Jul 26, 2010
Jan 13, 2010
Seven Ways to Flunk a Job Interview
You don’t need interview advice, right? After all, you’ve got stellar credentials and years — maybe even decades — of work experience. To be completely honest, you’re actually overqualified for the job. In fact, you shouldn’t even have to interview.
Stop right there! In this age of shrinking workforces and shuttering businesses, you’ve also got plenty of equally qualified company. And when was the last time you interviewed? Chances are, those skills could use a little polish. Fear not. But make sure you don’t throw yourself out of the race by committing one of these common — and fatal — faux pas.
Mistake #1: Drop your guard in front of “the help.”
Interviewing is stressful. Sometimes you just want to explode. But don’t. At least not in front of anyone who could influence the hiring decision.
Ron Panaggio, regional HR manager for security systems provider SimplexGrinnell recalls one candidate who took himself out of the running when he thought no one was looking. After meeting with Mr. X, a strong contender, Panaggio, who was then working for Emery Worldwide in New York, asked the receptionist who greeted the candidate to share her impressions. Turns out, Mr. X had launched into a profanity-laced tirade about the company’s lack of visitor parking spaces.
Panaggio notes that although the guy may have had a point — the parking situation wasn’t ideal — his delivery, and his questionable decision to attack his would-be employer set off warning signals. “If he was that critical about parking, we could only imagine how he was going to react to substantive policies that he disliked,” says Panaggio.
Employers know that job seekers interact with receptionists and other support staffers — often with their guards down. “They don’t see those people as decision makers, so they tend to be more genuine in their interactions with them,” says Panaggio. But employers routinely ask these employees for feedback. “We like to see whether the interview persona matches the unscripted persona that walks through the door,” says Panaggio. Consider that the next time you’re waiting for a tardy interviewer (who’s probably busy and making do with a reduced staff).
Mistake #2: Over share.
Candidates worried about explaining employment gaps on their resumes have been getting way too personal, says Wanda Cole-Frieman, an executive recruiter for Blue Shield of California. While she enjoys building rapport with the applicants she meets, certain topics are off-limits — or should be. They include descriptions of your medical conditions and information about your sick parents or childcare woes.
It’s not just a matter of propriety. Chatty candidates put interviewers in an awkward position when they raise issues that could identify them as members of a legally protected class. Cole-Frieman recalls that one of her colleagues was forced to contact the legal department for guidance after a candidate announced that he used marijuana for medical purposes. The legal drug use wasn’t a dealbreaker, but raising such issues won’t endear you to interviewers. “We’re trained to say, ‘Thanks for sharing, but Blue Shield doesn’t consider those factors in its hiring decisions,’” says Cole-Frieman.
Mistake #3: Assume your resume speaks for itself.
Your resume may have helped you get the interview, but it won’t get you hired. Susan Strayer, a career coach who also works in corporate HR for a Fortune 500 company, urges job seekers to go out of their way to connect the dots for interviewers, highlighting their work experiences with stories that clearly describe what they accomplished in each role and how it relates to the position they are seeking. Don’t assume that your interviewer is familiar with obscure acronyms and non-intuitive job titles that have no significance outside the organizations that use them.
Strayer recalls meeting with an unsuccessful candidate who breezed through his resume, touting his “A-76 experience,” a term that meant nothing to her at the time, and never pausing to explain it. Strayer says he would have been better-served by taking a moment to add, “If you’re not familiar with A-76, it’s a government mandate to ensure tasks are performed in the most cost-efficient way. My role on the A-76 project was to...”
Mistake #4: Show the interviewer how important you are.
You’ve got places to go and people to see — we get it, you’re a big deal. But when an employer has taken the time to meet with you, your undivided attention is a must. “You’d think it was a joke, but employers tell us about candidates who check voicemail and e-mail, text, and even take phone calls during the interview,” says Corinne Gregory, president of Social Smarts, a program that teaches social skills, primarily to young people.
Note to Gen-Yers (and iPhone addicts of all ages): Acing the interview is your primary mission. If you lack the impulse control to keep your hands off your phone, leave it behind.
Mistake #5: Talk the employer out of hiring you.
Especially in this tight job market, you may find yourself interviewing for positions you would ordinarily consider beneath you. That’s what happened to Russ Merbeth, now an attorney with Integra Telecom when he applied for an in-house counsel position with another company. During two days of interviews, Merbeth says he expressed his doubts about the position, which he viewed as poorly conceived and not perfectly suited to his talents. “I basically rewrote the job description for them,” he says. Not surprisingly, they hired someone else.
