2nd & 3rd Interviews – Nail It! Don’t Blow It!

You have been on a 1st Interview, maybe even a 2nd interview.  The hiring manager has told you that they are very interested in hiring you – you’re their first choice.   But, before they can extend an offer, they just need you to meet with the top boss – a “blessing interview”.   You’re assured that you’re already going to be hired and that it’s just a routine introduction that nobody has any problems with.    The decision to hire you has already been made.  

Don’t believe it!  Nobody is brought back in for another interview if they have the job 100%.  And no one is put into the interview process if they don’t have some influence on the final decision to hire.  Rather than “blessing interview” it should be called a “veto interview”.  Nobody’s getting hired that doesn’t really connect with the boss on that last meeting.  

In my 21 years in the recruiting industry, I have witnessed quite a few finalists lose the job because they didn’t prepare and take the last interview seriously enough.  No matter how much you may have impressed 10 other people in previous trips to the company, the last meeting with the anyone at the company may well be the most important of all the meetings.  

The best rule of thumb is, TREAT ALL 2ND INTERIVEWS OR SUBSEQUENT JUST LIKE A FIRST INTERVIEW.   No matter what you are told by the hiring manager, a recruiter, or your friend at the company, don’t let the fact that “you’ve practically hired”, go to your head and have you let your guard down.   Assume there are always at least three equal finalists or that you’re maybe even the underdog.  Prepare for that last meeting, further research the company, prepare interview questions, review your strengths, reasons for change and goals, be ready for whatever they might throw at you.  (see previous blogs for ideas on these subjects).  

It’s also not the time to let your appearance slide.  Dress sharp, shine your shoes, get your hair trimmed or styled if it needs it.   If anything, you need to look more “together” than you did on previous meetings.  

Be ready to tell that individual why you want the job, why you’re excited about the company, how you feel like you can contribute to the organization, and how the opportunity fits into your career progression.   

Also, be sure not to leave the meeting without expressing your appreciation for them taking the time ot meet with you and that you sincerely hope that you’ll be able to together.    And when you get home, get  a thank-you letter or thank-you card in the mail (again see previous blogs on thank-you letters).   Maybe you’re expecting an offer before the thank-you letter would get there.   Well it’s certainly no big deal if they get the thanks and you’re already going to work there.   And it could absolutely be the slight nudge needed to get you the offer if the final decision maker is at all on the fence about the offer.  

Please share your ideas or experiences on “blessing interviews” as comments to this blog.

Two Words That Get Job Offers – “Positive Attitude”

Your positive attitude is more important in a job interview than your education, your experience, your salary requirements or any other component that makes up the package of you, as the job seeker.   And my experience is that when highly qualified and skilled individuals find it hard to get a new position, it’s because they are projecting a negative attitude. 

WRONG – “How long would I have to wait to be promoted into a manager position with your company?”

RIGHT – “I’m looking for a company where, as I prove myself capable, I can take on increasing responsibility and, if the opportunity exists and I’ve earned it,  I can move towards a leadership role.”

“Wrong” is asking what the company can do for him, “Right” is telling the company that you expect to earn responsibility and that promotion will be something that you earn, not an entitlement. 

WRONG – “My manager and I really have different viewpoints on how to run the department and I’m really interested in finding a position with a company that let me have more input in the decisions.”

RIGHT – “As I would successfully learn the business and how the organization operates, I’d hope to be able to identify opportunities to improve processes or save the company money and bring those ideas to you.”

“Wrong” is telling us that his opinion isn’t very respected where he is currently and that he wants a manager that will listen to him and accept his ideas.  Whether his fault or not, it certainly opens him to being labeled as a “know it all”.   “Right” makes it clear that he intends to bring his ideas to the manager once he really understands what is going on.  He doesn’t elude at all to not being listened to in his current environment. 

WRONG – “What benefits would I receive in this position?”    “Is parking provided?”  “How large an office or cubicle would I have?” 

RIGHT – “I appreciate that you’re offering to answer my questions about benefits, but right now my focus is on making sure to find the right company to which I can contribute and grow professionally.   If we both feel like this is a good match, I’m sure that we can make the overall compensation package work.”

“Wrong” wants to know what’s in it for her.  “Right” is looking for the best fit for her and for the company and feels like incidentals of specific benefit information or comfort issues of parking and whether her cubicle has a window are not a priority.  If there are any important issues she needs to evaluate about these type of issues, then she’ll ask AFTER she has a job offer. 

WRONG – “My current company is not growing and my boss is never going anywhere so there is not way for me to move up in the organization.”

RIGHT – “I’m looking for a company that is growing and expanding so that more opportunities exist for career progression”.

“Wrong” Is complaining about the stagnant environment that he’s coming from.  “Right” is making the same implication, but in a more positive way as she is stating what she is looking for in a new environment, not what Is lacking in her current environment.  Being positive is often just a matter of looking towards a better future rather than the past. 

