Contrary to general belief, it is the executive or supervisor with a choice position to fill who is on the most uncomfortable spot. He has to be many things at the same time. He has to play the welcoming host, because the interview takes place in his office, but he can't be sure if he is greeting a guest or meeting an adversary.
He has to be the boss, because he has the power to say "Yes," or "No," fateful words that may dash the applicant's hopes or brighten his whole future, but at the same time he has to subordinate himself to the applicant, thereby encouraging the applicant to talk more freely about himself and supply such other information as the executive needs.
He has to "sell" the position that is open without committing himself to buy the talent that is being offered for sale. By the time he has played half-dozen roles- in fifteen minutes-host, boss, inquisitor, expositor, encourager, and psychologist, changing hats each time like a quick-change artist, he has had it. And all the time he has had to maintain that air of pleasant good-fellowship demanded of executives while mentally striving to reach that coolly impartial decision that makes or breaks the applicant.
Small wonder that for several years many executives have preferred to let intelligence and aptitude tests weed out their applicants for them. If the results weren't always good, at least it spared them the ordeal of passing judgment on fellow creatures. As one executive, putting in words the thoughts of thousands, explained it to me, "I can buy steel and sell machinery, and drive as sharp a bargain as the next fellow, but buying a man's career- boy, that's something else. I feel like a slave dealer, poking a finger into a man's head to see if there's anything there."
Following the conclusive evidence produced at Columbia University in 1959, that intelligence and aptitude tests as guides to a man's future performance were "little better than guess-work," the whole trend has shifted toward the recognition of a man's achievements as the most reliable guide to selection. This program is already in effect in many leading companies. Achievement analyses select men "in;" old-time methods "weed out" applicants, until the last one remains and is "selected."
In the meantime, with their pet tests discredited, thousands of executives find themselves forced to use the old hiring gate method in filling important jobs, and they don't like it. Whatever the applicant can do to lessen the executive's discomfort, the brighter he makes his own prospects. This you can do by following the procedures detailed in the case history of Tom Strouss, and by keeping the following points in mind:
(1) Few people getting jobs paying more than $8,500 a year are employed at the first interview. So the first must be planned to lead to a second, and because the first is the hardest, it will be well to prepare yourself in advance. Get quiet within yourself; use prayer, and the recognition of God's presence. Let your mind rest for a few moments on the most peaceful scene in nature that you can recall. Boost your self-confidence by recalling your achievements and Dynamic Success Factors. Relate them to the job for which you are applying so they will be fresh in your memory.
Remember that your interviewer is more uncomfortable than you are, but don't forget he is the boss. Defer to him by returning the command of the interview to him with a question. Be alert in recognizing things that impress him favorably, and try to emphasize them. Toward the end of the interview, if he has not already suggested another executive you might see, ask if he can refer you to one who might be interested.
This is a "memory-fix" technique, linking you in your interviewer's mind with the next executive. Be sure to get the correct spelling of the executive's name and his title, but don't interrupt the interview to jot it down. The receptionist or telephone operator can supply that before you leave the building.
(2) Recognize the responsibility of your interviewer to his company and himself, and don't try to rush him into a quick decision. If a snap-judgment is called for, his safest one is, "No." But do remember to keep your best foot forward, using the technique demonstrated by Strouss, and remain at all times frank and tactful. Also remember this line from Shakespeare: "To thine own self be true and . . . thou canst not then be false to any man." Then, even if he must turn you down, your cooperative attitude will encourage him to suggest other possibilities, or leave the interview open to follow-ups.
(3) The technique of the "open-end interview" has proved invaluable, not only in keeping the door open with your interviewer-of-the-moment, but in frequently leading him to become your "salesman" for other jobs. Let's take the worst possibility-you have been turned down cold. You make a graceful recovery by open-ending your interview in this manner: "Thank you for your time, sir. I do appreciate your consideration, and I want you to know that I realize every applicant cannot fit into your organization. It's your job to tell me that I don't, and I'm grateful for the considerate way you did so. Just the same, in the course of our interview, while you came to know me well enough to realize I won't do here, is it possible that you know me well enough to know where I might fit?"
