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Seven Keys to Interview Preparation
Presented by The David Anthony Group
By Bill Radin
©1998 Innovative Consulting, Inc.
Career Development Reports
It’s been said that Napoleon won his battles
in his tent; that is, he did all the planning the night before the battle
was joined, so that every contingency could be adequately covered.
Interview preparation is similar. You never know exactly what will happen
on the battlefield, but by being ready, you can eliminate a lot of the
uncertainty, and know how to react to different scenarios.
Later, we’ll look at ways to
effectively conduct the interview itself; but for now, let’s focus on the
list, each item at a time.
One: The Resume
Of course, bring a couple of
copies, and be sure to read your resume before the interview, so you’re
completely familiar with everything you’ve written. Nothing is more
embarrassing (or potentially fatal to your candidacy) than being quizzed
on some aspect of your background that appears on the bottom of page two
-- and not being able to remember the details.
You might also bring
materials which would be particularly good at illustrating an important
aspect of your work, such as creative designs, writing samples, and so
forth. Just remember to use your better judgment.
I once interviewed an
engineer who brought with him a lawn and garden string trimmer made by his
current company, so he could show me the design improvements he’d made on
the product. It turns out his engineering efforts had lowered the
trimmer’s cost to manufacture, which resulted in increased profits for his
company. His version of “show and tell” was a bit extreme (my whole office
was buzzing for weeks about my Weed Eater candidate), but at least his
real-life picture told me a thousand words.
Be careful, though, not to
overdo it with the props. College diplomas, letters of commendation, and
company bowling trophies should be left at home. When in doubt, just bring
your resume and your business card -- they’re the most important props
you’ll ever need.
It’s a good idea to carry a
leather folder or day runner with you so you can take notes or store
written materials the company might hand you during the course of your
interview. A briefcase is also fine, although I prefer a folder, which is
lighter to carry, and less cumbersome. Always remember to bring a pen or
pencil.
Two: Appropriate Dress and Appearance
Much as I find some aspects
of the New Dress for Success (Warner Books, 1988) formula as
espoused by author and wardrobe consultant John T. Molloy a bit
disheartening, there’s simply no practical excuse for dressing any way
other than the book suggests. Sure, we’d all like to think that we’re
being judged on our qualifications, skills, and depth of character. But
the truth is, when it comes to interviewing, in most cases, clothes make
the man. To think any other way is to ignore reality.
Three: Directions To the Interview
Location
Try to get directions at
least a day before your interview, so you don’t get lost and arrive late.
And here’s a tip: Always bring some cash to pay for parking. Never ask an
employer to validate your parking stub, or reimburse you for parking. Not
only is it impolite, you’ll create a negative impression, since it’s
considered common courtesy to pay your own expenses for a local interview.
If you’re coming from out of
town, then it’s especially important to get directions. Naturally, if the
expenses for your interviewing trip are going to be covered by the
employer, wait until the interview has concluded (or better yet, the next
day) to settle up. Usually, the company will prepay the air fare, or other
major expenses, and will reimburse you for the rest, such as your car
rental, cab fare, hotel room, and meals. It’s customary that you pick up
certain non-essential expenses, such as long distance phone calls from
your hotel room, or the bar tab from the lounge in the hotel lobby.
A few years ago, a client
company of mine flew a candidate to Los Angeles for an interview. The
candidate, unfortunately, was unemployed at the time, and was in pretty
dire financial straits. He charged the phone calls he made to his wife
back in Wyoming and all his dry cleaning expenses (he only brought one
shirt with him for two days of interviewing) to the company. When they got
his expense voucher a few days later, they got pretty upset -- they never
expected to pay for all these add-ons. It was too bad, too, because he was
generally well received when he interviewed. I’d hate to think it was
these little charges that were responsible for his not getting a job he
really wanted.
The best time to arrive for
an interview is precisely when you’re scheduled, not early or late. It can
irk an employer to be told that the candidate for a 2 o’clock appointment
is waiting in the lobby at one thirty-five. The employer will either
become distracted knowing there’s someone hanging around waiting to see
him, or he’ll scramble to rearrange his schedule to accommodate the
candidate, which disrupts the rest of his day. If your appointment is at
two, then arrive at two.
If for some reason you’re
running late, call ahead to ask if you can reschedule for later the same
day, or if not, later in the week. If something unexpected happens that
you have no control over, simply explain the situation to the employer
when you arrive.
