Interview Panel: If we were to ask any of your colleagues, chosen at random, about you, how would they respond?

Every prospective employer would want not just a technically capable employee but also one who has interpersonal skills to get along to achieving collective purposes with other work place colleagues. Sometimes this is misconstrued by job seekers to mean that you have to be absolutely liked. In real life being absolutely liked is abnormal and therefore saying that any staff asked about yourselves will almost sing praises is out of the blue. Result focused work at times involves getting a balance between stringency in terms of company policies and specific responsibilities and enabling others to appreciate their work through collaborations and commitment. Wholesome approach to working through others may involve one having to embrace a sense of comfort in terms of the kinds of communication in which other feel more relaxed. This may as well go off depending on how far it is taken. Below are samples of responses to the question of personality perception among colleagues.

Ruth: An average person at my place of work knows me to be a joyous, outspoken and open minded person in the company. Many find me approachable and easy to talk to.

Interviewer's mindset: Then all an employee needs to do to gain favour from you is to structure an emotionally appealing excuse to be exempted from their responsibilities. Wait a minute, do you have a negative side of you.

Timothy: I am not so outspoken and many find me less approachable. Some even think that I am shy. Some fear opening up to me; may be thinking that their thoughts may sound undermining. Nevertheless, I have found myself very instrumental in staff deliberations, especially on issues where emotional inclinations may lead to lack of focus. It is common that every work place has staff cartels – those who share certain biases of preferences. Believe me – I don't belong to any.

Interviewer's mindset: Quite a strict impression. How will you impact on staff if you don't know them nor are you interested in the undercurrents? You certainly cannot make a very in cohesive work force. Try consulting – but even consulting you may be subjected to highly politicised assignments that require political manoeuvring to enable solution acceptance.

Dorothy: They know me as very exciting to interact with but at the same time very strict in terms of company policies. They do not know much about my social life and I want to keep it that way. Peers know that I talk issues and I am hardly engaged in personal conflicts. My actions and thought process are predictable and reliable.

Interviewer's mindset: You sound like you are the best thing that ever happened to your company. Staff around you may as well have developed the impression that work cannot be enjoyed and life is so hard that you have to struggle, even if it entails inhuman competition. Your actions are so predictable – you do things in only this specific way. What is unique about you? You certainly sacrifice your own self esteem as a human being to serve the company.

 In all these scenarios, none of the candidates was right or wrong. In fact, with this kind of question, there is no one answer. What exists as a result of all the right answers is the level of fit to the required organisational culture and the specific person specifications.

Questions that reflect healthy work place personalities should bear in mind the following;

a)      Everyone has at least some slight negative perception about themselves at the work place that affects both their being liked or otherwise

b)     Impressions at the work place differ in various staff categories. Where the differences may be significant make it stand out. You cannot be the same impression to all people

c)      Work place traits should focus on how you make people comfortable with or around you, how you strike a compromise between interpersonal relations and official obligations, how to be effective and pleasant or at times your role in complex situations.

In the three sample responses there are positive aspects as well as negative aspects.

INTERVIEW: KNOWING YOURSELF

Interview drills have for the past two months been one of the most intense activities that careerpitch has offered to clients. The most interesting thing about interview drills is that most clients hardly get to prepare for them as much as they do for real interviews. Besides the understanding that at the end of the drill, the consultant is supposed top provide a feedback of some sort makes the candidate not to put their level best but rather to expect to learn more. However, this is to some extent and advantage because it has enabled us to be able to see candidates for what they are in ordinary circumstances.

Of the total time spent in interview drills, or perhaps ordinary interviews 30% of the time could be saved if the candidate has invested time and effort in knowing themselves well. Many times candidates going for interviews spend more time getting to have theoretical knowledge of the target jobs as well as the target employer but fail to develop knowledge of themselves. What does knowing yourself involve? Certainly, it is about going beyond what one physically does in their jobs to what competencies their present, past or mix of jobs has established in themselves. Here are key aspects of knowing oneself.

a)      At what level are you in your career (hands on – beginner level, quality assurance – verification, initiative development, assessment, supervisory, leadership, systems and policy formulation or strategic management)?

b)     What has your career exposed you to? (special contacts, extraordinary business environment, unusual market dynamics, special euphoria – technological breakthrough, specialized systems and procedures, mixture of external and internal influences, unique and induced traits)

c)      What does your career profile present? ( professional cross pollination – mix of careers, professional due diligence, loyalty – lengthy professions, adaptability, demonstrable progression)

d)     What career alternatives do you have? (advancement in your profession, change of careers, enrichment of roles – addition of responsibilities, change of work set ups – from organisation to networks or associations)

e)     What can you not do as of now? ( new careers, level of promotion)

f)        What do you aspire to be?

g)     Does you present position and market orientation make it easy for you to get there?

