Given all that we know from our past experiences, do we really think we’ll manage to ace the interview and get the job?
Now we tend to think that we know exactly what the interviewer is going to ask and what our responses will be. Some of us may have even taken classes on how to perfect our interviewing techniques. Most of the time there is a structured list of information (which includes the questions and answers) that have to be established in the 30 to 60-minute block set aside in an interviewer’s schedule to find out whether or not you will be a perfect candidate for the position they’re looking for.
As my explanations go, I tend to be straightforward with my information. Feeding the interviewer exactly what they want to hear, but staying true to my actual skill set and knowledge. I watch them scribble down phrases or words that mean nothing to me, but everything to them. Among the silence of the conversation I wonder if what I’m saying to them and what they’re writing down will be enough information to differentiate myself from someone else in regards to the available position in the long run.
This past August I had a customer service interview with Yahoo. Everyone who talked me into applying said this was a great move for me. Two and a half part-time jobs just wasn’t cutting it anymore, and I was getting desperate for a full-time gig. I thought, why not, I could at least say that I tried.
I only had a small idea of what I didn’t want to do in the work place and customer service was in the grey area. When I had explained that I never really had too much customer service background, as I saw it, to the interviewer, he didn’t seem impressed with me. I fed the interviewer exactly what I thought they wanted to hear as confidently as I could, but who was I kidding? It was obvious I didn’t want know what I was talking about and I was pulling examples out of thin air. The interviewer’s face remained stoic through my explanations. He jotted down a few notes and then left the room. Another gentleman came into the room after a while. He ended up flipping back and forth between his packet of questions when talking with me. His face also remained emotionless. After our Q&A, he scribbled down some notes and then left.
I really didn’t know how this interview went. Months later I received an e-mail that I did not match the qualifications that the job needed. My experience ended up being two-fold though: One, the cookie-cutter answers that I fed the interviewer did not manage to impress them; and two, I wasn’t one hundred percent invested in working in customer service; so it must have shown through in my explanations.
So what if an interview is less structured (and that’s saying the previous example was more structured), without having a standard list of questions to answer, how do you handle the situation?
I went in for an interview with Construction Personnel Group, Inc. a few weeks after the one with Yahoo. I’ve been through many interviews in the past, and this one seemed no different. I was greeted by someone and then escorted to the conference room in the back of the house.
Minutes later the boss/owner of the company introduced himself to me and sat across from me holding my cover letter in front of him. He asked me to tell him about myself. I went through an unintentional rehearsed script while talking to him, nearly giving him word-for-word from my cover letter as I normally did in this type of situation. Now, unlike other interviewers before him, he didn’t write anything down. He only tried to read my face and body language. Though I didn’t seem to be giving him anything for him to gage me on. He proceeded to ask me how I was the words I described myself. I explained how I was each of the adjectives as mentioned in my cover letter, by using specific examples and then he seemed satisfied by what I had to say.
About a week later I got a call from Squarefoot for a second interview. I went in, this time with even more eagerness and anticipation as to what will happen afterward. It may have been more informal – by sitting with someone who worked there versus in the conference room with the boss – but I wasn’t sure if I should have felt excited or to never expect to hear from them again.
The first line out of the interviewer’s mouth was, “So I Googled you.” I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do and responded with, “Oh yeah, what did you find?” Of all the things the interviewer could have seen from my online presence; he mentioned my hobby and was fascinated by it. So we talked about that for a few minutes. Perhaps it was an attempt to make me more comfortable, which it surprisingly did. It was something that I was NOT expecting! It was so unlike all of the other interview statements that could have been said so I rolled with it the best I could.
Within this additional conversation though, it was brought to my attention that this employer, for the position I was applying for specifically, was being interviewed for personality. Now, how the heck was I supposed to react knowing that they wanted to know me? Not just know me and my work ethic, but the real me that couldn’t be seen on the face of the resume that I provided.
I’d like to think that I have wowed some employers by my skill set, or least by what I can say I can do in an interview. I have always found it obnoxious that employers have to believe what you’re telling them because they can’t ever see your work ethic for themselves until you’re already hired, and if you sound too perfect during the interview, then they think you’re lying.
Well, I have been working with Squarefoot for quite a few months now and I now know where their interviewing tactics came from. This was definitely a new experience for me since I tend to open up more as I work with people than in the initial interview or meeting. So what I can say for certain is that I will not forget this experience and will use such “strategies” of showing my persona rather than the skills-based self in the future.
Just because you may be super prepared for a standard list of interview questions, how prepared are you really? What if there are no standardized questions? What if the interviewer asks you to describe yourself? What makes you stand apart from others? You may have taken classes on how to perfect your interviewing technique by feeding the person only the information you want them to hear, but is that truly enough? What I can definitely say is that regardless of the position you’re applying for, once you go into the interview you should be yourself. Do not allow yourself to fall into a rehearsed script of what your skill set is. Let your true personality show through and not just rely on the information you have on your resume. This way you set yourself apart from others and who knows, you may even get the job because you followed this example!
~Jaclyn Eckel