the right choice.  If the interviewer shares details with you that aren’t clear, ask for more information.  Say something like, “Tell me more about that,” or “how does that work?”. 

My best advice is to focus on what I’ll call “High Gain Questions.”  These are inquiries that not only get you some good data points, but just by asking them, make you look more engaged and articulate.  Does it get better than that?  Examples include:

“What key business trends are impacting your organization and how are you adapting to these changes?”

“What can you tell me about your management style?  What are you really looking for in an employee?”

“What key metrics are used to define success in this role?”

“What obstacles or barriers exist in the organization that impede success?  How can I work to overcome or avoid those?”

Do your research and learn a little about the company and if possible, the role and/or department for which you’re interviewing.  At the very least, thoroughly read the company’ web site, noting any questions you have along the way. You can also use sites like Hoovers, Linked In, and Yahoo Finance to gain insights into the firm.  If they’re a public company, read the latest annual report highlights and at a minimum, the annual CEO letter.  Look up the interviewer on a couple of social networking sites to learn about their background, tenure with the organization, affiliations and any shared connections you may have.  Walk into your interview armed with pre-written questions, but don’t be afraid to make ad hoc inquiries as well.

Most importantly, as the interview closes, ask what the next steps are and how they perceive you as a fit for their opening.  It shows you are interested, shows initiative, and that you’re willing to hear bad news.  I say this:

            “Based on our conversation today, on a scale of 1 to 10, how do you feel that I align with your expectations of a candidate for this role? What would make me a 10?”

But, you should use language that is comfortable for you.  So, do your research, plan how to answer questions you know you’ll have to field, write out some good high gain questions to ask, and most of all, be prepared, Go get ‘em!       

How Not to Blow a Phone Interview...Final Thoughts

This article was first published as How Not to Blow a Phone Interview: Final Thoughts! on Technorati.  A former client called me recently to ask about how I’d suggest wrapping up a successful phone interview.  It got me thinking about a few more ideas for interview success, particularly for phone screens.  These tips, together with the suggestions in my last post (http://technorati.com/business/article/how-not-to-blow-a-phone1/), will help you get your ducks in a row, so you can rock your next phone screen!

1)     Be a Sleuth!  With all the resources available today, there’s no excuse for going into any interview without doing your research.  If nothing else, this will show that you’re intelligent, interested in the opportunity, and a fairly savvy candidate.  Use Google, Linked In, Plaxo or Facebook to see what you can learn about the person on the other end of the phone prior to the call.  If a staffing industry/agency recruiter has set this interview up for you, ask them about the experience placing prior candidates with this organization.  Find out how prior interviews have gone, and what you should expect.  Be sure that you’ve taken time to fully review the hiring firm’s web site and understand at least their structure, what they do, and some recent news about them.  Use this information both to generate better questions to ask, and to tailor your answers to questions so that they not only reflect your personal truth, but also jibe with the company’s culture and direction.

2)     Get Your Facts Straight!  The purpose of many phone interviews is really a brief technical screen.  The interviewer wants to spend 10-15 with a handful of candidates to quickly determine if they have the appropriate technical expertise, or hard skills, to do the job.  In other words, they want to see if you really know all the things you say you do in your resume.  Then if you pass muster, they’ll bring you in to assess fit for the environment, soft skills, level of interest, etc… By technical skills, I don’t necessarily mean technology, but the hard facts and processes needed to be successful in any job.  For an accountant, these might be finance/tax/regulatory questions, for a computer programmer, these would be questions on how you create a certain type of code or application, and for a sommelier, they’d be questions focused on various wine terroir and vintage. Be sure that you fully understand the direct competencies and hard skills needed for the role and if you have any weaknesses in these areas, study up prior to the interview.  Don’t be afraid to use notes either. You’re invisible to the interviewer, so allow that to work to your advantage. I’m not suggesting you totally fake it!  If you don’t have the basic skills to do a job successfully, getting through a phone screen will not help you.  It will just draw out the inevitable result of you being weeded out, and waste both your time and the employer’s time.

3)     Get Those Ducks Lined Up! The worst thing an interviewer can hear is “NO, I don’t have any questions”.  This makes you sound uninterested in the opportunity, or (worse yet), not analytical enough to dig into any of the covered topics.  By all means, have some questions prepared! Don’t ask about benefits, pay, flex time or related topics at this stage of the game.  Keep your inquiries professionally-focused and ask about their expectations, vision, past successes or failures in filling this role, culture, or tools/methodologies/processes used in the role. The best questions are “high octane” – they get you information and cast you in a more intelligent light with the hiring manager.   