Personal appreciation enables one to save time on opportunities that are not necessary to pursue as well as enable the candidate to be in charge of any interview. Candidates who have detailed personal appreciation do not just apply for any position. They may get into an interview competitively within a notice of 30 minutes. How much does your personal knowledge about yourself empower you?

CAREERPITCH – RESULT FOCUSED RESUMES AND COVER LETTERS

Sublime

UNCEREMONIOUS INTERVIEW – NOT SPYING

Faced with an interview, each career seeker seeks to showcase the best in themselves – almost confident that the prospect employer has no doubts. Surprise! They also know and are busy innovating ways to cub this overwhelming brilliance that the job seekers seem to acquire. For some positions that require some character orientation that may not be easily picked up in an interview, the prospective employer may resort to certain methods that are not conventional. In such cases, even the career seeker has no idea that they are being interviewed. Let's look at some – don't be embarrassed if it ever occurred to you.

Scenario 1

Angela has been interviewed twice for an Executive Assistant in a blue chip company. The HR Manager just called her to invite her for the last interview. In addition he followed the invitation with an email. Angela just failed the interview. She gave the prospect employer a short cut to short listing. What did she do? She has been highlighting due diligence as one of her outstanding competencies but on this case she did not even acknowledge the email. The interview still stands but she will take it as a formality.

Scenario 2

While in one of the last sessions of interviews for a Marketing Manager, Gilbert agreed to be taken for lunch by the Managing Director. During the lunch meeting, Gilbert embarrassed himself by the number of people he was struggling to put off to give him time with his prospect boss. At one time a young, controversially dressed lady showed up and hugged him, thereby taking over the conversation. The Managing Director did not show any disgust – but in his mind, "Gilbert is an unstructured brilliant person who has not distinguished himself using an own code of communication and choice of friends. He is everything to everybody and is a potential risk to the reputation of the company. He would not even be comfortable as a member of the local club that the company subscribes membership to".

Scenario 3

 Faith has come out in the first round of an interview as a very humble receptionist with ability to sort out all kinds of external encounters face to face and even through telephone conversation. This day, there is a caller who is asking for a name of a member of staff that does not exist but he insists that he has just spoken to the target respondent. The argument hots up and Faith hangs the phone. He calls again and complains about the hanging of the phone and Faith gets indecent with threats. Two weeks after the call Faith, who was very optimistic of success and was initially the panelist best bet, has never been called for an interview and the position has been filled. Guess who the caller was?

Scenario 4

Adam Kent, the Managing Director of a Central African milling plant is meeting finalist candidates for the position of Business Improvement Advisor. Phillip is six minutes in the interview process with Mr Kent and all over sudden he rises up. "Phillip, I hope you do not mind me walking around during our chat – been interviewing the whole morning" he says. "Feel free to stand if you feel more comfortable that way – provided we have a conversation". Phillip then stands and the conversation goes on with Mr Kentstaring mostly out of the widow while leading on the cabinets. Ten minutes later Mr Kent says, "Do you mind if I smoke a cigarette? Do you smoke yourself? Come on, pick a stick – I smoke in my office". FYI Phillip is a smoker. What do you think the Managing Director was testing, if he was? Bear in mind, neither of the options was wrong – but the impressions were different. Also figure out the kind of responses that would portray Phillip decently - smoking or not smoking.

Impressions work really well if they are either representative of ones personal character or if they have been intensely internalized. Doing something or not, speech or silence, facial insensitivity or lack of it; all speak some language.

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SELF ORIENTATION IN A NEW JOB

In an interview process, Angie was asked a question that she has never been asked in many of the interviews she has attended before.

"If we offered you the opportunity, and gave you a chance to decide your priorities in our orientation exercise, what are the first five questions you would ask the person in charge of your orientation?"

