During the hiring process, an employer must choose among people who may be equally qualified on paper. Similarly, an applicant must also consider various career alternatives which may be more or less attractive. The interview, then, provides an opportunity for mutual disclosure and discovery between potential employer and employee.
The interview is given ceremonial seriousness by way of ritual elements such as résumé submission, relatively formal dress, and a business office setting. Though contrived, the interview's collaborative nature does allow both employer and applicant to assess the potential for a comfortable and effective relationship. Knowledge is shared, alternatives are eliminated, and mutual selection possibly occurs. Mutual confidence and ease of communication are often key factors in each party's decision.
Before getting to the actual selection interview, you may go through at least one round of screening interviews. They are most commonly used by large organizations, particularly openings advertised in publications, agencies, or schools.
Screening interviews focus on rational and factual matters, such as education level or number of years in management. A screener devises standard benchmarks and then applies them to all applicants. These criteria are often mistakenly thought to determine the outcome of the selection process, but they are mainly used to reduce decision makers' hiring workloads.
The screener's focus is on elimination, not selection. Your aim, then, must be limited to gathering information for your own use and avoiding elimination. Score as many points in your favor as possible, but do not take great risks in doing so. The goal is survival and the chance to move on to the selection stage.
At the selection interview, you are dealing with key decision makers. It is time to go for it all. Take whatever risk needed to emphasize your strengths and what you can do for the company. You are one of several people who could carry out all or most of the formal job functions. The ways in which you could perform such functions becomes the important issue. Your style - your way of being and doing - can differentiate you from other applicants. Your presence, expressions, reactions, attitudes, and how they fit the organizational culture become major factors. If highlighting the unique aspects of your qualifications brings out a weakness or two, communicate them as positively as you can. Remember, employers are mainly concerned about how your strengths meet their needs.
The final hiring selection depends largely on decision makers' intuition, emotions, and simple overall comfort. Interpersonal chemistry is critical. What you know and accept about yourself is probably the single most important factor in gaining rapport, building trust, and communicating effectively. Awareness of your abilities, hopes, fears, and goals, as well as knowing what to do about them make communication easier. The more you understand and communicate your met and unmet needs, current satisfaction and stresses, and future expectations and concerns, the better your presentation to potential employers will be.
Avoid becoming a supplicant, humbly placing yourself at the mercy of the employer who may give you a job. You are an applicant and have been asked to the interview because your unique mix of personality, training, experience, and abilities can potentially contribute to the interviewer's organization. You come to the interview with your own questions to be answered, standards to be met, and requirements to be fulfilled. You meet with a potential employer to explore and negotiate terms for forwarding each other's aims.
Prepare yourself. Think carefully about the key points that you want to make and be creative in finding ways to make them. Be sure that your questions about responsibilities, training, advancement, and compensation all get adequate answers.
Get help from friends, associates, or family members who are familiar with your communication style, know at least some of your work strengths and weaknesses, and can give objective feedback. Work with others to review and elaborate your best talking points.
Find ways to see the interview from the employer's point of view. Many people can draw on their own experience as the person doing the hiring. Others may better understand what it is like on the other side of the desk by role-playing, talking to people who have been there, or just using a little imagination. The more effective you are at meeting the employer's needs, the more likely they are to meet yours.
Review the skills, achievements, and experience that your well prepared résumé puts forth. Match them against the description of your targeted position. Think about how each skill is supported by concrete accomplishments. By knowing yourself well, you can direct the employer's attention toward your strengths and even to the positives in your weaknesses.
Briefly consider your answers to one of the numerous lists of "Most Asked Interview Questions." Take care not to over-rehearse, since you may lose flexibility and become less able to respond to the unexpected.
Plan to create an opening for follow-up if you are still interested in the position.
Some people successfully use video equipment to record, review, and critique role-playing sessions. Some have had positive results by simply leaving the camera on as they went about their daily routine. By reviewing the results, they became more familiar with their style of moving, sitting, and general body language. Again, others can help you see what is there rather than what you expect.
When possible, find reasons to visit the interview site to observe factors that might affect your interviewing strategy and maybe even your ultimate decision to accept an offer. Observe things as specific as informal dress codes, or as general as manifestations of corporate culture.
