Work with GOOGLE as Research Analyast. Go to Job Openings for details.

Talent Management

Sunday, September 20, 2015

How to excel in an interview - I?

           Getting through an interview is the biggest nightmare of the intelligent and the dumb alike. You all must have felt nervy before an interview at some point or the other in your career. Must have also wished that you had answered that question differently or negotiated with the situation more tactfully.

Let’s face it.

Interviews are not normal conversations. Why? Because you are there in the hot seat and the interviewer is the authority figure that has all the power to select or reject you. This is scary, isn’t it? Panic creeps in with the fear of failure. The biggest mistake that the interviewees commit is that they over prepare for an interview and that to in the manner they prepare for their written tests and exams. All this preparation seems futile after coming out of that ordeal. It’s also difficult to actually assess as what went wrong because you either never get or wrongly get a feedback on how have you performed in an interview.


I will illustrate an example of one of my acquaintances. He did his engineering from Manipal University and got through the CAT entrance and had to appear for an interview in one of the IIMs. He had prepared for everything around his curriculum and also whatever he thought he could be grilled for and while doing this he hadn’t had a good night sleep for two nights. The director of that IIM was also present in the panel of interviewers and as this acquaintance of mine entered the room and before he could ask himself to be seated, he was hurled with a bouncer from the director, “Oh! So you have graduated from Manipal University where they get admitted by giving heavy donations”. Dumb struck; he could barely lower down his back to sit on the chair. All his preparation had gone down the drain and he only wished to get over it as soon as possible. “

Here, I will discuss the practical aspects that really administer an interview and how to actually conquer them. The best thing in your favor is the fact that over 75% of the interviewers are not at all trained in the art of interviewing and generally go with the flow. In fact, as I believe it is actually in the hands of the interviewee to control that flow in their favor or against it.

“This happened with me when I had to interview this person for the post of Project Manager and the resume was forwarded to me from one of my colleague after his technical interview was successfully through. He had an experience of around 13 years in some not so big organizations and the technology he had worked upon looked matching to the position we needed to fill. I could not spend more 10 minutes with him even after trying my best of the efforts. I would remind you all that I am a person who spends at least more than half an hour even with a fresher whom I reject. There was no flow at all. He had the shortest possible answers to all my questions with a really stony face with a continuous dead man’s stare and I literally ran out of questions even before 10 minutes had passed after I had entered the room. I had no other choice than to reject him because he did not give even an iota of a reason to consider him a select. “


I have already discussed in few of my earlier posts on the art of interviewing but here I will discuss about the techniques & methods for the person on the other side of the table i.e. the interviewee.

The biggest drawback in the preparation of an aspirant who prepares for an interview to get into a college or a job is their weak hold on their own personality, skills, weaknesses, strength etc. Most of their preparations are focused on the theoretical preparations and they really miss out on developing their personalities on the ways to effectively present themselves when faced by their future employer or mentor as the case may be.

I would suggest each student and a job aspirant to really look into how do they look and sound to the outer world and what do they perceive from it as no school teaches this.

Hence, the first and foremost preparation to present yourself for sale is to know what people have been thinking and perceiving about you all these days. You can find it from all the people around you. You require to be a good listener and not argumentative to get these hard facts out of the people around you. You need to make a careful note of all the things, even the minutest or the most irrelevant of the perceptions that people have made about you. On making notes, I would like to mention here that making notes here doesn’t mean to just jot down whatever the other person vomits, but to listen to the other person carefully noting his or her expressions the crest and troughs of the sentences and the words chosen to describe you. If you want to jot down something then just note down the important points and later do make an elaborate notes while recalling all that was said about you.

It may seem and sound very ordinary or even stupid for many of you when you are preparing your day in and day out to achieve a milestone in your career but believe me, this is what will decide between a yes or a no for all your labor and hard work.

“I would like to illustrate a short example to give an insight to you. I had interviewed this one fresher, out from a renowned engineering college, whom I was very impressed with as he was doing some fabulous projects during his academics, but my boss simply rejected the guy as he negatively spoke about his college and teachers.”

In addition to the above you also have to note down all the characteristics you think you possess and achievements you had in life, irrespective of them being personal or professional. Now you have to make a repository of your positive as well as negative aspects which you and the other people have pointed out. Now point out the key skills and achievements that give boost to your resume and are relevant to what you aim for. Now elaborate on each skills and achievements in your own words with very good live examples from your life to prove them to be genuine.

Next step is to look at your weaknesses and drawbacks. Here I have a genuine suggestion for you all to work on only those weaknesses that have relevance to your profile. I would rather utilize my precious time to improve upon my strengths so that all my weaknesses seem dwarf in comparison to my strength. Weaknesses that directly affect my strengths will be worked upon automatically if I improve upon my strength. We will discuss on strengths and weaknesses elaborately in my later posts. However the greatest weakness that can affect any kind of strength is your confidence and inability to communicate well. It is now difficult for me to exactly guide you on your findings about yourself but you have to believe me that if you complete this task religiously, you will get a very good and clear insight as to who & what are you for the world and if administered wisely may also find the characteristics to work upon. As we will progress on this subject in further posts I will try to touch on all the possible aspects involving the process of interview and you may find the solution to your findings about you.

Once I had a chance to guide one of my friends in need for his interviewing skills.  All the time when I thought that I had covered every possible aspect of giving interviews tactfully and fearlessly before sending him to face another interview, he came up with a new hitch where he couldn’t manage the interview in his favor. He got successful only after 25 interviews. Hence, we will move on this topic with the flow of the dooms day or interview day.









Come with me on this new interesting journey and your comments and suggestions are always invited to fill in the loopholes in my presentation of the subject as it is universal truth that one can never know everything. 

No comments:

Post a Comment