The executive has turned you down, but by expressing appreciation of his consideration instead of resentment or disappointment-that would only make him feel guilty and want him to get rid of you the faster- you have demonstrated that you are a nice guy. He doesn't like to reject nice guys.
You have given him psychological relief by easing him out of an uncomfortable situation, moving him to give you what relief he can in return. You have given him that opportunity by asking his advice-always flattering- on a likely place to try next. The chances are two to one that if he knows of such a place or places, he will help you, even going so far as to set up the interviews himself. In one such instance, a client of mine was sent directly to his second interview, where he got the job- at $2000 a year more than the job he had been shooting for.
(4) Follow up your interview with a letter of appreciation. Whether your interviewer has turned you down, or left matters in the air, or referred you to someone else, you have put him through a few uncomfortable minutes. Though there were some good things about the interview-there always are-there were also some adverse, not-so-good, or else you would have been hired. The adverse things are what the interviewer is remembering, if only to justify his action in turning you down or stalling.
Your follow-up letter, which is really a thank-you note few executives get from job seekers, and therefore appreciate all the more, should also contain a condensation of the good things you got out of the interview. Not only does this make him feel good for having done you some good, but your letter, refreshing his memory with the more constructive parts of your conversation, serves to supplant with positive thoughts whatever negative thoughts were raised at your interview. In that mood he may begin to feel that possibly he had been a little hasty in reaching his first judgment.
Here is what we advise our clients on this form of letter-writing: Immediately, after your interview, write down a thorough analysis of what was said, both good and bad. Then, since you can't profit from your mistakes, or the bad points, throw them out. Concentrate on what seemed to be of most interest to your interviewer. In the light of hind-sight, you should be able to find several things you said well but which you could have stated better, and you may be able to find one or two strong points that you now recognize to be of special interest to your interviewer that you failed to mention at all. Above all, get down in writing the names, correctly spelled, and titles, of all the executives mentioned during the interview who might have some influence on your future.
He got the job! Yet when he came to me after the interview, he was ready to call it quits. It had been particularly discouraging, the result of a well-meant lead by a contact who hadn't bothered to fill himself in with the details. My client went fully prepared, only to discover he was applying at the right company for the wrong job. "Boy, what a jerk they must think I am at that place now," he said to me.
Maybe so, but his follow-up letter made a friend out of the executive who had been compelled to turn him down, and as a friend he was able to steer my client to the job he might never have heard about.
Circumstances alter factors, but in general you can be sure of a favorable response if your letter shows solid interest in your interviewer and the company he represents, and specifically when the letter reveals that you were attentive enough during the interview to recognize your interviewer's personal fields of interest. By not hitting him again for the job on which he had to turn you down, you have relieved his conscience, and by recalling the name of an associate who might have such a job, you have moved him to become your salesman. And by adding some factors overlooked in the first interview, you have discounted the negative effects produced on that occasion, replacing them with a fresh line of positive thoughts.
(5) In thinking about a step upward, do not confuse the size of the company with the size of the opportunity. It is true that a mediocre man can remain unnoticed in a large company, and even get raises from year to year by virtue of seniority, but the man content with that vegetable type of progress is neither your concern nor mine. It is also true that a well-qualified man can often be recognized quicker in a small concern than in a large one, but that is not too satisfactory, either. Is he really the big frog, he wonders, or is it the pond that's too small? There are some six million companies in the United States, ranging from the crossroads store to General Motors and similar giants. If the jobs were shared equally amongst them, they would average ten employees each. As it is, a handful of giants employ more than 100,000 persons each, and only some 25,000 companies employ more than 1,000 men and women each. Thus, for all the emphasis on the "corporation man," and the "government or civil service man," it is clear that more people find success in small companies than in large.
I prefer to put it this way. If you want to make a habit of success, you will not be concerned with the protection a large company has to offer the man of mediocre talents, nor will you be content with being the big frog if your pond is a puddle. Static security, big frog or polliwog, can produce only stagnation and rut employment. To take advantage of change and progress, to plan to succeed steadily and excitingly, is not a matter of company size but of personal ambition.