Review your prospect list to be reminded that the situation for which you are currently interviewing is only one of a number of possibilities. The worst outcome of any interview can only be the elimination of one possibility while gaining a learning experience.
Go to the interview with the questions you need to ask clearly in mind. If you are concerned about remembering your questions and talking points, take a small notepad with you. Place it where you can make quick reference without creating a distraction.
Don't attempt to make major changes just for the interview. Don't turn it into a performance unless it is for an acting or modeling job. The employer is hiring you, not a performer.
Do no major preparation on the day of the interview.
Dress at least as formally as the majority of the people who work in a position comparable to the one for which you are applying. Err on the side of conservatism.
Arrive early to avoid problems such as difficulty in finding the business or unanticipated traffic or parking problems. Give yourself time to relax, collect your thoughts, and get into the here-and-now.
Once you are there, relax! Deep breathing, progressive relaxation, or positive imagery may be helpful. Picture yourself performing the daily details of the job and think about the changes and improvements you could make. Imagine how you will decorate your office, arrange your work area, and make improvements in the organization.
Be in the here-and-now. Simple awareness exercises may be helpful in clearing out negative or distracting thought. Observe what is happening in the room in which you are waiting -- pictures on the walls, the style of the furniture, and the appearance and manner of the people around you. Tune in to your own body awareness. Be aware of how you are sitting. Are you comfortable? Indulge in eavesdropping or pay attention to other characteristic sounds in the room. In this way, you will allow yourself to come into full contact with the present. Make yourself ready to react to whatever happens as you wait and carry this readiness forward to the interview itself.
As your relaxation may not be total, remind yourself that nervousness / excitement lets the employer know that you care about the job and the work it represents.
Regardless of the outcome, plan a celebration! Minimally you lived and learned, and at best you landed the job you want.
As in the case of other important activities, you stand to gain most by taking the time and energy for evaluation. Systematically review, analyze, and make careful note of your immediate impressions of an interview as soon as possible. This might help you decide whether to accept an offer if it is made. More immediately, the things you notice may help you plan your follow-up as well as prepare for future interviews. Though not exhaustive, the following list of issues provides a good starting point for evaluating an interview:
Do you feel you came away with a clear understanding of the organization and your potential role within it?
Did the people with whom you spoke and the way you were treated seem to reflect the philosophy of the organization that they described?
Did the information you were asked to provide have a logical relationship to the position for which you are applying?
Did you get useful information in response to the questions you asked?
Were you given or did you take the opportunity to cover the points that would help the interviewer accurately understand your qualifications and make a good hiring decision?
Did you and the interviewer establish good rapport?
Did the meeting move at a good pace so that both your and the interviewer's needs were met and neither of you were bored?
Did you and the interviewer succeed in not becoming overly anxious?
Did you move to a strong close and leave the door open for follow-up?
Were you both well prepared?
Did the interviewer create an environment in which you were relatively relaxed?
Did you do what you could to put the interviewer at ease?
The seldom heard and less often written words "Thank you" can have a tremendous impact. A brief follow-up and thank you note will probably cause you to be remembered well, even if you decide to no longer pursue the opportunity offered by the employer.
Of course, you care most about the impact a "Thank you" has in relation to a position that you really want. A brief follow-up confirms your interest in the position while relieving the employer's fear of rejection. At best, she might be tempted to bring the frustrating and time-consuming hiring process to an end by offering you the position. Minimally, it will remind her of your interest and underscore your thoroughness, professionalism, and awareness of others. A follow-up also creates an additional opportunity for persuasion. Because you will project yourself into your reader's thoughts once again, you create another chance to highlight the compatibility of your strengths with the organization's goals. You can confirm your understanding of the positive points discussed in the interview as well as expand and clarify the one or two that are most critical. This is also your last chance to bring up the myriad of points you may only have thought of five minutes after the interview.
You might strike a positive tone by writing as though the job is yours. You could touch on a couple of things you anticipate doing. Again, make it easy for the employer to review the many good reasons for hiring you, rather than investing time and energy in looking for someone else.