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MEGA - Jobs, Resumes, Interviews

I have a job interview in about six hours.

I hope to hell it's not another stab-me-repeatedly-in-the-eyeball situational interview. I'm sick of giving bullshit answers to scripted questions. Ask me relevant, practical questions and FFS, know the job well enough to answer my questions. Better yet, talk up the job in a confident way. I want to work for you, remember?

If I have to sit through another interview, with some outsourced "agency" (because the employer can't be arsed to suss their own staff) or worse, a clueless HR type, I will pick up my portfolio and leave.

That said, wish me luck. It's good money.
 
Complete 30 question written exam.

No employer - just a test

WTF is wrong with employers these days?
 
Kyk said:
WTF is wrong with employers these days?
Click to expand...

IMO, it SUCKS to interview people. Employers don't want to waste their time with a bunch of morons; using a test will weed out the people they didn't want to talk to anyway.

I have been doing interviews all day today for my replacement while I'm on maternity leave. We do a phone interview first to eliminate the people we don't even want to bring in, and then when they come in they do an aptitude test and talk to three people here at the company who they'd be working with/for. It's tedious and time-consuming.
 
interviewing people does indeed suck. i'd rather give a photoshop/flash test to prospective employees first and then interview the ones who did well.
 
I think stillbeing gave AWESOME advice. I have been on a lot of interviews, and the majority of them asked the "weakness" question. I always answer with something that sounds more positive than negative.

I also always bring in a professional looking leather binder, and have questions already written down for when they ask if you have any. I feel it makes you look interested if you jot down a few notes when they're describing the position, and it also keeps me from looking fidgety.

Make sure you do all the silly requirements like using top quality paper for your resume, checking that the watermark is right side up (if there is one), and send a thank you / follow up letter as soon as possible. And ask the person doing the interview for his/her card, so you get the title and spelling correct ;)
 
Good luck Kyk.

Situational interviewing actually has the best predictive validity of all recruitment techniques. (e.g. if you look at the people who were hired using technique x, and look at their actually performance on the job, situational interviewing will predict their performance better than any other method).

That said, I still hate situational interviews. And they do need to be relevant to the actual job that you'll be doing.
 
interviewing is by far the worst work task one will have to do-- unless you're doing it as a favor for someone else and the person you're interviewing will not be working for you.

then it can be fun.

if you are being interviewed by multiple people, never ever ever for a second let your guard down. guaranteed we will get together and find every possible flaw. at a certain point, you're looking for the flaws. a

s the chaff gets separated you start paying attention to the answers, and the interview is more substantial. less of "tell me about you" and "what would you do?". more of "tell me what i don't know about how to make my business better".

the situational questions... that's because HR hands us a frickin book of this crap, and while I've got a good feelin 10minutes, its expected that you'll be grilled for an hour. I need filler! I don't really care how you answer the situational, but at the same YOU SHOULD KNOW THE ANSWER. there's a "standard answer" for every question. common sense, people. don't tell me what YOU would do, tell me what the RIGHT ANSWER is. that's what those questions test: not your competency, but your fundamental body of knowledge of how things are supposed to be done even if no one does them or if there's a better way of doing them.

remember this: you can be proud of your work, but you cannot be proud of yourself. no one will mind you talking about the impact of your work, but keep the shameless self-promotion out of it. You got a high percentage score on a critical test. Great! Tell me about that! Not tell me how you did it. I don't want to hear you ramble on about your work ethic, your study plan, your test taking strategy... i don't care about you. Tell me how your high score is relevant to my business. You scored in the top 2 percentile? Cool. Tell me how people in your cohort have gone on to be leaders in their field. How many people took the test. What the average is. If your work result is exceptional, that's fine with me. I'd like to know. But keep your self-aggrandizing out of it. Let your results speak for themselves.

Do this, and all the above I've detailed, bearing in mind during an interview you are ACTING. No one expects you to "be yourself". you are expected to play the role of The Perfect Candidate. Not the role of you. you can't play that role? then i wonder if its because you don't know how. which means, you don't know how to do the job. no deal.

its not hard to interview exceptionally well. just accept the situation, don't judge it, and give me what i want. hell, you can lie for all i care. just make it a GOOD lie.
 