While Merbeth’s story ended happily — eventually — he would have been wiser to keep his options open. “Always close strong, and get the job,” he says. “You can reject it later.” It’s advice you likely won’t hear from recruiters, but then they’ve already got a job.
Mistake #6: Stalk your recruiter.
There’s a fine line between enthusiastic and desperate, and you don’t want to cross it. Human resources consultant Jessica Miller-Merrell was impressed following her interview of a VP-level candidate for a position with OfficeMax, where she worked at the time. The guy was one of two finalists for the job — until the phone calls.
Two days after the interview, Miller-Merrell was out of the office, attending an all-day training. She had forwarded her office calls to her cell phone and noticed 15 hang-ups, all from the once promising candidate. Though he finally left a message (about a matter so trivial that Miller-Merrell can’t remember its substance) the obsessive hang-ups left a negative impression on her. “Someone at this level should be able to maintain composure and professionalism at all times,” she says.
Mistake #7: Treat social media communications casually.
These days, many employment relationships begin — or end — with social media. To ensure that yours falls into the former category, heed this tale.
Stop right there! In this age of shrinking workforces and shuttering businesses, you’ve also got plenty of equally qualified company. And when was the last time you interviewed? Chances are, those skills could use a little polish. Fear not. But make sure you don’t throw yourself out of the race by committing one of these common — and fatal — faux pas.
Mistake #1: Drop your guard in front of “the help.”
Interviewing is stressful. Sometimes you just want to explode. But don’t. At least not in front of anyone who could influence the hiring decision.
Ron Panaggio, regional HR manager for security systems provider SimplexGrinnell recalls one candidate who took himself out of the running when he thought no one was looking. After meeting with Mr. X, a strong contender, Panaggio, who was then working for Emery Worldwide in New York, asked the receptionist who greeted the candidate to share her impressions. Turns out, Mr. X had launched into a profanity-laced tirade about the company’s lack of visitor parking spaces.
Panaggio notes that although the guy may have had a point — the parking situation wasn’t ideal — his delivery, and his questionable decision to attack his would-be employer set off warning signals. “If he was that critical about parking, we could only imagine how he was going to react to substantive policies that he disliked,” says Panaggio.
Employers know that job seekers interact with receptionists and other support staffers — often with their guards down. “They don’t see those people as decision makers, so they tend to be more genuine in their interactions with them,” says Panaggio. But employers routinely ask these employees for feedback. “We like to see whether the interview persona matches the unscripted persona that walks through the door,” says Panaggio. Consider that the next time you’re waiting for a tardy interviewer (who’s probably busy and making do with a reduced staff).
Mistake #2: Over share.
Candidates worried about explaining employment gaps on their resumes have been getting way too personal, says Wanda Cole-Frieman, an executive recruiter for Blue Shield of California. While she enjoys building rapport with the applicants she meets, certain topics are off-limits — or should be. They include descriptions of your medical conditions and information about your sick parents or childcare woes.
It’s not just a matter of propriety. Chatty candidates put interviewers in an awkward position when they raise issues that could identify them as members of a legally protected class. Cole-Frieman recalls that one of her colleagues was forced to contact the legal department for guidance after a candidate announced that he used marijuana for medical purposes. The legal drug use wasn’t a dealbreaker, but raising such issues won’t endear you to interviewers. “We’re trained to say, ‘Thanks for sharing, but Blue Shield doesn’t consider those factors in its hiring decisions,’” says Cole-Frieman.
Mistake #3: Assume your resume speaks for itself.
Your resume may have helped you get the interview, but it won’t get you hired. Susan Strayer, a career coach who also works in corporate HR for a Fortune 500 company, urges job seekers to go out of their way to connect the dots for interviewers, highlighting their work experiences with stories that clearly describe what they accomplished in each role and how it relates to the position they are seeking. Don’t assume that your interviewer is familiar with obscure acronyms and non-intuitive job titles that have no significance outside the organizations that use them.
Strayer recalls meeting with an unsuccessful candidate who breezed through his resume, touting his “A-76 experience,” a term that meant nothing to her at the time, and never pausing to explain it. Strayer says he would have been better-served by taking a moment to add, “If you’re not familiar with A-76, it’s a government mandate to ensure tasks are performed in the most cost-efficient way. My role on the A-76 project was to...”
Mistake #4: Show the interviewer how important you are.
