Make sure that your appearance is in keeping with what an employer is looking for. A good rule of thumb is to emulate the appearance of the top professionals in your field. Most applicants assume that an interview starts when they meet the interviewer. In most cases that is true. However, the interview can be considered to start with the interviewer's secretary, or even the receptionist.
Don't worry about being nervous - it's natural and it will keep you alert. When you are introduced to interviewers, look them straight in the eye, shake hands firmly, and smile. Their office is their home - so let them call the tune. Wait until they invite you to sit down and indicate where you are to sit.
Expect some small talk about the weather, sports, or current events. Observe the things that inter viewers have in their office - pictures and mementos. These can be clues to their interests and can provide the means for building some rapport in this preliminary stage.
Some students of the interview process believe that the first 10 minutes are critical - that is, many candidates are rejected in that time, with the balance of the interview providing the interviewer with the justification for this decision. It is important to quickly determine what key things the employer is looking for.
It is helpful to visualize the main part of the interview as a three-stage process:
1. Identifying the employer's needs. Your objective in this stage is to get employers to reveal as much as possible about what they are looking for in the person they will hire - the problems to be solved, what has already been done to solve them without success, their priorities, the kind of experience they're looking for, their personal biases, and so on. Employers will usually start by asking for some general information such as, "Tell me about yourself," or "Tell me about your last job." You have already seen how the first two applicants for the computer-manager job made the mistake of misinterpreting this. Betty Black's primary purpose was to get background information about the applicant. The applicant then had an opportunity to establish an immediate positive image. You can do this by skimming over your background and providing the interviewer with what he or she would like to hear. End with a statement of benefits the employer can expect if you are hired. For example:
"I have been fortunate to have a good education - a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Purdue. I have had 19 years of production experience, most recently as general manager of the Elkhart Division of Consolidated Machinery - a division with 1,200 employees. I feel I've been successful in solving a wide variety of problems working as a team member with other key people. I have worked hard and have been stimulated by challenge. My goal has always been to deliver what I promise on time and within budget. What are the problems here?" An alternative ending might be "My objective is to help you find out what you want to know about me. How do you want to begin?"
2. Selling yourself. Once the employer identifies a problem, relate a PAR to show your experience and skills in coping with a similar problem. For example, if the employer reveals that a key problem is cutting costs, relate one or two experiences showing that you have done this consistently, with considerable resourcefulness and leadership.
Here is where your preparation will pay off.
Drawing on your research on the company, what you may have heard about the job and the interviewer and your own hunches, ask the most appropriate of the five or six questions that you have prepared. Depending on the reply, follow up with several other questions. The answers will give you the framework of what the employer is looking for in a candidate. If you don't do this, you may spend a lot of time on subjects that aren't of real interest to the employer. If you are not sure of the kind of thing that the interviewer is looking for, you might ask, "Would you like to hear about my experience in X or in Y?" Such a question requires the interviewer to give you direction. Note that phases one and two are not distinct in themselves but are over lapping. In fact, these two stages essentially consist of a series of stages one and two, with the employer revealing a need and the applicant showing his or her experience in satisfying the need and then directing a query to get the employer to reveal another need.
If you are asked how you would solve a particular problem, be careful. You're treading on thin ice if you give the impression you know the solution.
After all, the employer probably has had somebody working on it before without reaching a satisfactory solution. Very likely any solution you suggest has been tried without success. You'll create a much more favorable impression if you state that you'd have to study the situation to learn what has already been done, why a satisfactory resolution hasn't been achieved, and what subtleties have prevented more progress. Then go on to describe how you successfully coped with a similar problem elsewhere, emphasizing the careful planning and the development of the needed cooperation and follow - through that resulted in the solution.
Another key to building rapport with the employer is to show sensitivity to his or her hang-ups.
As you've already seen, employers often put as much stress on personal attributes as on technical qualifications. Also, provide answers to the questions the interviewer should ask, but may not (and which you may need to answer).
3. Conclusion. As the interview is drawing to a close, be sure to ask these two key questions.
"Where do we have a fit? Where don't we have a fit?" This invariably brings to light one or two reservations the interviewer has about you.
