Nail the Interview…

How do you become a great interviewer?  In my own personal opinion, which is based on experience interviewing and being interviewed, is that the biggest factor that sways how an interviewer rates an interviewee is “personal connection”.  The interview is basically a 2-way conversation that takes place between human beings, and key characteristics that interviewers get swayed on are charisma, good communication skills, articulate, thoughtful, genuine, humourous, politeness and confidence (not arrogant).  The important thing to understand and learn is that you can optimally demonstrate these characteristics by being organized and ready.  People typically are better communicators about things they know well and are comfortable talking about.  Why do people who get caught flat-footed tend to stammer, speak quickly, sweat, get red in the face or raise the volume of their voice?  It’s because they’re not ready or organized to talk about whatever they have been asked to talk about.  For a job interview, focus on the following activities to help you be ready and organized:

1. Understand the main job duties as per the job posting or job description if one exists — many of the questions asked of you will relate to the job posting, and in fact, public sector organizations are required to ensure their questions relate to the posting, as it ensures fairness and equity.  If you are unsure of certain aspects of the job posting/description, write down questions to ask the interviewers.
2. Know your resume inside-out (of course have a copy with you), and this is referring to things such as your key strengths, areas of opportunity (a.k.a. weaknesses), major achievements, projects you have worked on, volunteerism and how your work has translated into leadership.  Regardless of the question being asked of you, I highly recommend you talk about your work experience wherever possible so that the interviewer can make the connection to how you have done something in the past that will help them in the future.
3. Read through the organization’s website — specifically business plan/strategy, vision and values, latest news, key products and/or services offered, history of the organization — write down any questions that you may have (I like to focus questions on something related to the latest news affecting the organization like a recent merger and how it may affect the organization, recent launch of a new product offering, new partnership agreement with another organization, etc…).
4. Read the news and look for specific events that relate to the organization you will be interviewing with.  A personal example was when I interviewed with CIBC and they were in the process or replacing their CEO.  The outgoing CEO was a long-time CIBC employee who rose through the ranks and the incoming CEO was a younger, more cost-focused business person who more than likely was going to make some significant changes to the organization.  I simply asked how this huge change at the “top of the house” was going to affect the organization, the work unit I would be working for and my specific job duties.
5. Know the names and titles of the people you will be meeting with.  It’s important to try and find as much information as you possibly can about the interview panel.  Use Google, social networking sites like LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, Facebook and so forth.
6. Practice, practice and practice some more – practice interviewing with someone you know who can provide objective and bias-free support.  Practice responding to a variety of interview questions that challenge you.  Note: please do not practice “canned answers”… giving canned answers regardless of how good they are will do more harm than good.  Responses should be genuine and authentic.
7. Have questions ready that you want to ask.  These questions should relate to things such as organizational culture (what is it like working for this organization – ask the interviewers for their individual experiences), leadership style – are the leaders “micro-managers”, “hands-off”, strong or weak leaders, etc…, major sectoral or organizational changes – these changes could be mergers, major public policy changes such as healthcare reforms and any other major change that has huge organizational impact (the focus of this question should be on how the organization is going to be affected in the future) and so forth.  The idea of these questions is to demonstrate your focus, preparedness and organization, but also to determine if you want to work for this organization or not.

We all know that how you present yourself is critical in order to portray that perception of confidence and competence.  Here are other tips for you to think about:

1. Make eye contact with all of the interviewees, not just one.  Maintaining eye contact exudes confidence and preparedness where not making eye contact portrays the opposite.
2. Do not be afraid to ask the interviewer to repeat the question or ask for clarification.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this…. many people don’t do this because they think it means you’re not listening or what-have-you.  Would you rather give a bad answer by not asking for clarification?  Paraphrasing sporadically and where needed shows you are listening and paying attention, and are genuinely interested and engaged in the conversation….. all very good things!
3. Use a little bit of humour – interviews are stressful situations so try and figure out who the personable interviewers are and try and build a rapport through humour.  Humour is amazing at quickly reducing tension and highly formal conversation.  Remember, use light humour and nothing that may offend someone.  Use your judgment!
4. Dress appropriately – I am a bit different when it comes to dress.  I believe that you need to look smart and put together, but based on the sector you work in.  If you work in a creative marketing agency then a formal suit and tie may not be appropriate.  If you’re a lawyer and you’re interviewing with one of the top firms in the city then nothing less than a suit and tie would be acceptable.  Whatever the case may be, just ensure that you are clean, wearing clothes without any “print” (i.e. slogans) and you are well put together.  Again, use your judgment!
5. Answer the questions being asked of you in a concise manner – there is probably nothing more annoying than job candidates that do not answer the questions being asked of them!  Listen carefully to the question being asked of you, and take your time in thinking about the answer you want to give.  First impression is your only impression in this situation!
6. Use good etiquette – shake hands when you walk in and walk out of the room with everyone, thank the panel for their time, sit properly in the chair (no slouching leaning, etc…).

Finally, this may sound like something that is “easier said than done” but have some fun.  You may be working with these people down the road so you want to see how they are in conversation.  Quite often those that are interviewing are also nervous as well.  I was when I met a new job candidate!  People are people, and we’re all human beings so keep that in mind!  The bottom line is if you can interview well by being organized and exuding confidence and competence, you will significantly improve your chances of landing a job!

The Interview…. sigh!!

