Job Interview Requires Preparation, Knowledge
By Gary Kaplan© Wall Street Journal Sunday. Sunday, August 3, 2003.
Shortly after graduating from college, I realized one basic element was lacking in my education. There had been little preparation about the realities of looking for a job in the highly competitive corporate marketplace.
While in school one receives a lot of guidance, and is conditioned to rely on counseling and advice from some one at a superior level. However, when you graduate and enter the world of business, the scene quickly changes.
You're thrown into the actual practice, as opposed to the theoretical role-play you experienced in the classroom. Pretending you're head of a giant company, making multimillion-dollar decisions during a case study, seems easy enough. However, if you actually were in that position, the repercussions of your decisions could greatly affect the financial stability of the company and its employees.
Your first realization of this contrast comes when you begin your search for a job. Be prepared. Don't expect to find people you encounter during the employment process to be kind and benevolent. One big mistake people often make is that they assume the interviewer is a friend. He or she isn't. In fact, that person's job for the most part is to screen you out, as opposed to screening you in.
The interviewer wants to find out what's wrong with you. There's no correlation between the counseling you received in college and the job interview. The interview process is similar in technique; but not in its purpose and results.
Looking for a job has all the earmarks of a marketing and sales campaign. The marketing end involves planning and research, while the resume is the sales promotion tool, and the sell itself is the interview. It's all up to you, since no one can sell you better than yourself.
But, what can you do to prepare yourself in advance of the job hunt? By any means, finish school, and afterward try to get a job with a recognized company, where you can acquire additional training. A number of firms even have educational assistance programs that allow you to continue school and reimburse you for tuition and books, providing you make adequate grades, and your studies are work-related.
If your career plans include senior level management responsibilities, you'll need more than a technical education. I recommend a strong liberal arts background coupled with a master's degree in business administration, because as you move out of programming or engineering, the route to the top is on the business side.
When embarking on a job hunt, keep in mind the following suggestions and guidelines.
Your resume
The idea behind your resume is to pre-sell yourself and get your foot in the door. Your resume should be readable, action-oriented, interesting, informative and brief. If possible, keep it to one page and two at the most, because the longer it is, the less chance it has of being read. Never include a photo, information about your health or references. A prospective employer will ask for references at the appropriate time.
List examples of responsibilities and accomplishments using action words phrases, but stay away, from over-used words like aggressive, assisted, helped and participated in. This information should not be in narrative form, but be highlighted by bullets.
A typed resume, reproduced by an offset printer on white off-white, or beige 8 1/2-by-11-inch bond paper is fine. Don't use gimmicks like loud colors, fancy type or an unusual paper size.
Begin with your name, address and home phone number. Only use a work number in a cover letter and state that it is to be used in a discreet manner. Typically your business experience should come next.
However, if you're fresh out of school, you may wish to use part-time jobs held during the school. This information should begin with our most recent position.
The name of the company, duration of employment, and your position begin at the left side of the page. Next, list your accomplishments and responsibilities with bullet lead-ins. Do this for each position.
Your education follows, with the degree listed first, then the college, year-end class standing, if it is impressive. Any graduate work or classes are next, followed by military service if you think it enhances the resume. Then community activities and professional affiliations may follow to complete the resume.
Preparation and research
The job hunter, like the interviewer, must glean as much information as possible about the position and the organization before and during the interview. Not only does advance preparation help improve your chances, it also reduces nervousness and the fear of being caught off-guard during the interview.
Research and learn as much as possible about the company from collateral literature, directories, trade associations and journals. This also applies to the position for which you are interviewing, and includes its relationship to other key positions in the firm, previous incumbents' history, problems in the job, and future advancement possibilities. Find out about the backgrounds, personalities and management styles of the company's executives.
Practice how you might answer specific questions about your capabilities, assets and liabilities. This encompasses those non-factual questions that are generally tougher to answer on the spur of the moment: what are your strengths and weaknesses, what happened on your last job, why are you looking, what kind of a people-person are you, why should we hire you, and what are your career goals?
Another important aspect of any marketing and sales campaign is how the product is packaged. For the job seeker, it's how he or she is dressed, especially since a judgment call is very often made the minute the interviewer greets the candidate. First impressions do count:
The interview
Don't be late. Allow time for traffic jams, giving yourself an extra 30 minutes. If you arrive early, have a cup of coffee or go for a walk. Never appear more than 15 minutes early for an interview, which begins the moment you walk in the door.
Keep your composure. Even the receptionist may be asked for an opinion. Everyone you come in contact with should be greeted cordially. However, there's a fine line between becoming too friendly and treating them as inconsequential. They may be asked to offer their impressions of you.
When you meet the interviewer, it's customary to offer a quick, firm handshake, coupled with a simple, warm greeting. After being seated you can expect a few minutes of social chitchat before the formal interview begins.
There are two basic kinds of interviews: the preliminary or screening interview, and the line interview. The first type is usually done by a representative from human resources, whose responsibility is to screen out unqualified candidates. The line interview continues the conversation begun in the preliminary interview, and progresses to technical information and your track record and ability to fit into their company's environment.
During the interview, you should size up the interviewer, and be aware of several basic types. Even though they are supposed to suppress biases, many don't. The standardized interviewer typically asks the same questions, in the same order with no variation, and rarely asks for extension or amplification of your answers.
The chatty interviewer's exchanges of common experiences, such as hobbies, make up the entire interview. In this case, meaningful information is almost impossible to obtain. Third-degree stress interviewers are probably the worst. They attempt to antagonize job seekers under the premise of learning how they react to various situations. The reserved or cautious interviewer will sit back and ask, "What do you have to offer us?" or "Tell me why you think you're good." This type is usually not very objective.
During a good interview, 80 percent of the information should come from you and about 20 percent from the interviewer. Unfortunately this isn't always the case. If the reverse occurs, don't compete for time, but try to tactfully interject pertinent information.
Remember, the interviewer is not your friend, counselor, or psychiatrist. So, don't discuss your problems, or use the individual as a sounding board. He or she is trying to figure out why you should be screened out. Stick to the positives. Don't supply unnecessary, damaging information.
Other tips
Don't repeat yourself, tell dumb or dirty jokes, knock a previous employer, be too opinionated, lie or misrepresent yourself.
Do ask intelligent questions, ask for collateral material, convey a sincere sense of enthusiasm, and follow-up the interview with a thank you letter. Don't ask about compensation and benefits in the preliminary interview. Your final round of interviews or the pre-offer stage is the appropriate time to discuss money. If you're really on an aggressive job-hunting campaign it's wise to keep records, covering contact names, dates, what occurred, and follow-up.
To summarize, more is required of the job hunter than just showing up for the interview, especially in today's competitive job market. Some advance preparation can give you the edge. Remember; you're entering the real world of business, and you may find it very different than what you expected.