I placed a candidate named
Alan recently, who was over an hour late to his first interview. He’d been
caught in a monstrous traffic jam and was unable to call ahead; but
fortunately, he handled the situation like a real pro. When he arrived, he
apologized for being late, and got right down to the business of
interviewing. He simply put all the anxiety and frustration behind him, so
that he could concentrate on the reason he was there, not the reason he
was late.
If you’re ever caught in a
situation like Alan was, stay cool, take a deep breath, and remove
whatever misfortune befell you from your mind.
Four: Name and Title of the
Interviewer(s)
When you arrange the
interview, find out who you’ll be talking to, and what their function is
within the company. Will you be speaking with the hiring manager? The
manager from another department? The personnel director? The internal
recruiter? A peer level employee or subordinate? A staff industrial
psychologist?
You might already know the
person. If that’s the case, you’re ahead of the game. If not, send out
feelers among your own contacts within your industry, or look in your
industry’s trade publications to see if the person you’re going to be
meeting is distinguished in any way.
It’s also helpful to find
out whether you and the person you’ll be meeting have any commonalities or
interconnecting points of interest, in the way of origins (“Hey, you’re
also from Wisconsin?”), schools (“My brother went to Duke, too. How did
you like it?”), professional achievements (“My article appeared in Ad Week
a month after yours did.”), or personal interests (“I heard you were the
Nebraska state ping pong champion. We’ll have to get together sometime for
a match.”). These tidbits can break the ice when an interview begins, and
create a bond with the interviewer.
Five: Understanding the Company’s
Hiring Procedure
To correctly gauge the
sequence of events surrounding or following your first interview, ask
these questions:
• Can you describe to me, step by
step, the hiring procedure for this position?
This is important to ask,
because you want to find out if (and when) the company needs to schedule a
second or third level interview. Some companies will make hiring decisions
on the spot; others will take months of meetings and endless signatures to
process a simple request for a second interview.
• Will I be asked to take any tests?
And if so, what are they,
and how long will they take to administer? Proctor & Gamble, for many of
its professional positions, requires candidates to take a one-hour math
and abstract reasoning test. Some companies require a full day of
psychological, aptitude, technical skill, and intelligence testing. With
most companies, failure to pass the tests means automatic elimination from
consideration.
Most drug tests are simply
referred to as “physicals,” and may take several days to schedule and
process. Often, you’ll have to use your own doctor or clinic.
• How long will it take before you
reach a decision?
This will help you measure
your progress through the hiring process, and could spare you from getting
the jitters if you don’t hear something immediately.
I once got bent out of shape
because a new client company was taking a long time to make a decision
whether to bring back one of my candidates for a second interview. Later,
I found in my original notes that the company was right on schedule;
they’d told me up front that it would take them several weeks to reach a
decision. As it turns out, I had no reason to complain.
• Do you currently have any finalists?
This question lets you know
if you’ve entered the race late, and your interview with the company is
only a formality. In a situation like this, isn’t it best to know where
you stand?
• Who will be making the hiring
decision?
Find out if the decision
will be made by a committee. If it is, must the committee come to a
unanimous agreement? Or, will the decision be based on the recommendation
of a single person?
The more information you can
dig up about the hiring procedure, the better you’ll be able to give a
more confident, thoughtful interview. What’s more, arriving at an
interview armed with a bastion of facts will help you shield yourself from
the fear that occurs as a result of feeling out of control.
Six: Background Information On the
Company
While the amount of
background information you can gather about a company is practically
endless, it would be ludicrous to try to become a walking encyclopedia of
corporate trivia. However, knowing something in each of these categories
should significantly improve your odds of getting hired:
• The company’s personnel -- who the
major players are, who was recently hired or let go. It’s also a good idea
to know something of the history of the company, and who the founders
were. For example, if you were interviewing for IBM, it might be
considered a faux pas to look puzzled and ask, “Who?” at mention of
the name Thomas Watson, Sr.
• The company’s basic structure --
what products or services they provide to which customers, what the
various divisions are, and whether they’re privately or publicly held.
• The company’s vital signs -- how the
company is doing financially. Are they solvent or struggling? Are they
involved in a hostile takeover, or merging with another company? How’s
their stock faring? You get the idea. Many of my candidates like to look
through Value Line before they interview, so they can talk intelligently
about the company’s financial picture.