Beyond phraseology and looking forward, not back, a lot of being positive is also going to come from your eyes, posture, hands and expressions.  Positive people LOOK positive.  They make eye contact, they smile, they lean forward slightly when making a point, they use their hands for some expression and keep them away from their face. 

Positive people listen very intently to what the interviewer is saying and provide positive feedback throughout.  Making sure to not be fake or use false flattery, a polished positive person will respond in a way that projects their enthusiasm and interest.  Follow-up questions that probe deeper into what the interviewer saying shows your listening and positive as well as draws on what the interviewer is saying to present something further about yourself. 

“I like that you are promoting a team environment, I work very well with others.”

“That’s very interesting that your company is acquisition oriented as I’m certainly looking for an organization that is growing and will have opportunities for career progression.”

Even the questions that you ask can reflect a more positive tone:

WRONG – “What didn’t you like about the person that you let go from this position?”

RIGHT – “What are the most important attributes for the person you want to hire to possess?”

WRONG – “What are the downsides to working for your department?”

RIGHT – “If you could improve one thing in your department in the next year, what would it be?”

WRONG – “Do you have much turnover in this company?”

RIGHT – “What do you think are the reasons that employees like working for your company?”

Practice being positive for your interviews.  It will help get you the best jobs at the best companies.  And if you find it works there, try it in your relationships and life outside of work.  Being positive improves life at work and life in general. 

Please add your ideas, questions and suggestions on this topic as comments to this blog.

No Time to Ramble – Sticking to the Point in Interviews

1. Answer
2. Support
3. STOP!
4. Pause
5. Ask a question back or field another question
6. Return to Step 1

It’s a simple process, but one that far too many people find difficult in an interview.  Knowing how to properly respond to an interview question in a succinct manner and then quit talking is one of the most important and most often overlooked interviewing skills.  I have conducted hundreds of interviews where the person I’m interviewing doesn’t answer my questions, rambles off on to other tangents, doesn’t back up their point, and basically talks and talks but doesn’t say anything that is going to help them get the job.

Almost all questions can be responded to with a “Yes”, “No”, or something in between like “sometimes”, “usually” and “seldom”.   Whether the answer to the questions is positive or negative – don’t dance around it!  Answer the question directly, honestly and up-front. 

“No, I haven’t had any experience in programming with C#, however, I have had 3 years experience with VB.NET and am confident that with some extra effort studying the syntax differences, that I can keep the learning curve short and get up to speed on C#.”

Answered the questions directly – supported the answer – and stopped!  The technique of answering the question up front first and then backing it up with your explanation is especially important when the answer is negative.  As in the example above, you won’t be accused of “dancing around the answer” or avoiding an honest response.   “No, I don’t have any experience with that, but….”, is a much better way to answer than to “hem and haw” for two minutes and leaving them guessing as to whether you really answered the question or not. 

In most circumstances, after you have directly answered the questions, your explanation or support of your response should comprise somewhere between one and three sentences, similar to a well constructed paragraph that you learned to write in Middle School. 

“Yes, I have had some experience in leading projects.  In the last two projects that I was on, at GE and Citigroup, I functioned as the team leader.  At GE, I had three developers on the project and assigned their work, helped them with issues and reviewed their code.  At Citigroup I had those same responsibilities, and was also responsible for doing the first round interviews and resume screening when we were staffing the project.”

I’m sure that I could go on and on describing what I did as a leader and there’s probably some interesting, to me, side stories too – but the best strategy is to directly answer, support the answer, and stop.   If they want more information about your leadership skills, they can ask for more information and you can provide additional detail on what they ask for.  In this way they get the information they want, not a lot of extraneous detail that they may or may not have been looking for.

If the questions seems really big and you are sure that a lot more detail is warranted, try to break it down and keep yourself on track by following the above formula and then, after your pause, ask for feedback. 

They say, “Tell me about your career”.

Don’t take license to write them a book – save it for your memoirs.  Try this:

“I graduated from the University of Chicago with a Computer Science degree and spent the first five years of my career on a Java development team at Sears.  I resigned from Sears to work for a consulting company and branched into WebSphere Portal development and received some training and experience in portal architecture and design.  I was recruited by Deloitte and have now been there three years in management consulting as part of the Integration Services Team.”

Pause….   “Would you like more detail about any of my experience in particular”. 

To keep from rambling on and on about my career, I provide a focused view of the highlights and check for feedback as to what the interviewer wants to know more about”. 

If your tendency isn’t to ramble too long, but instead no t provide enough information and the interviewer has to  “drag information out of you”, then these same techniques apply to you.  Force yourself to answer the questions directly and backup your answers.   Almost every answer deserves one to three sentences support and if it’s not natural for you to provide explanations, then you need to practice doing so before you interview. 

Good luck on your interview and please add your questions or suggestions as comments to this blog.

Phone Interview? Don’t Just Call It In!

