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November 2006 ISSUE

INSIGHT

What Your Interviewers Really Want to Know

 

Editor’s Note: The following article is tailored from notes from Ginny Nicholson, CMA, APEGGA’s former Manager of Administration and Human Resources. Although Ginny has moved on to another position, we’ve been offering her insight on job hunting as space in our Careers section has permitted.

If you’ve been following this series of articles, you’re starting to have a good idea about how to conduct yourself in an interview, the questions you should ask and the questions you’re going to be asked.

The following tidies up some of the lose ends not covered earlier.

What are they employers really looking for in an interview? Is it much the same as what you already told them in your resumé?

  • Overall fit for the job and a track record of success.

  • Specific skills and job experience/description.

  • Concrete accomplishments and achievements.

  • Career that is stable and moving forward.

  • Practical characteristics, such as profit orientation, cost consciousness, safety consciousness, results orientation.

  • Willingness to work hard.

  • General intelligence and aptitude:
    - Comprehension
    - Approach is analytical
    - Problem solving
    - Communication skills.

  • Attitudes and Personality:
    -  Attitude — positive, enthusiasm, can do approach, sincere
    -  Confidence, social skills, ability to sell oneself
    -  Ability to get along with others
    -  Personal determination, motivation
    -  Interest in a broad range of things
    - Curiosity.

  • Leadership skills:
    -  Initiative
    -  Getting things done through teamwork
    -  Delivery.

What doesn’t your interviewer want to see or hear? Here are some of the more common turn-offs.

  • Consistently not making eye contact.

  • Arrogance, showing off, condescension to receptionist. Some employers will even ask the receptionist about a person who has come and gone — was he or she polite and courteous to you, and to anyone else during any other contact you saw?

  • Not answering the question that was asked.

  • Distracting habits.

  • Talking in a derogatory way about another person or company. You might portray an opinion on a past boss as a “difference in philosophy” in one or more areas, and leave it at that. It’s a fair answer that doesn’t reflect poorly on you.

  • Evasive answers.

Should you use notes during the interview? This is generally not recommended.

Usual pitfall is that you can’t quickly find the item you’re looking for.

Always ask the interviewer if he or she minds if you look at your notes — before you start thumbing through them.

How long is an average interview?

For most employers, it depends on the level of staff being recruited.

Support staff and junior positions might require about 45 minutes. For an intermediate position, think an hour and a quarter. For supervisory and high-tech staff, the interview will probably be more like an hour and a half.

If it’s a senior or higher-level executive position you’re after, two hours isn’t out of the question.
Also remember that team interviews tend to take a little longer.

What kind of reference checking can you expect? Almost always, the following will be confirmed by the company you’re applying to.

  • the reason you left the firm

  • your job responsibilities, dates of employment, title

  • what position you reported to

  • your salary at the end.

Often, these are the only facts a company will confirm to a third party, by policy, for legal reasons.
Reference checking, if thorough, will also include some or all of

  • education verification

  • credit checks

  • in some cases criminal checks

  • in some cases personal references (although most companies find these useless).

The interviewer is obliged to tell you what types of reference checks are planned. You have the right to say you don’t agree to any or all.

Other reference questions often asked are

  • This is what the candidate would be doing for our organization. How do you think his/her technical skills and abilities would be a fit for the position?

  • On a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being best, how would you rank the person’s
    -  verbal communication skills
    -  written communication skills
    -  attitude and cooperation
    -  motivation
    -  initiative
    -  reliability — punctuality, worked to deadlines
    -  ease of management
    -  independence
    -  teamwork
    -  curiosity
    -  creativity
    -  handling of conflict
    -  handling of stress?

Also often asked are

  • Was there a pattern of performance traits, either positive or negative, that were consistently portrayed in his/her performance reviews, and can you share them with me?

  • What were two of the employee’s strongest contributions or accomplishments?

  • Have you any other information about this candidate that would be helpful to us in making our hiring decision?

  • On a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being strongly agree and 1 being strongly disagree, would you rehire this person if there was a suitable opening in your firm?

Some companies will only give factual answers to these questions. Some will refuse to answer any opinion questions, for legal liability reasons.

Also, be aware: you may be asked to sign a legal release form allowing the company to check your credit, for a criminal record, in some cases to do drug testing.

Ever thought it would be a great idea to influence your references, to make sure they put your best foot forward? That could backfire.

Here are few things to consider when listing references.

Always ask permission to use a reference, prior to including contact information or something he or she said about you.

Give the reference an idea of the skill/experience sets in the job being applied for.

  • Do not be pushy about what you want your references to say. Example — don’t tell a reference to expound on responsibilities you did not actually have. Anyone with any sense of propriety will refuse — and you’ll damage your own credibility by asking.

  • Expect that your reference will offer positive things — and areas for improvement. A good reference will be fair but honest.

  • References must be mindful of their employers’ exposure to liability when they provide references. Their references are normally considered their companies’ references.

  • In the same way you keep your resumé up to date throughout your career, keep your references list up to date. And make sure you record your references from a particular company on the detailed employer sheet you maintain in your detailed resumé.
    After all this, how do employers they actually choose? Usually they prepare a ranking sheet, sometimes with weighted rankings.

  • Technical qualifications of the person are ranked. Usually scores are highest here, if the selection process has been effective.

  • Job experience is also ranked.

  • Soft skills are ranked. This is a harder ranking for the person to make, as it is much more subject to personal judgment than a technical skills assessment or a job experience assessment.

  • Reference results significantly influence the rankings for each of the above.

  • If personality or other tests or assignments have been administered, their results are also factored in.

  • Your immediate availability — or lack thereof — might be a driving factor for selection.

  • Points are tallied and sometimes compared to intuitive rankings by each of the interviewers.

  • Companies sometimes use ranking teams if the same people are involved in every interview. Likely they each rank separately and compare.

  • If results are really close between a couple of candidates, sometimes they are asked to return more interviewing, usually with a different person all together.

  • Another common way of selecting between two strong candidates might be to go with the immediate boss’s choice. He or she is probably the best judge of fit.

  • You’re a big investment. To train you takes, on average, a minimum of one times your annual salary. To replace you takes an average cost of 1.5 to two times your annual salary. If you are an executive, the factor is more like five times your annual salary.

  • In many studies of staff turnover throughout North America, when people do not work out in jobs, it is rarely because they lack the technical skills or specific credentials. It’s almost always because of other considerations, ones that are behavioural in nature.

Technical skills and behaviourial skills are factors in promotions. However, you are still more likely to be promoted in the long run if your behavioural skills remain strong.