this has been a great thread , even if only the great variety of info/opinions. I like tha last buch of comments very much. I learned a few things too. but I would like to add one more thing that hit me the moment i woke up, which is that near the end of the interview I allow myself to relaxe a bit and become a bit more of my self, to stop bullshitting and reveal something about me, which will not be forgotten and which will show I do at least have enough pride and confidence to share something a bit out there or a bit unlike what people think they "should " say at an interview and I dont mean ACT LIKE the office manager of the brilliant British show "the Office " but something useful and and related to the job abd why my heart is in it ( and if my heart is NOT in it , I cant very well say THAT !! but i can say (why I think) my heart (could be/) is(/is going to be ) in it. Got that ? if not I will give an example , but it's not necessary. you ee what Im saying / right before I go I let em know why I am drawn toward this kind of work and I relate to an incident at a former job which was a tunring point ( my pal is an interviewer at a big corporation. he loves it when peolple bring up w/o be asked ( but during a general Q.) , specific examples from their lives . I will myself even bring it back as far a s early childhood memery and make sure it is an unforgettable event . there is one, I have told people whihc they still recall years later !!!!!!! so think about your OWN life and how it RELATES to that JOB. if you let the interviwer know the weight this direction of your life carries, they will feel like thye are getting some one who will take the job and grow with it. if you you will not , and tha you may be lazy , dont make that assumption about yrself YOU DONT KNOW . people change , people BECOME ambitious as time goes on somethimes. think of yrself as THAT kind of person. the one who deserves the job. ( if you cant maybe you should not go 4 the interview but remain w/o that job ) hope I dont sound new agey. Im not !
 
Another piece of advice is: Don't dwell on the negative, and put a positive spin on things as much as you can.

For example, one of the people I interviewed yesterday had had 4 jobs in the past two years, so I asked her why she had jumped around so much. The first three had decent explanations (seasonal jobs, layoffs, dad died) but when she got to the fourth one she went on a fifteen-minute tyrade about how it was a horrible company to work for, she couldn't stand her boss, they wouldn't even let her have a file cabinet, blah, blah, blah. For all I know, it could have been the shittiest job ever. But now, a day later, ALL I can remember from her interview is her negative attitude and bitching.
 
I created this thread a while ago to help with people interviewing. There is a list of sample questions I was given by HR before giving my first interviews. Hopefully those help :)
 
^ (meant for miss starry)

One of the most important bits of advice in this thread. Regardless of how horrible your previous job had been, leave that baggage at the door when you go to your new prospective employer. For all intents and purposes, your life has been nothing but rays of sunshine and the only reason you've left any past position is to seek further development and challenges. You are forever learning and are here now to both show what you've learnt thusfar and learn what they have to teach you. "I am not one to use the 'May I have the job!' line that is prescribed by every motivational 'Get that job!' bestseller, but I do believe that I am well qualified for this position and can offer the company my dedication, results and a loyal relationship." Some interviewers look for results in a test, some look for the human touch. It doesn't hurt to be better versed in both approaches.

Getting too attached/devoted to work as a weakness and eyecontact with the interviewer were great points, stillbeing.
 
Chrissie, that bit of advice in your link for employers to let the person being interviewed do the talking is really important, IMO. I have had a few interviews were the person interviewing me talked non-stop about the position and the company for an hour, and I barely got a couple of words in. I'm always left thinking, "how could they possibly have gotten to know me from that??" I guess the answer in those situations is to ask a lot of questions and seem interested, but it's hard to interrupt someone with questions without the risk of seeming rude. :\
 
I don't really understand why the ability to bullshit is such a great interviewing asset. Are we all applying to a psychic hotline? No? Then I'd like to the be candidate who's honest, down-to-earth and has a sense of humour. I want to be the non-abrasive guy who can get the job done without having to spin the cheese wheel.

Halfoz, no offense bud, but I wouldn't want to work for you, or anyone with your attitude. I'm not an actor; I don't rehearse lines, and I won't jump through hoops to get a job I already know I'm qualified for. Otherwise I wouldn't be sitting across from you.

Instead, I'd rather work for an employer whose priorities fall more along the lines of hiring someone who is bright, inquisitive, friendly, and most of all, not a wanky sod who lies at interviews.

But keep your star "performers" - and leave the good jobs for the rest of us.
 
miss starry said:
Chrissie, that bit of advice in your link for employers to let the person being interviewed do the talking is really important, IMO. I have had a few interviews were the person interviewing me talked non-stop about the position and the company for an hour, and I barely got a couple of words in...it's hard to interrupt someone with questions without the risk of seeming rude. :\
Click to expand...
I had an interview like this where the woman who was interviewing me talked non-stop, hardly allowing me to get a word in. (IMO, some people have a coping mechanism where the slighest bit of nerves triggers rapid-fire talking.) After the interview, she mentioned to one of my references that *I* was an unusually quiet person. This caught me off guard, since I was only trying to be polite and not interrupt her during the interview process. At any rate -- for my next interview with a compulsive talker, I will be sure to make a point of interrupting.
 