• The company’s divisional or
departmental details -- the changes that are taking place that could
potentially affect the position you’re interviewing for. Is there a new
product introduction or marketing strategy in the works? Or how about an
overhaul in the company’s accounting methods, capital equipment, or
computer system?
By arriving for your
interview adequately briefed, you’ll make a strong impression on the
interviewer. Best of all, you can spend your interviewing time discussing
your background and the company’s needs, not the corporate biography, or
company financial report.
Seven: A Complete List of Questions
You Want to Ask.
During the course of an
interview, your dialogue with the other person will spawn a number of
questions spontaneously. However, there may be important issues to discuss
which will never come up unless you take the initiative. For that reason,
you should bring a list of questions with you that will address these
issues, so that you don’t leave the interview uninformed.
Premeditated questions can
be grouped into four different categories:
[1] Company questions deal with the
organization, direction, policies, stability, growth, market share, and
new products or services of the prospective company or department;
[2] Industry questions deal with the
health, growth, change, technological advancement, and personnel of the
industry as a whole;
[3] Position questions deal with the
scope, responsibilities, travel, compensation policies, and reporting
structure of the position you’re interviewing for; and
[4] Opportunity questions deal with
your own potential for growth or advancement within the company or its
divisions, and the likely timetable for promotion.
You may have specific
interests or concerns surrounding topics in each category. For example, if
you’re interviewing with a computer manufacturer, you may want to ask
about the future growth of the industry. Or, let’s say you’re interviewing
for a position with a company that’s known for its high rate of personnel
turnover. You might want to prepare a carefully worded question that deals
with that issue.
Leave Your Laundry List at Home
Naturally, you need to be
careful not to come on too strong by asking too many questions -- it may
turn the interviewer off. Presumably, if there’s mutual interest, you’ll
get all your questions answered at a subsequent interview. The general
rule of thumb is to limit the number of premeditated questions to about a
dozen or less. While it’s true that you’ll be interviewing the company as
much as they’ll be interviewing you, the last thing you want to do is turn
a dialogue into an inquisition, or come across as a walking encyclopedia
of corporate trivia.
You should also be aware
that there’s one specific taboo to first-level interviewing, in terms of
the questions you should ask. Never, ever bring up the issue of salary or
benefits. If the employer initiates a dialogue surrounding these issues,
and asks if you have any questions, fine.
But if it appears to the
employer that your primary motivation for changing jobs is the new
company’s compensation or benefit package, you’ll be out the door quicker
than a bolt of lightning. Employers get chills of fear and loathing when
they think you’re only on the job market to feather your nest at their
expense. They visualize your employment with them as a short term,
non-committal, career leveraging maneuver, and understandably, want to
avoid being victimized.
Early in my career as a
recruiter, I arranged an interview for a qualified candidate with a client
company. After the interview, I called Shelly, the employer, to debrief
her.
“Well, your candidate didn’t
do so well,” Shelly said.
“Really? I thought he had
the perfect background.”
“That wasn’t the problem. I
just didn’t like the way he handled the interview.”
“What happened?”
“I spent over an hour with
him, telling him everything about the company, and introducing him to all
the key people,” Shelly said. “I even gave him an extensive tour of the
manufacturing area.”
“And then?”
“And then, I brought him
back to my office, and we sat down to talk about what he’d seen. I asked
him if he had any questions.”
“And did he?”
“Yes. That’s when the
interview ended. He looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘What are
your benefits?’”
“And?”
“And I got up,” Shelly said,
“and walked him right out the door.”
Don’t misunderstand me. The
candidate’s actions in no way reflected on his abilities or his character;
his intentions were perfectly honorable. But after that incident (which
cost the candidate a job and me a placement fee), I learned to caution
interviewees not to initiate the subject of salary or benefits.
My suggestion is to take the
John F. Kennedy approach to interviewing: “Ask not what your company can
do for you, ask what you can do for your company.”
This way, you can present
yourself as a loyal, hard-working, virtuous, and dedicated candidate,
rather than as an opportunistic job-hopper who’d prefer to live off the
fat of the land.
While it’s unthinkable to
accept or even consider a job without first knowing the financial rewards
(or the details of the benefit package), there are better and more timely
ways to broach the subject, without endangering your candidacy.
Interview preparation is
perhaps the single most overlooked aspect of the job changing process. A
candidate who’s fired up and ready to go at the time of the interview has
a tremendous advantage over a candidate who’s not.
The more carefully you prepare for your
interview, the better your chances of getting hired. |
