A. Forecaster: This type of interviewer has one or two key questions, and based on your answers to those questions, they will make a forecast about your personality. Once they have done that, not much you say will change their opinion of you. To pass their test, you must be able to spot the meaningful questions, and, of course, you must answer them in a way that suits him.
Unfortunately, their questions are often psychological even when his training isn't. Typical ones are: "Where do you want to be in five years?" "What are your major weaknesses and strengths?" "What do you consider to be the major accomplishment of your career so far?" Sometimes they aren't psychological, but they're still designed to test you. They may present a work problem and ask you how you would handle it. Listen to their questions carefully so you can shape your answers accordingly. If their questions are philosophical in tone, give them an answer that has philosophical overtones. If they're action-oriented, make sure your answer is, too.
B. Associate: The Associate wants above all else to hire someone who fits in well, who matches the company's and their own personal chemistry--in other words, a team player. And team players, to them, anyway, are people with whom he can associate certain familiar things, such as you both graduating from the University of Michigan or your mutual love of tennis or golf.
To impress this interviewer you must reach out and help them see the associational ties that will make them comfortable with you.
C. Systematic: The Systematic interviewer is the toughest one to get past, because their criteria are based on sound, logical thinking. They need proof of your qualifications and evidence that you can do the job before they will hire you.
To impress a Systematic interviewer, you must carefully present your case, emphasizing the achievements and strengths that make you right for this job. They are hard to get past, but eminently fair.
D. Energizer: Unfortunately, there are more of these around than any other kind of interviewer, although their numbers are diminishing as executives learn skilled interviewing techniques. The Energizer makes an intuitive decision in the first few minutes of the interview about whether or not you are right for the job. For them to be impressed, he needs to sense that you both nave the same kind of energy.
An Energizer isn't all bad if you can make a good enough impression to be one of the anointed ones. But this type of interviewer also has a serious drawback, most notably that you and he never settle down to a serious, in-depth conversation about the job. They never really get to know you or find out whether you are truly qualified, and you are so busy impressing them that you don't find out if the job is really right for you, either. Unfortunately, this only sets things up to fall apart later-six months or a year into the job, for example. There's not a lot you can do to handle an Energizer except hope that the energy is right.
How to respond to the interviewer's personality
Once you have figured out which personality type you are dealing with, the interview will go more smoothly and you will have a surer grip on the direction it is likely to take. Understanding the kind of person you're dealing with also means you can respond appropriately to their personality type. In posing your answers, try to talk the same language as the interviewer. If, on the one hand, somebody talks to you about concepts, the ideas behind what you have done, then you should describe the concepts on which your actions were based. It's wrong to say to that kind of interviewer, 'The hell with the concepts. Let's talk about the results, and I'll tell you something about the process.' If you do this, you've missed the cue. The interviewer may, in fact, be interested in results, but they will still be uncomfortable with the fact that you're not talking their specific language.
On the other hand, if someone says to you during an interview, 'I don't care what your thinking was or how you justified your actions, just tell me what you did and how long it took you and whether you can do it again,' then you skip the abstractions and logic behind your actions. If you insist on spending three hours on the concepts and underlying logic of your achievements, this person won't see you as his kind of person, either.
In addition to appraising the interviewer's personality, it's also important to understand how the interviewer feels about interviewing and hiring other executives.
The interviewer is under some stress, too. Although it may come as a surprise to you, the interviewer is as scared, if not more scared, than you are. After all, here they are interviewing someone for a $50,000-plus job, and if they don’t bring in the right person, or the person they bring in doesn't work out, the blame will fall on them. They will have cost their company a lot of money. They can easily make a poor call if they are not careful here. In addition, hiring isn't something they might do every day, and they may be well aware that they lack even the most basic skills they need to make a wise choice.
The fact that an interviewer is under so much pressure explains a lot about many interviews--the directions they take, the awkward silences, even the awkward conversations. An important part of psyching out an interviewer is to measure his or her stress level and then do whatever you can to put him or her at ease and to make the interview go more smoothly.
See the following articles for more information:
- How to Start on the Right Foot in Your New Job
- What Are the Sources to Find the Information You Need
- The Background of Application Process
- How to Network and Take an Information Interview
