Job Interview Essentials

By John Heaney on October 20, 2009 at 7:47 am
Featured, Interviewing, The Search, Video

I’ve spoken with and met recruiters and staffing professionals all around the country to gauge from their perspective in the recruiting trenches, precisely what job seekers need the most help with.

Everywhere I went, everyone I spoke with, I heard the same thing: the single biggest challenge for job seekers is the job interview. Not in getting an interview, but in understanding how to perform during the interview.

The single biggest mistake job seekers make is their approach to the interview. Most job seekers view the interview from the wrong perspective. It’s not about what the job seeker wants. The interview is all about what the employer wants.

In every job interview, the employer is trying to determine three things:

1) are you able to do the job?

2) do you want to do the job?

3) do we want you around while you do the job?

a) how much will you cost to do the job?

Let’s start with the first question: are you able to do the job? It’s your job to arrive at the interview knowing exactly what the company is looking for in a new hire and how you will describe your skills and experience in terms that the employer wants to hear.

Are you organized? Inventive? Analytical? Precise? Creative?

Know precisely how you intend to describe yourself and have at least three examples that clearly relate these professional capabilities along with the business results.

It’s not enough to say that you have leadership skills. Every candidate is going to tell them that. But, relating an example of a recent job that required you to organize a software development project, coordinate activities between the marketing and development staffs, implement a detailed project plan, supervise the programming staff on a daily basis and deliver the final product on time for a company that had never previously met a software release date is impressive.

So, once you’ve convinced them that you have the skills and experience necessary, you encounter the second hurdle… do you want to do the job? Your attitude during the interview is crucial. You’ve got to respond to their questions with enthusiasm and convey your desire to work for their wonderful company.

Of course preparation for this questions also requires some advance work on your part. research the company. Not just from their website’s About page, but from mentions in the media, on blogs and in the user forums that deal with their products.

When they ask you why do you want to work here? You’ve got to have a ready answer. You want to work for the fastest growing handheld gaming company in the industry. You’re impressed with their latest version of Zombie Wars XII on the iPhone and you’d love to work their visionary CEO who you saw give the keynote address at last month’s  Gaming Expo.

So, you’re capable and enthusiastic, now it’s time to clear the final hurdle and deal with perhaps the most important question, that is do we want you around while you do your job?

Fitting in with their corporate culture is essential. Talent alone won’t make you a success with their company. You’ve got to fit with their culture and with their employees who embrace that culture.  Would you be a better fit at Apple or IBM? At Zappos or WalMart? If you’re a free spirit programmer who likes to wander into work at 11 in the morning then stay until midnight, you probably won’t fit into a regimented environment that demands that their staff arrive by 8am and stay until 6. You need to know how they work, and they need to know if you’ll fit.

And if the big 3 questions all work out, the last one, how much will you cost to perform this work for them simply becomes a matter of negotiation.