The “interview” is the most widely used mechanism to assess and evaluate job candidates for prospective employment.  I think it is safe to say that the goal of doing some kind of evaluation process is to find the best candidate who has the desired technical qualifications (i.e. education + experience), best “fits” the values and objectives of the organization and will be a top performer.  Does using the traditional interview provide a valid method to meet the above mentioned goal?  ABSOLUTELY NOT!!  How can a closed-door meeting that normally takes place inside of 4 walls, sometimes without windows, natural light or fresh air, with a panel of interviewers either staring down without any facial expressions at you or madly scribbling notes in their notebooks be an accurate way of determining whether or not the candidate is the best candidate for the job?  Do employees spend their time at work in similar situations in front of panels responding to typically mundane questions that have nothing to do with organizational results?  I don’t think so!  Isn’t the idea to pare down prospective candidates to the one candidate that will be the best performer on-the-job?  Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe that the intent of the traditional interview is to do just that but it has been proven time and time again through research that the interview is an extremely poor way of predicting on-the-job performance and success.  So, why do the majority of organizations today still use the traditional interview as the primary means to evaluate candidates?  The answer… it’s easy to administer and interviewers naturally feel most comfortable seeing the candidate face-to-face.  There is an intangible “thing” that people like when they get to meet a person face-to-face, a feeling of comfort.  Facial expressions, a “connection”, candidness and so forth are all things that people feel comfortable with and somehow link to a successful interview.  In fact, many organizations have policies that require a face-to-face interview to take place before a formal offer is even made to the successful candidate.

Okay, so the traditional interview is still widely used, and in my opinion will continue to be widely used, at least in my lifetime!  There are a significant number of organizations today that are developing and integrating more creative and meaningful evaluation methods to find suitable job candidates such as personality assessments (see www.clearfit.com), employee referral programs, on-the-job trials, case studies and so forth.  But for the majority, the traditional interview is the ONLY method used.  As a job seeker, instead of trying to change the world, let’s just deal with this fact and do what we can to “play the game”.  People typically don’t interview well, and in fact, many people who are not great interviewers would be excellent performers on the job.  So, I guess the moral of the story here is to do everything you possibly can to be a great interviewer so that you can succeed in the interview process….. simple as that!

Career Management = Personal Branding

I did a presentation a couple of weeks ago to the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (CHHA), Hamilton branch.  I talked about leveraging disability to enhance your career…….. or, you could say that the key points were related to how to optimally promote yourself to succeed in your career whether you’re looking to make a career change, find a new job or grow in your current job.  Thinking back over my almost 10-year career, I have done a lot of work advising people on their careers, from resume-writing, networking, interviewing, career transition, career pathing and so forth.  As I worked to put this presentation together for this wonderful group of people, I realized that it did not really matter what the extent of someone’s ability or disability was.  I say this because regardless of what you do for work, you still have to do the same things in order to succeed in managing your careers….. you still have to have a killer resume and solid skills in networking, interviewing and negotiation.  So, as I realized this, I asked myself this question… “what on earth can I possibly talk about that these intelligent people do not already know?”  It dawned on me that successful people all have a “something” that people naturally gravitate towards.  This “something” is a strong “personal brand”!  A strong personal brand exists when people (can be anyone under the sun) perceive you to be original, highly competent, successful, leading-edge, different, invaluable and so forth.  Everything you do in your life needs to support your personal brand because the idea is to tell everyone why you are so special and highly regarded.  Personal branding is a way of telling people who you are, what you believe in, where you have been, what you want to do and how you differentiate from the rest.

The quest to create a personal brand for yourself is always a work-in-progress and changes depending on your individual situations.  How you go about doing this is probably more important than actually getting to the end of the road where you can say you have achieved your desired personal brand —- guess what, I’m not convinced that you can achieve a perfect brand of YOU because people’s perceptions of you are constantly changing, and along with the rest of the world that is constantly in a state of change and flux, so is your personal brand.

The final point I would like to make is about the media in which you use to promote and communicate your personal brand.  The web is global, easy to use and access and regarded as a “must do” in the business world today.  You do not need to be an IT expert to create your own blog —- I am living proof of that….. all it takes is a little bit of time, patience and “playing around” to make yourself known to the world.  In addition to a blog, I suggest you take a look at social media with the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on.  I consider social media just another channel so to speak to promote your personal brand.  Think of it as selling a product or service… how you go about selling this product should not be restricted to one channel.  What I mean by this is, say you are selling cars… the traditional way of selling a car is to wait for customers to drive to your dealer and speak directly to a sales-person.  The sales-person tries to learn of the needs of the customer and then presents the options of vehicles that the customer may be interested in.  This tactic or method of selling cars is a channel.  The more channels you have the more diversified your approach is and the larger your “reach” (i.e. publicity to different groups).

Personal branding is an interesting idea, and is absolutely a fundamental part of managing your career.  If you can master the art of developing your personal brand, managing your personal brand and leveraging your personal brand to support your career growth, you will be wildly successful in everything you do….. simple as that!

First Post…

Well, this is the inaugural post of this blog… the objective of this blog is to create a community that openly and honestly shares information about career management practices and experiences that have worked.  Managing your career could include many things including networking, resume-writing, interviewing, negotiation (re: job offers, salary/wage, job title, benefits, etc…), social media and personal branding.  The web is an unbelievable source of fantastic, and errrr….. not so fantastic information but the fantastic will be openly shared with everyone.

I hope you will find this blog resourceful and helpful in supporting you manage your respective careers.  Remember, what you contribute and put in is just as valuable as what you get out of it.  The expectation is open, honest and reciprocal sharing of what has and has not worked for you.