SUCCESSFUL INTERVIEWING

It starts simply enough. A warm greeting. A passing comment about the weather. A light-hearted remark about a local sports team. Your resume is on the desk between you and the employer. She glances down at it and then back up to you. Her brow has a more serious cast now, “Well,” she says, “why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?” Her gaze stays fixed. The interview has officially begun. It’s your turn.

“I attended St. Mary’s University and graduated with a degree in Business Administration. I’m very interested in retail management, having worked part-time as a sales clerk over the past two years. Your company is a leader in retailing and I’d really like the opportunity to prove myself.”

Positive. Eager. Safe. You check out the employer’s reaction. A polite nod and a pleasant smile. You congratulate yourself on the fine start, thinking, “Fire away. I’m hot.”

But are you?

Probably not. Chances are good that the employer’s agreeable manner is only a professional veil to hide her true feeling, boredom. Why is she bored? A better question: Why shouldn’t she be? After all, all you did was recite the most skimpy, superficial, and obvious facts about yourself. Moreover, she already knew them from your resume. Making matters worse, you gave her your version of the same worn-out answer that she’s heard in almost every interview she’s ever conducted. Far from excited, she’s pigeonholed you early. You are predictable, commonplace, run-of-the-mill. You are like everyone else. That’s not good enough. The employer is looking for someone exceptional. For all practical purposes, the interview has concluded. It will drag on for another twenty minutes or so, but don’t kid yourself – it’s over.

You didn’t have to make this mistake. Behavioural science has given us legions of studies of the interview process. Boiled down, these studies have produced three documented-to-death findings.

1. Interviews count. To the degree that the interviewer will influence the hiring decision, he makes up his mind during the interview. He decides then that he either wants to hire you or he doesn’t. Probably, this won’t get communicated to you during the interview, but the decision is real and it’s firm.

2. The decision gets made early in the interview. Researchers differ on just how early – some say in the first minute or two, some stretch it to the first five minutes – but all agree the die is cast in the beginning. And it’s difficult to reverse the interviewer’s first impressions. If you get off to a good start, you can stumble later and be forgiven. The interviewer will stick to his earlier judgement. He knows you are wonderful. It works the other way, too. If you start poorly, it doesn’t matter that you come on like gangbusters at the end of the interview. A poor start can doom the candidate.

3. The driving force behind the interviewer’s assessment is a subjective perception of your personality and capabilities.

Here’s a list of words drawn from studies which asked employers why they selected certain candidates over others:
· oral communications · motivation
· initiative · assertiveness
· enthusiasm · confidence
· drive · energy

Another study ranked the top selection factors as communication skills and impression of personality. Different studies use different language, but considered collectively, they all reach the same generalized conclusion. It’s critical that you communicate to the employer that you are confident. Employers don’t want to hire people who feel that they might be able to do the job. They are looking for the sure thing.

Wrap these findings into one tidy sentence. You must start your interview by establishing yourself as confident and assertive. This sends tremors of fear up the spines of some. “I’m not brash and aggressive. I don’t dance on table tops, tell terrific jokes, and slap people on the back. I’m not confident and assertive. All is lost.” Relax. No one said you had to be loud and obnoxious. Anyone, I repeat, anyone – including those who are reserved, quiet, even a little shy – can come across as confident and assertive in an interview. And it doesn’t take a radical overhaul of your personality. You don’t even have to put on an act. You can be yourself, even if you’re quiet.

Consider the question literally. “Tell me a little bit about yourself.” What is the “little bit” that would be most helpful? That’s easy – it’s the most impressive and substantiated thing you can say about yourself. What is it you do best? And what’s your proof? Before you ever get into an interview, have answers to these questions firmly in mind. They are your ammunition. Don’t be afraid of the open-ended question. Hear it as an opportunity. You have been invited to tell the employer why he should hire you. Do it. “The most important thing that I am eager to say is that I’m very adaptive and respond well to pressure and change. As a sales clerk, I worked in three different departments and under two different managers. I had to learn new product lines quickly and, at the same time, different sales approaches preferred by a new manager. I found this challenging and exciting and my portion of departmental sales grew steadily. My manager commended me for how well I handled the pressure. Retail is always changing and I think I’m very well-suited for such a career.”

This kind of answer – even if stated quietly – gets you off to the all-critical right start. The employer will sit up and take note. You will have distinguished yourself from the herd. You are confident and assertive. You are special.

We’re all special. Each of us knows that we have some special qualities or characteristics that cut us away from the crowd and make us good prospects. We’ve seen the proof time and time again in our lives. The beginning of an interview, when responding to an open-ended question, is the one time in life that it’s not boorish to be right up front with it. The employer wants to know why we’re special. Tell her.

All other interviewing advice pales in comparison to this. If you do everything else right, but don’t get this down, you’ll be stuck with mediocre results. Conversely, if this is your only preparation, you’ll still be a shade or two above most.

Presuming that you’d like to have a wider margin of success than a mere shade or two, let’s cover a few other points. These tips can be roughly divided into three groups: before the interview, during the interview, and after the interview.