4)     Lock and Load!  If you decide you want a “second date” with this employer, don’t be shy! When the interview is over, tell them you’ve genuinely enjoyed speaking with them and getting to know more about the organization and the role.  Share how you feel you are a good match for their need and how you could make an impact.  Ask them what the next step would be and whether they have any hesitations moving forward. This gives them the opportunity to share their concerns with you so that you can overcome their potential objection.  Conversely, if you don’t think it sounds like a match, let them know this (nicely) as well.  If it makes sense, inquire about other more appropriate roles for which you would be better suited.  Thank them for their time and be sure that you’re helping to drive the next step that you want to achieve.  

Now, get to work and tackle the 21^st century job market, fully armed with all the skills you need to thrive.  Don’t forget to let your personality shine and just be the best version of yourself.  In other words, even on a phone interview, don’t be a phony. Best wishes and happy hunting!

         

How Not to Blow a Phone Interview...Part One!

This article first published as How Not to Blow a Phone Interview...Part One on Technorati.

 I'll confess to a love/hate relationship with phone screens.  As a recruiter, I want to push the interview process along quickly and get to an offer stage (or not) quickly.  I typically try to put people together face to face as soon as there’s mutual interest.  As a candidate, I enjoy connecting with new people and believe that comes across when I meet them, so I’m more compelling in person. Experts say nearly 90% of human communication is nonverbal, so the phone isn’t the best showcase for your charisma, confidence and body language to shine.  It’s tougher as a candidate to read the cues from the interviewer over the phone than in a face-to-face meeting, so making adjustments along the way is trickier.  Also, odds are good that someone will be on a cell phone.  This can be fraught with issues including dropped calls, bad signal strength, poor network quality (which makes you sound as if you’re slurring, or even drunk!), background noise, or the dreaded delay.   On the other hand, as a busy candidate, I’ve found that a phone interview is a great use of my time and an easy way to determine quickly if an opportunity is right for me.  As a recruiter, I encourage a hiring manager to conduct a phone interview if they’re on the fence about someone, to get a quick gauge of their suitability for the role.

However, phone interviews are here to stay.  Companies have distributed work teams.  Telecommuting is growing so team members may not even be on site to conduct an interview.  Also, it can be a good use of both the candidate’s and the employer’s time.  There’s no need to fight traffic, park and spend an hour getting your hair perfect, and the hiring manager doesn’t have to clean up their office!  For out-of-towner’s, both parties benefit from a quick conversation to ensure there’s a baseline fit, before investing in travel time and expenses. So, how can you, the candidate, turn the phone interview into a clear advantage for yourself?  How can you minimize the inherent problems associated with this forum and stand out?  Here are a few things that can make a BIG difference and ensure you don’t blow it! I’ll share several tips, broken into 3 posts so you can quickly read and digest each one without getting overwhelmed.

1)     Be a Landlubber!  Mobile devices are awesome, but unpredictable. It’s totally old school, but if you have a landline, it’s just better. Disable call waiting.  If you must use a cell, be sure you pick a quiet place to conduct the call and check your signal strength, so there will be no surprises.  Stay away from using a Bluetooth, as that can compromise call quality too.

2)      No Pajamas!  Comfort is good. I’m not suggesting that you put on your best suit for a phone interview, but if you’re overly casual in your posture, attire, or environment, your voice will reflect it.  Sit up straight at a desk or table with your feet on the floor, and have on business casual/work clothes.  You’ll feel professional and it will come through in your voice.  You can even stand up and walk around the room a bit and use hand gestures, if you typically would in live conversation.  You’ll sound more animated and probably more interested. If you’re a natural skeptic (like me!), try this experiment.  Put on comfy pants, lay down on the couch with your feet up, and record yourself on your cell answering this question, “where do you see yourself in 5 years?”  Now, wear standard business attire and sit up at a table or desk with your feet in front of you.  Record yourself again answering the same question.  Finally, stand up, stretch, shake your arms and legs out a bit, have some water and record the same thing again.  Listen to all three recordings back to back.  Which one gives the listener the best version of you?

3)      Power Down! Turn off your computer, radio, TV, etc…and unless you’re on your cell phone, turn that off too.  You don’t need any distractions.  You want to focus on the call and nothing else.  This is not the time for your potential boss to hear your new ringtone chiming in as background noise.  Don’t IM, check email, tweet, or read texts – it can wait.  The phone interview typically won’t last long, and you should afford the interviewer the same courtesies you would in a face-to-face meeting.  

Stay tuned for my next post with tips 4-6.Also, if you’d like some more tips from the hiring manager’s perspective, check here: http://www.job-search-steps.com/phone-interview.html. Most importantly, let your personality shine and just be the best version of yourself. That’s always my #1 tip!