Phoning It In

One way to find out what skills that job seekers need is to participate in the process yourself. I have had several phone interviews over the past couple of weeks and have learned a lot from these experiences.  The first thing that strikes me is that they were each stylistically different.  One of the interviews was more of a monologue on the part of the interviewer who went to great length to describe the program and goals.  There was some discussion that was along the lines of some of the immediate tasks that I might take on for the job.

A second phone interview had a single interviewer who was simply doing screening.  Was I still interested? Did I understand the job?  Was the proposed salary OK?  The third type of interview is the one that I have the most familiarity with.  A lead interviewer is joined by several other people in the organization.  They each usually ask one question and they ask for your questions at the end.

One of these team interviews was unusual in that the interviewers were very direct in their expectations. Another one was more genial in that they were trying to get vet me but also sell me on their organization.

Some of the takeaways I have from these experiences:  First of all, as career coaches always say, you have to be prepared. I was over prepared for most of these and knew that I would not get to show everything that I knew but it gave me confidence that I was ready.  One really good question they asked, was my most significant accomplishment in the past year --- I was not ready for that but it's a good example of how in most interviews you get questions you were not expecting.  That question is also good because it has made me reflect on that very thing.

I made the effort to sound confident and knowledgeable.  I was in a location that did not have a lot of background noise and had a good connection.  Doing some research on these organizations ahead of time gave me some good ideas for questions to ask.   I also based some questions on what's current in the field.  For example, career services are under increasing pressure to provide data on outcomes.  Some of my questions revolved around how that looks or the expectations for how that might look for the given organization.

The test of whether any of this pays off is whether I get invited to interview on-site.  I anticipate those experiences will be a bit more of a challenge.

Interview Prep and Being Quick on Your Feet

I had an onsite interview that followed a phone interview by a couple of days.  The interview was interesting in that during the phone interview the recruiter asked me to consider and prepare to respond to 3 specific things.  One had to do with operations and logistics, a second area was about intern development and the third was coordinating an educational program.

Over the course of a couple of days, probably about 3 hours total, I formulated some responses to the areas being considered.  I actually created a PowerPoint for myself that I took into the interview, both printed and on my tablet (in case I could not get network access).

The interview itself was different in that there were very few questions asked.  Most of the time, I spent listening to the interviewers thoughts about the plans and goals for the organization.  During the course of the hour plus discussion I did get to present some of my thoughts on the three areas.  Even though I did not get to give the complete details, because of time I at least got to provide some broader thoughts and show that I was prepared.

Some take-aways from the experience:  First the preparation paid off.  I felt prepared and confident to cover the required areas.  Second, the notes I created were very helpful. As we got into the discussion and I realized we were running short on time, I was able to go to the areas that seemed most pertinent to the concerns that were articulated by the interviewer.  Second, always be ready to be quick on your feet. I had planned for the interview to be more "standardized" and to get more time to talk, but had to adjust on the fly for a different experience.  Hopefully, it was good, but I think that I did a good job on my end and I cannot control what the interviewer thinks.