Do not waste this valuable sales opportunity by gathering information about the job and company; such research must be done earlier. Instead, impress the interviewer with your interest in and knowledge of the job and company and with your ability to handle the job effectively and fit into the organization. With your sales objective in mind, be prepared to deliver your sales presentation and react to all questions with confidence and knowledge. Provided below are tips to help you navigate each of the interview experiences you may encounter.
Job-Interviewing Approaches
Job interviewing consists of two basic approaches: structured and unstructured. Although these approaches are often used separately, they are also combined within the same interview. In a structured interview, the interviewer tries to determine whether your background and experience qualify you for the job. The interviewer asks you a series of preplanned questions, elicits from you factual information, and records it either during or after the interview. The information thus recorded is added to your employment file and analyzed later along with your other documents.
The structured interview tends to be fast-paced and rather formal, and provides the interviewer with verification, clarification, and extension of factual information collected previously. The interviewer generally has little time to form accurate impressions of your manner, attitudes, or feelings as he or she is preoccupied with the information itself.
In the unstructured interview, the interviewer offers you ''stage center" and plays the listener's role, encouraging you to talk about yourself. Informality, free discussion, and flexibility characterize this approach. Probing questions induce you to express inner feelings, motives, and attitudes. While you provide such information, the interviewer watches you, mentally recording your appearance, mannerisms, and behavior. Acquiring impressions of your personality and behavior is the objective of this approach.
A third approach is the stress interview. Although used rarely in pure form in modern job interviewing, you may still encounter some stress techniques. In stress interviewing, the interviewer deliberately and continuously subjects you to stressful conditions during the interview. The objective is to learn about your behavior and emotional control under pressure. Some of the techniques used in stress interviewing include
- Criticism of your statements;
- Silence following your remark;
- Interrupting you in the middle of comments;
- Asking irritating questions and placing you on the defensive;
- Questioning you in rapid-fire fashion.
Often, stress conditions are unintended by the interviewer and crop up as a result of poor questioning, disorganization within the office, or other unplanned and untimely occurrences. It is difficult to know whether such conditions are intended or unintended. For your purposes, however, the immediate causes of such conditions must be considered irrelevant. The rule to follow is "to always remain calm, understanding, and gracious, as difficult as it maybe." Such personal control must be regarded favorably by the interviewer.
While most job interviews tend to be brief, running around thirty minutes, some do run as long as several hours. Similarly, while the vast majority of interviews involve only two people, the interviewer and the interviewee, other formats are occasionally used as well. You may find yourself being interviewed by two or more people at the same time or being shuffled around the company offices or plant for a series of private conversations with various ranking company personnel. It is also conceivable to find yourself at a group interview in which you and other job candidates exhibit your problem-solving discussion skills to one or more observing interviewers. And if the position is of considerable importance to the company, don't be surprised if you are asked to bring your spouse to a job interview. Also, if your interview runs for several hours, there is a chance that you will be invited for lunch in the company cafeteria or dining room, or even at a local restaurant or lounge.
As you see, there is a great deal of variety in the ways interviews proceed Some interviewers are formal, well organized, and very businesslike, while others are less formal, warm, and helpful. Some are very talkative and some reticent. Then there are the laborious note-takers, the quiet listeners, the rushed executives, and the critical probers.
Whatever interview approach you are subjected to, make certain that you keep your professional sales objective in mind. "Professional posture'* is imperative whenever talking with anyone on the interviewing team. And, to be sure, everyone you meet on the premises of the interviewing company is a member of that team. Formal members include the interviewer and others you are designated to meet with, while informal members include all other employees you happen to meet at the time of your visit.
Professional posture means positive communication in good taste. Remember, anything you say, do, or imply while on the premises of a prospective employer may be used to help your case or to hurt it. An off-color ethnic or religious joke, a casual confession or admission of some insecurity or failing, an overly casual form of behavior with a member of the interviewing team, or the acceptance of an alcoholic beverage with resulting lightheadedness will definitely be used to screen you out of the competition.
If you successfully maintain your professional posture during your job interview, members of the interviewing team may tell your interviewer, ''John, Mr. Brown had some very good ideas about the placement of the new self-service hot plate dispensers," or ”John, fine-looking chap you had here the other day. Now, if we had more like him, we would really move ahead in the industry." On the other hand, a poor professional posture may cause such remarks as ''John, I really found this guy, Dave Fullerman, more concerned with salary and social standing than with the job itself," or "You know, John, that fellow, Drury, may be an okay salesman in your book, but he really turned me off with those dumb ethnic jokes. ... I just don't like those degrading jokes, especially about my wife's people."
