Tips: Answering 3 Uncomfortable Questions

Laura Whitelaw on the Secrets of the Job Hunt blog has a great post on How To Answer Three Uncomfortable Interview Questions:

Below are some common questions that people often feel tense about and sometimes need some coaching on how they might best answer them.

1. What are your strengths/weaknesses?
2. Why are you leaving your current position?
3. What are your salary expectations?

See the full post for all her wisdom.

Other popular NotJobs interviewing tips are:

• 3 interview questions you must answer
• 10 Ways to Ruin a Job Interview
• Handling Oddball Interview Questions

Liz on ‘10 Ways to Ruin a Job Interview’

On the YahooHotJobs site, 25-year HR veteran Liz Ryan provides some great advice on 10 job-interview gaffes to avoid.

1. Complaining about the parking or directions.
2. Bad-mouthing your previous job, manager, or company.
3. Digging into details off the bat.
4. Groveling.
5. Answering a question before you understand it.
6. Spacing out.
7. Slouching.
8. Cursing.
9. “Opening the kimono.”
10. Doing anything disgusting.

See her site for all the details.

Tip: Beware the Receptionist Test

So – you finally find the office building where your interview is going to be held. You’re interested in the company and the position, and truth be told, you really need this job. You’re a computer professional, and you want to make a great impression on your future employer.

Once you show up, you’re ready to start selling yourself, but you’re asked to wait. While you’re waiting, the receptionist has a minor tech support emergency, and she asks you for some technical help. You stand up to help the damsel in distress. But that’s when it starts going downhill.

A company in England does this as an interview test. It doesn’t go well for the candidates. Here’s one poor toad’s experience:

John was a lot less level-headed. His task should’ve been the simplest of all — the receptionist couldn’t print a document. Totally understandable when the printer is turned off and all of the lights on its display were totally dark. First, he hit Control+P, selected the printer, and clicked “OK,” and confirmed it wasn’t working. His solution? Hit Control+P harder to make sure the printer really felt it. For 20 minutes, he kept increasing the force of his typing and mouse clicks, finally pounding his fist on the desk and giving up.

John probably didn’t get the job.

One big point to remember is that your interview starts as soon as you enter the building. Companies can (and will) use every means to make sure that  you are the best qualified person for the role.

For more on avoiding the Receptionist Test, start with Jake Vinson’s article in Tales from the Interview. Then check out the commentary by Andy Lester at the Working Geek.

NotJobs: 6 Reasons You Failed the Phone Interview

Alison Green blogs at Ask a Manager, and writes as an outside voice for US News & World Report. Her recent article about phone interviews details six ways how not to get a job:

6 Reasons You Failed the Phone Interview

Alison Green

Here are some ways to quickly fail the phone interview:

1. Not displaying a grasp of what the job is all about.
2. Not asking any questions.
3. Not paying attention to tone of voice.
4. Having an overly casual manner.
5. Giving longwinded answers.
6. Missing the call.

Ms. Green has some good advice, so go see the full article. Let me add one of my own:

7. Using a Cheesy Cell Phone. Nothing enhances your interview image like a partial connection that hisses, pops and drops every third syllable. My advice is to double-check your cover, and plan to use a land-line where ever possible. Oh – and just because you can do a phone interview while walking down a busy urban street doesn’t mean you should. The honking and traffic noises will interfere with your interview.

[Yes, this has actually happened. A sales candidate did this during an interview a few years back. He tried to do have the interview standing next to a bus, and the exhaust noise drowned out his voice. He didn't get the job.]

NotJobs: Too Much Information

Last month, a woman code named “The Recruiter” started documenting some of the more interesting ways she’s seen people talk themselves out of getting hired. Her blog is called “How Not to Get a Job“. The story she published on 20 August documents an experience that many of us in the headhunting trade experience with Too Much Information. Here are the details of a candidate’s response when asked Standard Interview Question #2, “So, why did you leave your previous position?”:

He once again stopped taking his meds and one fateful day The Director announced a new buying process was going into place with a new software package. Joe took this personally, although the package was designed to make everyone’s job easier, Joe in his altered mental state threatened to get his twelve-gauge and blow The Director away (talk about shooting the messenger.)

Now the story is horrific, but what came after the story was worse. Some of you might be sympathizing with poor Joe right now, but you have to understand, he told this story, and then tried to say that ABC company fired him without cause. I remember the last line specifically, “It’s not like I could actually shoot him, the police had already taken all of my guns.”

Her experience is (unfortunately) common, and her advice is levelheaded. Don’t share too much information.

PS. Note to “The Recruiter”: Welcome to the blogosphere!

7 Tips to Blow a Job Interview

Marty M. Fahncke, Founder of Conference Call University and President of FawnKey & Associates, has a blog where he shares his perspectives. Last March, Marty was interviewing for administrative help. It wasn’t going well. So Marty jotted down a few observations.

Here are two of his seven (actually, eight) points:

7 tips to totally blow a job interview

#1 Don’t follow the instructions for submitting your resume. If they ask you to email it, fax it instead. If they ask you to send it by postal mail, it’s easier just to email it, right? Hiring managers love to hire people who can’t follow simple directions.

#3 During the interview, be sure to cut the interviewer off and start answering before he/she finishes a question. You are sure to give a 100% answer with only 50% of the question.

See the whole thing.

