In the best situations, the skills are drawn from a job description that profiles the tasks to be performed and the training needed to accomplish the tasks. In the worst situations, the hiring manager simply tells the recruiter to find a "good" accountant. In the latter case, the recruiter may not have any idea of what constitutes a "good" accountant. Even if the recruiter asks, the description may be faulty. As a consequence, he or she is less likely to find an effective match for the hiring manager.
In any case, the recruiter will normally approach this interview in much the same way he or she does the management trainee interview, which leaves you in control. However, there is one major difference; because the recruiter has a list of the qualifications he or she is looking for, he or she will ask you questions related to these qualifications. For instance, he or she may ask you how much experience you have with a particular process, or a particular type of machinery. If you don't know the answers, it is best to admit so since he or she will probably see through any attempts to cover up. However, you can also indicate that you are familiar with something similar, or that you would welcome the opportunity to learn a new skill.
The better answer is to prepare in advance for the job-specific interview. If you are applying for a position as an engineer, you should try to find out as much about the job as possible before the interview so that you can familiarize yourself with the processes used in that application at that company. If you are applying for a job as a salesperson, you should know as much as possible about the company's products and services.
One other major difference is that you can expect to go through a round-robin interview at some point. As was mentioned earlier, the recruiter does not actually select the person to be hired. All he or she does is qualify the candidate and send him or her to the hiring manager who will decide whether or not to hire him or her. The hiring manager will, in turn, send the candidate to other people to be interviewed. Let us take the case of our salesman.
The candidate has done his or her homework, qualifies for the job, and is interviewed by the sales manager. The sales manager sends the candidate to the general manager for an interview. Frequently, the candidate is scheduled for a full day of interviews. At some point, our candidate is taken out to lunch where he or she meets others who will supply more information about the specifics of the job. Once again, the danger here (aside from the general problem with round-robin interviews outlined in chapter 3) has to do with relaxing. I have personally seen people make terrible blunders at lunchtime because they believed that the lunch was more or less "off-the-record." Remember, wherever you are with a prospective employer, you are being interviewed, no matter what the setting!
A final difference between the generic and job-specific interview is that in the job-specific interview you may learn of the advantages as well as the disadvantages of the position.
As a rule, once he or she qualifies you, the management trainee recruiter tries to sell the company to you. He tells you wonderful things about the organization and describes the benefits to be gained once you become part of the team. If the job-specific recruiter knows what he or she is doing, he or she will tell you both sides of the story. It is in his or her best advantage to do so. For one thing, it will reduce the risk of people quitting soon after they are hired. For another, it will reduce the possibility of the recruiter looking as though he or she doesn't know what he or she is doing.
This is not to say that all management trainee interviewers will be deliberately evasive or dishonest. For instance, more often than not, the typical interviewer will have limits set by higher authorities concerning what he or she may tell you. Or, as frequently as not, he or she may not know the real disadvantages that you will face.