Perhaps this is one question that she was not ready for and most likely her performance was dismal at this .it is reasonable under very competitive circumstances for employers to expect that new recruits pick out reasonably fast in their service delivery. At any cost the investment in new staff training and orientation should be minimal and where possible the new staff should gather the necessary information while undertaking the assignments. This is perhaps many employers in advertising for jobs tend to place emphasis on the fact that the appropriate candidate has to have good knowledge of their sector. In very structured set ups, the employer would even expect the new staff to be able to navigate their own learning process – identify the required knowledge for effective performance of their responsibilities.

Managerial position should prioritize on aspects like strategic orientation (mission, vision, and values), structural design and core processes. Specialized marketers would also prioritize on aspects like strategic orientation (mission, vision, and values), product competitive edge, market segmentation, market share and current performance. Operations management candidates may need to explore issues like capacities, lead times, unit costs, resource allocation etc.

Other than identifying what information is priority in ones area, it is important also to be able to figure out (may be not in technical detail) the kind of briefing or training that one requires to get a grasp of all this priorities and the possible sources of the information.

This is not only part of knowing oneself but also how ones personal drive fits within the prospect employer's business operational pace.

To your advantage the ability to navigate ones own orientation may be resourceful, especially in hostile situations. Ever encountered a new supervisor who does not want to freely train you? Or a work group in your new employment in which everybody seems to want to isolate you? Or perhaps a new job in which you seem to be sabotaged?

If it does not seem to come your way ordinarily, acquire it tactfully.

What constitutes your working style?

Many times we come across working environments that change our lives, inspire passion for certain work styles or reorient our strengths – yet we hardly systematically appreciate the impacts made. There are successful professional with performance track records but who cannot conceptually explain what makes them be what they are appreciated for.

Here are two samples of interview answers. What makes you the professional you are?

Answer 1:  I am an ambitious hardworking and disciplined person who makes sure that all work expectations are met. (These are more of work attributes than conceptual derivatives of experience and acquired knowledge. Your personality makes you a successful professional. You do not have consciously formed work styles).

Answer 2:  While working at DRT Pharmaceutical, I was assigned a unique team that was composed of highly specialized people. I feared handling them because I was more of a generalists than them. With time I was able to facilitate them working together without having to direct their technical delivery. From then I have acquired appreciation for facilitative management that works through empowering people to do best what they are good at. This is my characteristic working style. (You have explored only one work style that really applies to the scenario that you have explained. Does this apply to the position you are applying for?).

What have you learnt over the years or successfully applied that typifies how you choose to handle you professions? What exactly apart from your personality?

COLD CALLING – DODGING THE BARRIER (SAMPLE CALLS)

Too Blunt -  Less Styled

Caller 1;            Hallo, can I talk to the Human Resources Manager

Receptionist:     Hold on

(Transferring to the department Assistant)

HR Assistant: How could I help you?

Caller1: can I talk to the HR Manager?

HR Assistant: May I know who is on the line?

Caller1: I am Michael Mwangi

HR Assistant: Michael Mwangi from? (Bad English – don't mind)

Caller 1: From within Nairobi, town.

HR Assistant: Does she expect your call; or rather what is it regarding?

(Behold you have been trapped – your have to justify yourself to be connected)

Less formal Tactful and Cheerful

Caller 2;            May I talk to Andrew

HR Assistant:    May I ask the second name?

Caller 2:            Mr Andrew Mutiso, the Human Resources Manager - apologies for not being specific. I am Alice Awuor from Frewer Ltd

HR Assistant: Not at all. Hold on for Mr Mutiso

(She does not even know who she is transferring – but I guess she is charmed by this seemingly familiar sounding courteous caller)

(How he sustain this sense of comfort that he has vested in the HR Assistant is what matters)

Less formal Intimidating Caller

Caller 3;            could    Ms Monica Masinde be in or could I reach her on the cell

HR Assistant:    Let me just transfer you to her. She is in

 (Caller 3 may perhaps not be having the cell phone number for Ms Masinde. The HR Assistant has been made to have a feeling that whether she passes the call or not, the Caller will reach the target recipient. This approach is indecent and can only be complemented with very good negotiation skills)

Other Less formal opening statements

§          Nick please

§          A quick one with Walter

§          Could I pass a quick message to Bob

§          I would be please if you could squeeze me a minute with Robert. It is important.

Tactfully get over the barriers. Do not intimidate your target respondent. Make up for any inaccuracies you might have accrued to get to the target caller.