Everyone knows how important it is to prepare for face-to-face interviews, but most job seekers don’t take the time to, or know how to, prepare for a phone interview. With today’s mobile workforce, especially in the technology arena, phone interviews are very common. Many hiring managers use phone interviews to narrow their choice of candidates to interview or to prescreen before the expense of bringing an out-of-town candidate in for interviews. If you don’t treat the phone interview as critically important and make the investment of your time and effort to be thoroughly prepared, then you’ll probably never get the chance to meet face-to-face and you certainly won’t get the job.

Here’s a starting list of phone interview preperation guidelines:
1. Use a landline if available. I know a lot of people only use cell phones these days, but normally a landline is the clearer and more reliable connection and should be used, if available.

2. Select a quiet area. If you don’t have an area of your home or office that is free from the background noise of kids, dogs, televisions etc…, then you need to arrange with a friend to borrow their quiet space or otherwise get the noisemakers in your house out for phone interviews. Do you want the interviewer focusing on you or the screaming, barking, and other distractions in the background?

3. Be ready 10 minutes prior to the interview. Be in your seat, preferably at a desk or table, sitting upright, and dressed in a way that will make you feel professional, inside and out. (find something in between the bathrobe and a tie that will make you comfortable and confident).

4. Have a glass of water ready to go. If you end up with a “frog in your throat” or dry mouth, it would be distracting to run to the cabinet and fill a glass at the sink while trying to clear your throat.

5. If your phone allows you to turn off call-waiting, do so. Interruptions from the call-waiting signal can really throw off the tempo of a conversation. And by all means, NEVER put your phone interview on hold to answer an incoming call.

6. If you have the name and phone number of the interviewer and they have not called you by 10 minutes after the originally arranged interview time, then you may want to try to call them. Be very polite if you reach them or get their voicemail and explain that you just wanted to make sure that they weren’t having trouble connecting with you or that maybe you had the wrong interview time. If it’s a message, leave your number and let them know that you are still available to take their call and look forward to speaking with them.

7. Do not sit in front of a running computer. For one thing, you don’t need the background noise of fans and beeps, but more importantly, you never want to use the computer – the interviewer will hear the keyboard and wonder what you’re up to and not what you have to offer. And, if you are having a technical interview or other questions are asked that test your knowledge – NEVER GOOGLE FOR THE ANSWER. You will not fool anyone – any professional can tell when they are being read answers or when you really don’t know something. This isn’t “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and there is no “phone a friend” or “ask the audience”. Don’t IM any questions and don’t have anyone else in the room. On the off chance that you would get away with one of these “tricks” and actually get a job because of it – they’ll fire you in the first week anyway, because you really don’t know what they need you to know.

8. Don’t read from your resume. You should have your resume there, just in case they ask you regarding a specific point on your resume and you need to be sure of what they are referencing, but if you need to go from your resume to explain what you’ve done in career – then you aren’t well prepared and they’ll know it.

9. Have a pen (and a backup) and paper to jot key notes in the phone interview. This is going to be your preparation outline for your face-to-face meeting. The phone interview is a preview of what you can expect in expanded form in the next meeting. Also you can jot down questions you might have for later in the conversation or in subsequent interviews.

10. Be enthusiastic in your tone – upbeat and excited! You don’t want to come off fake, but be as enthused as you can, while feeling natural doing it. Asking questions shows enthusiasm, being prepared, researching the company, listening attentively, being thorough and direct in your answers all will come across as positive attitude. And don’t have a bad thing to say about anybody or any company – be as charitable as possible, even if your last boss was the devil himself try to find as positive a way as possible to explain your situation.

11. Enunciate and speak clearly. Talk to a friend on the phone and have them advise you as to what distance from your mouth your phone sounds best. Try to make sure to speak clearly and enunciate without exaggerating and go slower if you have a tendency to be a fast-talker. If English is not your native language and you have an accent, then be especially careful to speak slowly and pronounce each word to the best of your ability.

12. Whether English is your first language or not, it also very important to make sure you understand completely the questions being asked. If you’re not sure, either due to language difficulties or because the terminology being used is of a technical or proprietary nature, then ask for the question to be repeated or feedback what you think the question is and ask if that’s correct, or even ask if they could explain the question or clarify something for you. It’s better to make sure you’re answering the right question and on the right track then to go off and head the wrong way.

12. Ask for a face-to-face meeting. When things have come to a close in the phone interview, let the hiring manager know that you are interested in their opportunity, and a point or two as to why, and that you feel you are qualified, also with a few points as to why. “I would really appreciate the opportunity to meet with you directly, is that something we can schedule now?” No way have you blown the interview by asking to meet. The easiest path for the manager, if they are at all on the fence about you, is to go ahead and agree to meet. If they aren’t on the fence, then they’ll schedule or they won’t – but you won’t lose anything. They may have to get back to you, but at least you’ve left them with a definite impression of your interest – and hiring managers will feel better about someone that they know is enthused.

Good luck on your phone interviews! Please feel free to add your phone interview ideas or questions as “comments” to this blog.