Interview Power. Tom Washington
rel="nofollow" href="#litres_trial_promo">Personality, Enthusiasm, And Attitude Make A Big Difference
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EXCELLENT INTERVIEWING RESOURCES
SERVICES PROVIDED BY TOM WASHINGTON
Dedicated to the ones I love
This work is dedicated to Tim, Dan, Molly, and Brian.
You four are much blessed with God-given talents. May you have the determination to fully develop those talents and the wisdom to fully use them. By using your talents and remaining true to your values you will guarantee your success in life. Create a vision for yourself and do all in your power to achieve it. May you continue to seek the One who loves you and watches over you.
Acknowledgments
Many people have shared in this endeavor who deserve a great deal of thanks. As always, my first thanks must go to my wife Lois. She keeps me on target and prevents me from dispensing what would otherwise be confusing advice. Her editing and sharp-eyed proofreading have saved me many times.
Fran Mason has done an excellent job of editing Interview Power and has strengthened its readability.
I want to thank those who spent a lot of time proofreading and catching those little errors that try to slip through. I want to thank Ian Buchanan, Don and Pauline Burns, Beau Hamilton, Gary Kanter, Barbara Robertson, Suzan Schneider, and Richard Wasser.
A hearty thanks to Bob Couture for his help at a critical time.
I want to express my appreciation to Howard Figler and Dick Knowdell for their friendship and their many contributions to the field of career development.
Tony Lee of the National Business Employment Weekly has provided me with many opportunities to express my ideas. He has played a key role in creating an outstanding forum for career and job specialists around the country to share their insights with the public.
I want to thank David Roy for his cheerful attitude and his constant encouragement. He has dedicated himself to empowering people to obtain the jobs they deserve.
Chapter 1
WINNING AT INTERVIEWING
Elbert Hubbard, a nineteenth century writer, once wrote, “There’s something rare, something finer far, something more scarce than ability. It’s the ability to recognize ability.” That quote summarizes the entire interviewing process. The interviewer’s challenge is to recognize ability; your challenge is to sell yourself so thoroughly that the interviewer cannot possibly fail to recognize your ability.
This book is about learning how to sell yourself. While the typical job hunter gets sweaty palms just thinking about interviews, you can go into each interview with confidence, looking forward to the challenge that each interview presents. You’ll know how to answer all of the difficult questions and how to overcome objections. Most importantly, you’ll know how to get job offers.
You may be thinking, “I’m pretty good once I get face to face with the interviewer.” I’ll guarantee, however, that by studying this book you’ll improve your interviewing ability by at least 20%, and probably closer to 50%. Many readers will double and triple their interviewing ability. Just a 10% improvement can make the difference between being the number one choice and the number two choice. Pause for a moment and consider how you would respond to questions like:
“Tell me about yourself.”
“What are the major problems you have with coworkers?”
“What is your greatest weakness?”
“Give me an example of a time when you were unable to work out a disagreement with your boss.”
“Why should I hire you?”
“What is the biggest mistake you ever made?”
“Describe the last time you were angry.”
Those are tough questions, and to answer them you’ll need to completely understand the psychology of interviewing. You need to know what is going on in the mind of the interviewer. You need to sense the person’s hot buttons, and press them appropriately. Let’s begin.
THE INTERVIEWING SCALE
It is useful to think of interviewing as a process in which your skills, attributes, and potential will be weighed on a balance scale against those of other candidates. At the end of the interviewing cycle, whoever has the most weight on his or her side of the scale will get the job offer. During an interview, weights are continually being added or subtracted from the scale, depending on the quality of your answers. By answering each question as effectively as possible, each of your answers will carry a little more weight than the answers of those who are less prepared than you. After the final interview there will be no doubt who should get the job.
The balance scale metaphor also demonstrates the importance of always using your best example and telling it vividly. Assume that you have a great example that would demonstrate a desired skill. Describing the experience effectively would add five pounds to your side of the scale, but under the stress of the interview you’re not able to recall it. Instead, you remember an example that’s worth only three pounds. Repeatedly forgetting your best examples and substituting them with less impressive examples could easily cost you several pounds on your side of the scale. Unless your background has placed you head and shoulders above the competition, this failure to present your best examples may cost you the job offer.
INTERVIEWING PRINCIPLES
Effective interviewing is an art which can be learned, and the payoffs can be tremendous. You’ll work so hard to get each interview that it would be a shame to go into an interview unprepared. By knowing what to expect and by preparing for all of the difficult questions you’ll encounter, you will greatly enhance your chance of receiving the job offer. The following fourteen principles provide you with an overview of things you should consider before going into an interview.
1. An interview is simply an opportunity for two people to meet and determine whether an employer-employee relationship will prove beneficial to both parties.
2. Interviewing is a two-way street. You’re not begging for a job, you’re an equal.
3. The employer is actually on your side. He or she has a need and has every reason to hope you are the right person to meet it. Keep the employer on your side through attentive listening, and by detecting the employer’s real needs.
4. An objection is not a rejection, it is a request for more information. If the employer states, “You don’t have as much experience as we normally want,” he is not rejecting you. In fact, the person could be totally sold on you but for this one concern. Your task is to sell yourself and overcome that objection. You will do this by emphasizing your strengths, not by arguing.
5. Let the employer talk. You listen. The longer the employer talks at the beginning, the more you can learn about the organization. This will help you formulate positive responses.
6. Increase your chance for a second interview by dressing properly, being