Times: What Not To Do at an Interview

In the United Kingdom, a CV is a resume, and “to scupper” means to sink. Though the words are different, The Times of London has an on-target article about the things candidates do to Not Get a Job. Here’s a sample:

What not to do at an interview
Sarah Campbell asks employers for their stories of job interviews that went wrong — and what the candidates should have said

The absolute disaster. “This story relates to an interview for a junior sales post,” says Mark Rhodes, the head of marketing at reed.co.uk. “The candidate’s first mistake was to turn up in a white suit.” Wanting to find out whether his credentials were better than his fashion sense, the interviewer asked a few simple questions about his CV. “The candidate started to mumble and said he couldn’t answer the questions,” Rhodes says. “When asked why this was, he said that his girlfriend had written his CV for him.” The kindly interviewer tried to put the candidate at ease by talking about the company and asking general questions. “He continued to give mumbled responses. When asked whether he was nervous, he replied that he’d only just got out of bed and hadn’t had any breakfast.” The interviewer terminated the session — after just three minutes. Unsurprisingly, this on-the-ball individual was not given the role. Rhodes points out the importance of first impressions and of knowing not only about the company that you are applying for a position with but also your own CV — and wearing a decent suit.

See the whole article for the great anecdotes.

Tips: Make A Great First Impression

Brett and Kate McKay have created a vital service for western civilization: a web site and blog dedicated to the Art of Manliness. (Don’t worry, the McKay’s suggestions are appropriate for the ladies also.) The McKays cover topics from caring for neckties to Theodore Roosevelt’s On Living The Strenuous Life.

Brett posted a great essay about how to make a great first impression in an interview:

Make Yourself Stick With These First Impression Tips
When you’re interviewing for a job, one of the keys to success is your first impression. If you’re about to go in for an interview, maybe its time to re-evaluate the first impression you give off. Do you come off as likable? Do you exude professionalism and charm?

The goal of every first impression is to stick to a person’s brain.

• Dress to impress.
• Look fit.
• Give an impressive handshake.
• Focus on speaking.
• Use the person’s name.
• Let the person know you’re listening.
• Shine the spotlight on the other person.

This is Wisdom. See the whole post for all the details. Then use them.

Also – download their free Ebook: Guide to Being A Gentleman in 2008.

Horror/Comedy Stories in Staffing!!!!!!

Over on the Recruiting & Staffing forums on the Workforce Management Magazine site, someone today resurrected an old thread about the oddest or funniest moments in staffing. Here are a few good bits:

After sending this one guy to get a urinalysis drug screen. When the report came back, the good news was it was urine; the bad – it wasn’t human.

I hate it when that happens. Then there’s the one about an interesting stress response:

I was doing group interviews. There was a gal that came in and was filling out an application. She took over an hour to fill out the app. I had my back to her and all of a sudden I heard snoring. I looked at her and with pen in hand she had fallen dead asleep on the table. I first thought she was dead!!

Then comes this one from the agency side:

A guy showed up for the interview we set @ Ford. He was meeting my manager in the lobby and then my manager would direct the candidate into Ford’s Interview room where he would leave the candidate with Ford hiring personnel. He was a Controls Engineer who knew Telemecanique (real old and out of style) very well… Ford needed these engineers to train their current Controls Engineers how to work on these new hand-me-down Telemecanique PLCs… so my guy shows up wearing a button down untucked black shirt (top 2 buttons undone so his hair was sticking out of the shirt) with his long greasy black hair (like a rock star) and a pair of jeans (oh! and a gold horn for a necklace)… my boss said when he met the guy, he told him to clean himself up a little before meeting the managers (buttoning the shirt, tucking in, fix the hair a little, etc…) …well then my manager makes the intro and leaves the candidate there with the managers for the interview. He calls me RIGHT AWAY from the parking lot and yells at me for not telling the candidate how to dress.

Well, then Ford calls that afternoon with an offer (quickest offer to this day)… they said that they couldn’t afford to lose him! Well, 2 years later, my controls engineer is now a perm employee who has won so many awards from his group, that they are sending him to MI to meet with some of the big wigs… HA!

Then there’s the ones about woman who always fell off chairs, the guy in the slipping hairpiece, and the temp in crotchless pajama bottoms.

See the whole thing.

Now Not to Get a Job: Just Ask

Here’s a new job hunting tactic: Crash the company and startle the people who work there:

I’ve just had a situation that reminds me just how silly some people can be. I’m sat here working and some chap walks up behind me and starts talking to me:

Him: “Hello mate, I’m currently studying [so and so] and looking to talk to someone.”
Me: “Excuse me?”
Him: “Can I speak to you about a job?”
Me: “I’m sorry, who are you, I don’t understand?”
Him: “I’m just walking around agencies trying to get a job.”

He’d somehow managed to get past reception, use the elevator (that requires a code to use) and walk into the office and start asking me for a job. I politely told him that I couldn’t help him, and even if I could I think he’s going about it the wrong way and I would suggest he looks at how he’s touting himself around.

I mean, if you wanted a job would you seriously walk into the office of an agency, walk up to a complete stranger (who could be anyone in any position) and ask for a job? Has anyone actually got a job like that? Or has anyone actually given a job like that?

This posting come to you from across the pond thanks to Mark Hadfield a.k.a. That Gormandizer Man. See the whole thing for the details.