You’ve got places to go and people to see — we get it, you’re a big deal. But when an employer has taken the time to meet with you, your undivided attention is a must. “You’d think it was a joke, but employers tell us about candidates who check voicemail and e-mail, text, and even take phone calls during the interview,” says Corinne Gregory, president of Social Smarts, a program that teaches social skills, primarily to young people.
Note to Gen-Yers (and iPhone addicts of all ages): Acing the interview is your primary mission. If you lack the impulse control to keep your hands off your phone, leave it behind.
Mistake #5: Talk the employer out of hiring you.
Especially in this tight job market, you may find yourself interviewing for positions you would ordinarily consider beneath you. That’s what happened to Russ Merbeth, now an attorney with Integra Telecom when he applied for an in-house counsel position with another company. During two days of interviews, Merbeth says he expressed his doubts about the position, which he viewed as poorly conceived and not perfectly suited to his talents. “I basically rewrote the job description for them,” he says. Not surprisingly, they hired someone else.
While Merbeth’s story ended happily — eventually — he would have been wiser to keep his options open. “Always close strong, and get the job,” he says. “You can reject it later.” It’s advice you likely won’t hear from recruiters, but then they’ve already got a job.
Mistake #6: Stalk your recruiter.
There’s a fine line between enthusiastic and desperate, and you don’t want to cross it. Human resources consultant Jessica Miller-Merrell was impressed following her interview of a VP-level candidate for a position with OfficeMax, where she worked at the time. The guy was one of two finalists for the job — until the phone calls.
Two days after the interview, Miller-Merrell was out of the office, attending an all-day training. She had forwarded her office calls to her cell phone and noticed 15 hang-ups, all from the once promising candidate. Though he finally left a message (about a matter so trivial that Miller-Merrell can’t remember its substance) the obsessive hang-ups left a negative impression on her. “Someone at this level should be able to maintain composure and professionalism at all times,” she says.
Mistake #7: Treat social media communications casually.
These days, many employment relationships begin — or end — with social media. To ensure that yours falls into the former category, heed this tale.
The HR career guide
These are people who get us our jobs, organise lucrative induction sessions, introduce us to the right mentors, address issues related to employee grievances and ensure our journey into any organisation is a smooth one. HR professionals are no longer just doing backend jobs, but are now considered active decision makers too in subjects related to business. The creativity and innovation that they bring to the table in matters concerning recruitment, the inventive approach they harbour towards people management and experiments that they conduct to ensure retention and employee motivation, are a few factors that led to the transformation of HR from being a timekeeping function to a key strategic contributor to business goals.
Several aspirants are keen on starting a career in HR as it throws many lucrative opportunities. Career analysts point out that the demand for HR jobs will increase in the future and the median annual income for careers in HR too will shoot up. However, in India, it has been observed that getting a job in the HR department is not an easy task. Also, people already in HR who are seeking out for a change find it difficult to grab a good opportunity as not many vacancies are advertised as openly as the rest.
Why is it so difficult for HR professionals to find a job for themselves? According to Sanjeev Duggal, CEO and executive director, Centum Learning Limited, “Most organisations work on an average ratio of 100:1 which means, for 100 employees, there is one HR personnel that is hired. Also, the size of the HR department depends on the culture and size of the organisation. The trend also seen these days is that of organisations resorting to technology and outsourcing HR transactions. However, in certain industry verticals like BPO, the number of HR personnel required is more because of the size of the organisation and high levels of hiring and attrition that take place.”
There are seven management functions of a human resources (HR) department: staffing, performance appraisals, compensation and benefits, training and development, employee and labour relations, safety and health and human resource research. The HRM staff in larger organisations may include human resource generalists and human resource specialists too. As the name implies, an HR generalist is routinely involved with all seven HRM functions while an HR specialist focuses his/her attention on only one of the seven responsibilities. So, has the trend changed from hiring generalist HR people to hiring specialist HR managers? “While at a middle management level, specialist skills maybe required, at top and operational levels, generalist skills are preferred. Specialist HR professionals might be in demand for a phase when that particular industry vertical is growing, but it is always the generalist professionals who are more in demand as they have the expertise of working with various industry verticals. Also, in terms of individual goals, every HR professional aspires to head the HR department of an organisation and one can only do that by being a generalist equipped with the knowledge of all HR domains,” Duggal elucidates.
