How to nail that Interview!

I remember my first serious training session on How to Interview and Select Candidates. It was three days of gruelling classes, reading, preparing, dissecting resumes, selecting questions and looking for key competencies and capabilities that would meet our candidate criteria. Basically, I felt like I was being trained to catch a candidate in a lie.

Now of course I was let’s say a little nervous, because on graduating day,  we were all going to be video taped as an interviewer and that video was going to be used as a coaching tool to help us improve our skills. Well it did more than that, it turned me into a ruthless digger for real data that verified this candidate was for real.

In this article you will learn two sides of the interviewing equation the first how you should get ready and the second how the interviewer is preparing for you.

The Candidate

Preparation is the key to everything! Let’s start with what you should be ready for.

First, know every fact on your resume and it had better be factual because the moment you walk into that room the entire conversation is about those 2-3 sheets of paper in the hands of the interviewer.  Second, when you are asked to tell the interviewer about yourself don’t be like a lot of people and restate your work history.

Conduct a thorough analysis of the company, their culture, their successes, their brands, services and if you can their leadership style. Take the time and equate all those values to your values and work history. How do they match up? What is the story you can tell?

Once you have done this at home, begin answering the question about who you are with aspects of how your values are tied back to the company. For example, “Well, I was drawn to your company by your strong commitment to customer service, as you will note from my past work history………… Learn to draw the interviewer to you don’t be lead by the interviewer.

Next know the position you are applying for what are the key strengths you bring to the role and consider what could be perceived as weaknesses. With respect to the latter, define the work under that discipline and how you turned opportunity into a winning scenario for your company and yourself. By the way, abstain from saying ‘I” and use ‘we’ as much as possible, interviewers are looking for team players and self-starters not egomaniacs.  

Finally dress code, you hear these days that you should dress for the culture of the company. Well that maybe so, however unless the head hunter tells you to dress down or up be dressed for a killer interview.

  The Interviewer

While I am not a human resource specialist or an executive recruiter my middle and executive management positions have placed a lot of great and some not so great candidates in front of me.

Here are the secrets an interviewer should be using during an interview. Of course I am presuming that all the precursory resume checking has been done.

A typical question should start with “Can you give me an example of when you……?

Here is what this pattern of questioning is asking you to define for the interviewer.

1. Situation: What great example can you come up with that illustrates the skill I am looking for in the right candidate? Here you must clearly define the situation you were in how did it come about. What were the circumstances when you entered the picture? Were you invited or did you offer to help? Did you have the leadership role a support role?
   
   
2. Objective: What was it that you were being asked to achieve by way of objective? What were the conditions of the problem or opportunity? Simply help the interviewer begin to understand the scope of work you were being asked to deal with.
   
   
3. Actions: Based on the above what were the three to four key action steps uncovered that allowed you and possibly the team to address the problem? How did you determine the necessary actions steps needed to address the problem? Who was involved? How did you finalize the steps within the team? Was their testing required? What was the timing, and success criteria for the test? Your response is all about your attention to details and your ability to assess the situation with the right activities.
   
   
4. Outcome: Finally, what was the result? Give quantifiable data and situations that backs’ up your cognitive thinking and ability to deal with business decisions.

One final item, it’s a word that is overused and seldom clearly defined by candidates as a personal strength ‘Leadership’. Each and every organization today is rebuilding their bench because they know that the current market has a great deal of talent looking for work or an opportunity to improve their career path. Demonstrating two aspects of your leadership skills, 'flexibility' and 'willingness to learn' keep you in the running.

Good Luck!