Can we see what the conversations with the target call recipients would be? NEXT

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INTERVIEW PANEL: WHY DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE YOUR CURRENT WORK PLACE?

Why do you want to leave your current work place? Your experience seems exciting from your explanations!

Susan: The main reason why I want to leave my current work place is to seek new challenges.

Comment – This is the most realistic reason that everybody knows. It is like in a certain book that all job seekers read. In certain panels, the answer is so basic that it gets some panelist sarcastically smiling.

Austin: I have often admired your company and what it does and I would want to be part of it.

Comment: a panelist would ask whether you have a purpose for yourself ar you are just merely augmenting the organisation purpose. Would you be without a purpose if the organisation did not exist. This response is traditional and was geared to impress the target employers.

Alison: I look forward to a better pay ……….

Comment: This could be the most sincere answer but would mean that a candidate has no other attachment with the company other than a better pay and the acquired competencies.

Dave: The last three years in my employment has been characterized by a lot of market activity. I must appreciate that it made me develop and exercise my abilities in product and business development. We are now relatively stable and back to routine work. At this point I feel underutilized and I would be excited to be part of your ongoing expansion programme.

Comment: With such a comment, the panelists are sure that;

a)         You are not running way from anything

b)         You are in control of your career

c)         You are know the relevance between your career and the target employers

d)         You have an objective in each work place

e)         You know the target employer, their stage in business operations and current circumstances.

CAREERPITCH – RESULT FOCUSED RESUMES AND COVER LETTERS

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WHAT IS YOUR SELLING POINT? WHY MUST WE GIVE YOU THE JOB?

Times when the employer was the only one to bring out the fit between the job seekers profiles and the position's requirements are long gone. Employment market has become very competitive that job seekers have to study advertised jobs against their own profiles and establish the link in order to use the same in tailoring their resumes, cover letters and even interview predisposition.

It is needless to condition your personality and preparation to gear towards the position being advertised while your resume is geared towards the position that you through you really wanted two years ago. It is quite easy to spot a candidate who has a complete disconnect with the content of their resumes. Very professional resumes have summaries of ones own profile, career track, developed competencies and overview of experience. The order of importance; or style of highlighting competencies should reflect how you want the potential employer to see you or perhaps what you really want to catch the eyes of your prospect employer. In order to redefine and give focus to what your selling point is the following questions should help one set their own minds and review their resumes and cover letters.

What is the tendency of your profession? What is your profession? Many people who change careers find themselves at the challenge of convincing their prospective employers that they have competencies of performing the new tasks; or that in spite of having a mixed profession, they still have abilities to specialize back to one of the professions they have practiced for a shorter period; or that the mix of their background job titles adds value to their potential results delivery in the target specialized profession.

What other skills do you have other than your core skills and competencies? Such would include institutional coordination, project management, strategic or operational planning, people management, structured problem solving, product/service development, change management etc. Has your employment background helped you achieve this? Are they trained skills or acquired skills?

How authoritative or impactive is your present or pervious position? Such aspects include level of discretion, ability to initiate, ability to steer an initiative or lead a project, responsibility for collective performance or delegated collective role or inter group facilitative responsibility

  

How characteristic have your past employers be in terms of market leadership, market share, dynamism, and change and product performance improvement?

What is your level of understanding of your sector of profession? Do you know beyond your responsibility? Examples of relevant knowledge may include Organizational Integration, other departmental roles and activities, organisation's strategic purpose and market position, industry challenges and current developments

 What competencies reflect in your mind set? Result orientation, quality consciousness, due diligence, improvement drive, sustainability conscious, customer focus, business acumen, cost benefit mindset etc.

How does your training connect with your previous and target positions?

Can you prove all these?

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What Disappoints Interviewers in Good Candidates?

“I was so confident that I had the won the job. One of the panelists even had a slip of the tongue and mentioned things that suggested my orientation programme”. This is what Robert said in disappointment after he read his regret letter.

The reason that many ask is what else can fail me in an interview in which I am sure to have performed exceptionally well? Here are some sample reasons.

Difference is the work style priority – being overly structured than result oriented or otherwise. The balance between how systematic or bureaucratic one is determines suitability for employer expectation.

Failing to have a personal agenda – wanting to be given a job is different from targeting to acquire certain skills and competencies in a given job.

