Interviewers are in a difficult spot. With limited exposure to applicants, they must make choices that can considerably affect their own job performance and influence the opinions people in the organization have about them. In these circumstances, they ordinarily will choose a safe candidate in contrast to a controversial one, because they have much less at risk personally if the person is not successful. Furthermore they have other pressing priorities on their minds - often problems on which they are being pushed for immediate decisions. The favorable result from hiring the right people, getting them on board and functioning effectively, has its payoff months away, at least.
Thus, often their inclination is not to hurry the process.
Generally, though, people think that all of the advantages are in the hands of the employer. This is because the interview is being held on the employer's turf, the employer knows the requirements of the job, and he or she has the job to offer.
Actually, you as the applicant have some key advantages too. First of all, employers are usually busy people. They recognize the need for their considerable involvement in the hiring process although they probably won't consider it a top priority. However, as soon as they can make a decision on who they want to hire, this problem is solved and they can devote their time to more immediately important things. As every applicant comes through the door, the employer is hoping against hope that this one will be the successful candidate. Besides, if you're conducting an active campaign, you're involved in job interviews every day. After a while you can become pretty skilled in handling them, far more so than many employers will be. Finally, you can spend time to zero in on your target so that you can find out a lot about the company and even the interviewer. Very rarely does an interviewer do this in-depth investigation of an applicant in the early stages. Thus, you have greater opportunity to be well prepared about the situation you're liable to face in an interview, and can deal with it most effectively.
There are a number of different types of interviewers that you may encounter, so be ready for all of them. Regardless of the type, if you don't cope with the interviewer effectively, you are the loser.
The more important and frequently met types are:
- The friendly type - you may have what seems to be a very good interview with this kind of individual, but it may be ineffective for you, because you haven't had a real opportunity to get across what's most important to your cause. Be prepared to speed up the pace of the interview, to shortcut your plan (if necessary), so you can discuss the job requirements and your qualifications adequately.
- The third-degree type - this is the kind of individual who tries to create a stress situation in an interview to see how effectively you can deal with it. He or she may use a series of rapid-fire questions that are somewhat unrelated, or play games-like remaining silent for some time - just to see how you will handle the situation. Your best approach is to keep cool and to relieve the stress by asking questions. There are few individuals who in a one-on-one situation will not respond to a question.
- The disorganized type - here is someone who may create some of the same problems as the friendly type. For example, you may find yourself coming out of the interview without having had a real opportunity to get yourself across. It is quite likely that this interviewer has not clearly thought out what he or she is looking for. Raising your five or six questions and the X or Y alternative question, should get this type of interviewer to better define what he or she is looking for. Again be ready to speed up your plan.
- The reserved type - such an individual's style makes it difficult to avoid doing most of the talking and to find out what type of person he or she is looking for. You must be persistent in probing for this. Using the questioning technique almost always will reveal his or her needs in time.
- The ego-tripping type - here is an individual who is so strongly self-centered that he or she will take a good part of the interview trying to impress you. With these individuals, you may be the loser unless you take the initiative to get them to define what they're looking for. Here again you may have to speed up your plan.