According to Krishnan, these terms are used normally at the entry- and middle-levels where people do undifferentiated jobs, which are largely transactional in nature. “If you look at HR outsourcing, then certainly, it requires a certain level of specialisation. But, if you look at the bulk of jobs, about 60-70 per cent of them are in functional HR. For a person working in HR, you have to know everything. You can’t afford to be a master of just one area, as at some point, it will hamper your growth. Hence, if you are getting into an organisation, it is best to have a wide range of HR exposure,” he states.
Guruvayurappan expresses, “This goes by the maturity of the organisation. In large organisations, each sub-function of HR will have accountability for that particular vertical and it is important to have specialists in those areas, whereas in small organisations, generalists can play multiple roles within HR. For example, we created a specialist role for performance management recently in order to link the scorecard approach to Performance Management System (PMS). All that we did was move an HR generalist to own this process and groomed him/her to be a specialist in PMS,” he explains.
So, what is it that HR professionals should keep in mind in order to crack it through some good jobs? Guruvayurappan suggests, “In my opinion, before seeking an opportunity in HR, it is important for aspirants to understand the underlined purpose of this function.” Duggal advises, “HR professionals at junior levels should be open to working in various HR sub-domains and should not restrict themselves to one particular sub-domain. As they climb up the organisational ladder, they should look at some form of specialisation at the middle-level and again, generalise at a senior-level.”
So, if you were finding it difficult to crack it through that HR job, apply these tips and you are sure to land yourself a great job soon!
Several aspirants are keen on starting a career in HR as it throws many lucrative opportunities. Career analysts point out that the demand for HR jobs will increase in the future and the median annual income for careers in HR too will shoot up. However, in India, it has been observed that getting a job in the HR department is not an easy task. Also, people already in HR who are seeking out for a change find it difficult to grab a good opportunity as not many vacancies are advertised as openly as the rest.
Why is it so difficult for HR professionals to find a job for themselves? According to Sanjeev Duggal, CEO and executive director, Centum Learning Limited, “Most organisations work on an average ratio of 100:1 which means, for 100 employees, there is one HR personnel that is hired. Also, the size of the HR department depends on the culture and size of the organisation. The trend also seen these days is that of organisations resorting to technology and outsourcing HR transactions. However, in certain industry verticals like BPO, the number of HR personnel required is more because of the size of the organisation and high levels of hiring and attrition that take place.”
There are seven management functions of a human resources (HR) department: staffing, performance appraisals, compensation and benefits, training and development, employee and labour relations, safety and health and human resource research. The HRM staff in larger organisations may include human resource generalists and human resource specialists too. As the name implies, an HR generalist is routinely involved with all seven HRM functions while an HR specialist focuses his/her attention on only one of the seven responsibilities. So, has the trend changed from hiring generalist HR people to hiring specialist HR managers? “While at a middle management level, specialist skills maybe required, at top and operational levels, generalist skills are preferred. Specialist HR professionals might be in demand for a phase when that particular industry vertical is growing, but it is always the generalist professionals who are more in demand as they have the expertise of working with various industry verticals. Also, in terms of individual goals, every HR professional aspires to head the HR department of an organisation and one can only do that by being a generalist equipped with the knowledge of all HR domains,” Duggal elucidates.
According to Krishnan, these terms are used normally at the entry- and middle-levels where people do undifferentiated jobs, which are largely transactional in nature. “If you look at HR outsourcing, then certainly, it requires a certain level of specialisation. But, if you look at the bulk of jobs, about 60-70 per cent of them are in functional HR. For a person working in HR, you have to know everything. You can’t afford to be a master of just one area, as at some point, it will hamper your growth. Hence, if you are getting into an organisation, it is best to have a wide range of HR exposure,” he states.
Guruvayurappan expresses, “This goes by the maturity of the organisation. In large organisations, each sub-function of HR will have accountability for that particular vertical and it is important to have specialists in those areas, whereas in small organisations, generalists can play multiple roles within HR. For example, we created a specialist role for performance management recently in order to link the scorecard approach to Performance Management System (PMS). All that we did was move an HR generalist to own this process and groomed him/her to be a specialist in PMS,” he explains.
So, what is it that HR professionals should keep in mind in order to crack it through some good jobs? Guruvayurappan suggests, “In my opinion, before seeking an opportunity in HR, it is important for aspirants to understand the underlined purpose of this function.” Duggal advises, “HR professionals at junior levels should be open to working in various HR sub-domains and should not restrict themselves to one particular sub-domain. As they climb up the organisational ladder, they should look at some form of specialisation at the middle-level and again, generalise at a senior-level.”
So, if you were finding it difficult to crack it through that HR job, apply these tips and you are sure to land yourself a great job soon!
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