Lack of Self Assessment – when one lacks a personal assessment of themselves, they have no ability to use the job opportunity to acquire the scope of personal development.

Contrast Between Presentations – when the resume and cover letter give a better impression of yourself than your actual self during an interview, a prospect employer may suspect misrepresentation. If otherwise is the case, you may be deemed a good prospect who has no ability to present themselves effectively or are just unstructured or poor communicators.

Clash between priority and Rank – when you are pursuing a managerial role that requires that you work through people, yet you portray yourself to have the excitement to be hands on in delivering results, you might be perceived to be a potential micro manager or poor in delegation. Conversely, you need not project affinity to manage people when you have not exhausted perfecting your ability delivery results.

How balanced are you?

HOW TO SAY I DO NOT KNOW IN AN INTERVIEW

Not every specification on the job advert can be met by a job applicant. Gaps may include such issues as management methods, technology, case scenarios, exposure to target consumers or cultural expositions. Most of job seekers sitting on an interview are inclined to wishing away questions that most likely would expose the gaps. In many cases such aspects of a job that a job seeker does not know are evident from a resume or cover letter – yet one is called for an interview. What does an employer expect when they call a job seeker for an interview yet they know s/he has not being exposed to ISO systems, for instance? A comedy session? Not exactly. Many times scope sells – you can succeed if your mindset points towards reasonable scope of fast adaptability, learning and cross integration.

Here are few examples of I do not know scenario.

Scenario 1

Interview Panel:   Have you worked in an environment where 360 degrees performance management is being carried out?

George: Certainly with the dynamics in the perspective of effective work place performance, it becomes very important that performance appraisal is taken away from just the mere supervisory assessment to include peer and juniors perspective – which is the essence of 360 degree performance management feedback. I have not worked in a set up of 360 degree feedback but certainly it would be quite exciting for me.

Comment: George has taken an advantage of this question to explain what he knows about the subject matter. He has done this to an extent one would be tempted to think that he will at last say that he has the exposure. His closing line is a contrast of his educative observation and his seemingly genuine eagerness to have the exposure has diluted his being not exposed.

Scenario 2

Interview Panel:   How much do you know about mechanized wood cutting?

Gerald: As you know I come from the informal set up where most of the furniture operations are manual. I have very outstanding outcome with woodwork geometry – sorry to compliment myself. Perhaps use of machinery will underutilize my trait. All the same I am able to triple my capacity at a much improved quality standard.

Comment: Gerald has taken the approach of detailing his otherwise capabilities and therefore challenged the panelist to view his background to be more valuable. He has actual made the machine usage to look so aesthetic and therefore not as complicated as the panelist want to make it. This trade off can be dangerous to an emotional panel. They may feel undermined by the impression in his voice that machinery application is no big deal. Sales and marketing persons can apply this leverage method without any risk. For instance a sales candidate may make a statement like, "Amidst the then existing controversy about the applicability of private security and investigation services, I managed to create big business out and tripled the company clientele. I suppose machinery sales may offer no significant challenge as such.  

Scenario 3

Interview Panel:   You have not worked with researchers and scientists. Have you?

Christine: They know me as a highly outgoing administrative secretary in the company capable of working with any departmental heads without difficulty – perhaps even the hardest to deal with (every company has at least a few). They will often assign me to departments that are undergoing very drastic changes so that I can deal with complex interactions and coordinate highly technical experts – consultants, investment bankers etc. This is perhaps one of my underlying aspirations for this position. I have not dealt with researchers and scientists in particular, but I can – with no difficulty.

Comment: "Dare not think your situation is the most complex". This is what Christine is communicating. "I have developed equivalent competencies from my industry or current line of business". What will a technical panelist feel? Embarrassed, enlightened?  Perhaps they will get the mixed feeling that Christine knows the complexity of the interactions they are examining beyond the mere job titles. Alternatively they may begin to think that Christine is well informed and she knows what to expect.

For every job application that you make to which you can identify a gap in your competencies;

·       Dig deeper into the knowledge about what you are short of

·       Try to structure an explanation about the subject matter in a manner that it may show you have the knowledge but only lack hands on exposure

·       Find a similar competence that you already have that can enable you to get over your weaknesses faster or better

·       Structure your presentations in such ways that they display what you have first and then declare what you do not last

·       Be brief and comprehensive.