Kyk, my friend, I didn't make the system, and I don't agree with it. Its contrary to my personal beliefs. But it pays well, and I've found I can be plenty true to myself while still playing the game.

The reality, sad as it may be, is that if you want to climb the ladder past just first tier management, you have to play the game. Period. There is no other way, except to have your own business.

You can get your dander up all you want. I won't disagree with you. Its not me you don't want to work for. Actually, you'd really like working for me. i would tell you exactly what is important to me, what i expect you to do. How you do it is up to you in my organization. Deliver the results and I don't care what you do with yourself or your people-- barring some kind of questionable ethics.

Why is the cold reality so hard to deal with? its a job. its not you. your job is not who you are. the attitude i have is actually quite healthy. i don't internalize my work. i don't take the backstabbing or the politicking personally. i understand that my success at work, and neither my failures, make me a successful or failed person. my success at work is left there. who i am does not change.

we all adapt our behavior to our environment. two things: you don't generally tell your boss what you're really thinking, when you're thinking they're an asshole. its career limiting. you keep your ego out of play. secondly, you have to allow for ignorance.as i've grown in my career and achieved more, i look back and see all the foolish things i've done or said out of ignorance. oftentimes i realize that by simply not having acted (or reacted really) on ego, i'd have avoided a confrontation that was driven because i was ignorant of enlightening information.

in an egoist state, you might be 100% convinced of your correctness. you might be papally infallible in your holiness. you might be so sworn to defend right from wrong that you take a stand. and since this isn't the movies, more often than not, your "right" is wrong. but you only learn it later. or really, yor "right" is ambiguous. and the "wrong" is misunderstood.

is there no truth to that?

because i think that's where you're coming from. you think i'm "wrong"? can you allow yourself to consider if i'm right? or can you allow yourself to consider that you may simply not be in a position to judge my statement as truly, unequivocally right or wrong? and therefore, perhaps your sense of "right"-- which only stands in opposition to your perception of my "wrong"-- isn't so cut and dried?

if i am right, and this really is how it is, and you through divine intervention are informed you will learn this lesson in 15 years, but regardless its true, would you be able to cede your attachment to righteousness, shelve your ego, and change your opinion?

ultimately i think this perspective i speak from has gotten me to that point: the ability consider a position without the influence of ego.

and that's been part and parcel of dealing with the reality of the business world, as above.

but you're right, even so, that doesn't make my perspective the only perspective. live as you choose to live. you won't go wrong that way.
 
Those are some deep thoughts for a member of the bureaucracy. I sincerely hope you keep your mind that open when interviewing.

Then we'll both be happy.
 
Halfoz: some very interesting posts, and you write damn well.

That said, you wouldn't get me working for you. Why?

"(i'm not even listening to you during the interview, but if you do ok, i might listen to whoever interviews you on round 2, and that's key: i trust my friends, but i could care less about you):"

Why would I want to work for someone who sits through an interview without showing any interest in me? He's wasting his time, and he's wasting mine. Mine I can live, but why work for someone who sits through interviews when he doesn't want to be there? Why isn't he doing something more productive?

"(its ok to appear the sycophant in the interview. i want to know that you can suppress your own opinion for mine, the better one. this, btw, is a KEY skill to corporate success".

I'm assuming some hyperbole, but even so: ever heard of groupthink? It's why organisations/groups fail, man :).

Also, you have to be offering the interviewee something. I don't know, maybe the job market's tougher where you are, but where I am the employer better be explaining what he can do to help advance my career, and what the benefits to me from working there are. Because I've got plenty of other options. (Besides which, even if there are heaps of people out there to replace someone if they leave, keeping your employees happy is good business sense).

On the situational: you need to be asking the right questions for the job (e.g. for the last job I applied for it's "tell me about a project that you managed or contributed to", so I talk 'em through a project and who we involved and how we overcame problems. OK, there's sort of a generic answer, but I had to make it relevant to actual experience). And really and truly, if done right they do give you better results than informal interviews (because in informal interviews, the interviewers go with their hunches, and frankly, most people don't have good hunches. Been shown over and over again. Of course, you could be one of the exceptions :)).

But as I say, I did enjoy your posts and I certainly appreciate reading the perspective of an interviewer :)
 
^ Ditto - An interviewer's perspective sure beats a meaningless rejection letter
 
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