As a hiring manager of newly formed and rapidly growing teams over the last decade, I’ve had an abundance of experience interviewing all levels of candidates from high schoolers seeking part-time internships and college students, through very experienced professionals and candidates for management.
One principle I hold is that I am as transparent with candidates as I can be, and I offer support including interview advice, salary negotiation strategies and am always available to share honest perspectives on a candidate’s career aspirations and interview performance.
When current colleagues recommend a candidate, I almost always give them an interview, even if its just a professional courtesy. I know some people get really nervous for interviews, and I think it’s good for everyone to gain experience.
Having just recently taken over another team with gaps, I am in the process of hiring for four positions, so my schedule is heavy with interviews and recruiting efforts.
One candidate for my newest and most senior open position reached out with a couple great questions, and I enjoyed thinking about my answers and responding so much, I thought I’d share the information more broadly.
So with minimal edits, here is part of the exchange with this candidate:
Q: Good afternoon Laura! For my interview, do you have any pet peeves/ don’ts for interviews? Do you mind if I have notes?
A: hey [name redacted]! Notes are totally fine - shows you are prepared - I don’t mind that at all! You can also write down the question asked or jot down quick notes to organize your thoughts, if that helps you stay focused as you talk.
Good question on pet peeves / don’ts... making me think!!
I’ve had some bizarre interviews in the past, but I feel like the lessons from those should generally be obvious or common knowledge... For example, don’t decline to answer a question, and don’t criticize the interviewer for asking too many questions. Or, don’t use an example in which you broken the law or tell me that all managers are idiots. (LOL! I have some hilarious stories I can tell ya at Happy Hour some time!)
Maybe a better one is, I prefer for candidates not to repeat an example they’ve already used, so you want to have a bank of examples to pull from. I know it can be tricky because you don’t know the questions coming at you ahead of time, so its always good to have multiple examples to pull from, and then craft your response to fit the specific question. If an example that’s already been used is REALLY the best one, then instead of repeating it or referencing the earlier answer, highlight different parts of that project to answer the specific question.
Talking about projects that have no results or isn’t completed is usually a miss for me. Make sure you are using examples of things you fully completed, and you got results from them.
As IEs, my interview panel and I often talk about how we want to be efficient but with quality in our own work, and that can be demonstrated in the interview: say enough to get us excited about what you did and understand the amazing accomplishment, but don’t overexplain or ramble on once you’ve said what you want us to know.
I also think sometimes candidates don’t quite give me what I’m looking for in the answer, so listen carefully to the competency we’re looking for, and try to craft your answer to really demonstrate that competency. If we’re asking how you communicate, for example, then use your story telling to show how you crafted and rehearsed the message carefully, and/or used multiple modes of communication and/or checked for understanding. And then the result should be something more than just basic understanding, it should be a savings or hours reduction or 20% improvement in compliance, etc.
One last funny one, and I know you won’t do this, is “word vomit.” The interview panel is made up of three really smart people, so you can’t sneak a fast one by us. Candidates who string together buzz words that amount to nonsense are easily screened out. Something like, “We were having quality defects so I did a time study, and that showed the Kanban size was miscalculated, so I fixed it by adding a SCRUM meeting to the business rhythm.” It is a real exercise for me to even come up with the kind of nonsense I’ve heard, but I have 100% heard things like that. So, maybe the lesson there is just know that you’re talking to smart people who will understand what you’re doing, so tell us that you know what you’re doing.
Hope that helps!
While some of the specifics are related to my field, Industrial Engineering, I think this advice, stemming from my experience with hundreds of interviews, some stunningly awful, and others who have wowed me (and got the offer), is great for all job applicants to consider when interviewing for any job.
_________________________________________________________________________
Love this post? Share with someone else who might love it!
And as a bonus, enjoy this mostly-right AI-generated infographic summarizing my advice.
No comments:
Post a Comment