Job Interviews--Seeing Behind the Mask
It happens every day:
Greetings, Mr./Ms. YourNameHere. Thank you for taking the time to come talk to us about our job opening. Let’s jump right in with the questions:
• Sell yourself to me in less than five minute.
• Tell me why red is better than yellow.
• In your career to date, where do you feel you could have done better?
• What major mistakes have you made in your career thus far?
• If you were discussing your job with a small child, how would you describe what you do?
• What major changes have occurred in your professional life over the past year and how have you dealt with them?
• What steps have you taken in your career to be an active member of a team?
• If I were to tell you I didn't like you, how would you change my mind?
• Why did you choose this particular picture or story for your Facebook file?
Stumped? But, that’s exactly the kind of grilling you must prepare yourself for. After all, an interviewer’s mandate is to surprise, befuddle, and knock you off-guard in order to see the real you. The best and often the worst aspects of someone’s personality only get revealed under trying circumstances, and a smart interviewer is always aware of this human frailty.
But, in some ways, it’s just a guessing game. The hiring manager sits down with someone for 30 minutes to two hours and they make a decision that will have a permanent impact on their reputation; how hard they have to work; their company’s profits; and—oh, yeah—you, the person sitting in the other chair.
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Let’s profile the hiring manager: They are reasonably to highly intelligent and they’ve put a lot of thought into this process. Chances are they’ve even read some articles, surfed the internet a bit for ideas, and maybe even gone to some training. The folks in their human resources department (if there is one) have taught them about the dos and don’ts of the interview to assure a legally defensible process. And they’ve probably been burned at least a few times by making bad hiring decisions, and they remember vividly how painful the wrong decision can be. They will eye you with suspicion.
They will walk into the interview organized and prepared. But deep down inside they know that hiring decisions aren’t mathematical equations. And after all the interviews are over, they know that part of it always is just a gut feeling. They know it’s more than a beauty contest where job applicants parade themselves and strut their stuff in front of the interview panel. They know that sometimes the best candidates have off days, and sometimes the biggest jerks pull it all together, even if just for a moment. Their task as the hiring manager is to try to see behind the mask across the desk—the mask you wear to the job interview.
The good new is … Scratch that. The GREAT news is that now YOU can see behind their mask. Just like job candidates walk in with masks on—hoping the hiring manager asks certain questions and praying that they don’t ask certain others—interviewers also wear their masks. And they don’t even know it.
After years of interviewing and years of being interviewed, I have learned that regardless of the size, shape, and mission of a company, hiring managers consider just three qualities of the job applicants when making hiring decisions. The interviewers formulate creative—sometimes bizarre—questions in hopes of discerning the job candidates “fitness” in just three simple areas. Regardless of how strange a question is, the question is intended to reveal truths about the job applicant in The Big Three: competency, commitment, and compatibility. By understanding these three areas, anyone can have thriving interview, regardless of the questions that are asked. Remember: Success favors the prepared.
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