5 Interview Mistakes
You're Still Making In 2016
I’ve interviewed many candidates in my career. Aside from the very
small number who do strange and sometimes mind-blowing things, most are
professional and make an attempt to present their best selves. But as companies
ease up on the formalities, one candidate's sense of interview etiquette might
look pretty different from another's.
It can be hard to know which pieces of received wisdom to hold
onto and which to discard in the interest of authenticity. While every company
is different, here's a look at five of the most common interview mistakes job
seekers are still making—either by discarding conventions they shouldn't or
just making the wrong moves altogether.
1. USING "WE" TO DISCUSS YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Collaboration is more critical than ever. You might feel like a
lone ranger with a litany of personal attributes to tell of, but chances are
your hiring manager will want to hear about how those traits will jibe with her
existing team's. Some interviewees, wisely sensing that, will run in the
opposite direction, and talk about their achievements in the plural
"we." Is that a smart move?
Using "we" too much can
unintentionally cause a recruiter or hiring manager to question how much of a contributing
team member you actually were.
Actually, no. Most interviewers want to
know what you accomplished, even as part of a team. As Mike
Adamo, who leads Med Device Talent, a strategic talent acquisition consulting
firm, explains, "We’re not thinking about whether we want to hire the
team. We are evaluating whether we want to hire you."
Using "we" too much can unintentionally cause a
recruiter or hiring manager to question how much of a contributing team member
you actually were, making it hard for them to identify what you could do for
their company.
So how do you present yourself as someone who can get individual
results but still work on a team? Talk about the team's accomplishments, but
focus on your specific individual contribution that helped the team achieve
what it did.
Most of us have been coached to focus
on our results during the interview—an extension of longstanding
resume-writing advice. After all, who wants to hire someone who can’t get anything
done? Today’s corporate environment, however, is complex. Many companies are
complicated to navigate and heavily relationship-based. How you
achieve results is equally important as what you achieve, but that's often
something candidates understate or leave out, imaging that they're dry,
unnecessary details.
When I interview candidates, especially for management roles, I
not only want to know they'll accomplish great things but also that those
accomplishments will be sustainable and brought about in ways that support the
company. The proverbial "bull in the china shop" who leaves a train
of destruction in its wake may get short-term results but at a higher cost.
So yes, it's good to focus on tangible
outcomes. But when you describe what you've accomplished, include how you developed
and sustained relationships along the way—your process—even through
difficult challenges.
As an interviewer, I appreciate
questions about the direction of the company, department strategy, or nuances
of company culture.
Most interviewers give candidates a
chance to ask questions at the end of the interview. This is a great
opportunity that's often left on the table. Many candidates
don’t have any questions, or they're focused on how much
vacation they'll be getting.
As an interviewer, I appreciate
questions about the direction of the company, department strategy, or nuances
of company culture. Those questions not only leave me excited that someone was
prepared and interested, they also speak to a candidate’s thought
process—which, for many roles, is more important than what they've achieved. Do
your homework and come up with at least two good questions to ask.
Everyone's been in at least one
interview where they were asked a hard question they simply couldn’t answer. It
happened to me when I was interviewing for my first director position years
ago. I sat there with a blank expression on my face feeling like I was on Jeopardy,
didn’t know the answer to a simple $100 question, and was being silently judged
by Alex Trebek.
Fortunately, I had a great mentor who shared some good advice: If
you don’t know, just say so. Don’t try to fake your way through it. Honesty is
a good thing, but where you take it from there is the real differentiator. Find
a way to describe something similar, where you had to employ the types of
skills the interviewer is trying to assess. Take the initiative and offer a
comparable scenario that demonstrates your capabilities.
It's bad enough when you can't bring yourself to say "I don't
know," but it's arguably worse when you utter those three words, smile,
and leave it at that.
Whether you felt like you had a great interview and hit a home
run, or swung at all the pitches and whiffed every time, the follow up email
expressing your gratitude and interest is critical.
Strangely, many candidates do not send them, imagining that
they're passé. Others, who do send thank-yous, try to oversell their
qualifications all over again, as though the interview didn't revolve around
exactly that.
So yes, it may be 2016, but you do still
need to follow up if you're interested in the job, and an email is just fine—no
need for a handwritten note (though some will say otherwise). Just be careful
not to say too much in your email.
Keep your follow-up simple and to the point. You've already had
your chance to pitch yourself; now it's time to simply showcase your interest,
initiative, understanding of relationships, and follow through—all critical
competencies that a hiring manager will be looking for. You might've nailed the
interview, but this is one last bar that you'll still want to clear.
James Sudakow is principal of CH Consulting, Inc. and author
of Picking the Low-Hanging
Fruit . . . and Other Stupid Stuff We Say in the Corporate World.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3059666/hit-the-ground-running/5-interview-mistakes-youre-still-making-in-2016?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-weekly-newsletter&position=7&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=05132016
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