Combine an interview winning resume, a strategic marketing campaign and a powerful interview presentation and you have the ingredients to orchestrate a successful career transition.
Congratulations! You’ve overcome significant statistical odds and made it to the interview stage of your career advancement campaign.
The bad news: you're marketing campaign has just begun. According to a recent survey by Office Team, prospective employers interview six candidates for a job opening.
The great news: you’ve been awarded a golden opportunity to distinguish yourself from six worthy candidates. Preparation is critical. Following is an outline of four specific areas for you to master in order to capitalize on the opportunity you’ve been awarded.
This article will focus exclusively on the category - Know Yourself.
Do you have a three to five minute “infomercial’ that answers the question, Tell me a little about yourself?” If the interview process launches with this question, you need to have a clear, crisp and intriguing presentation to quickly walk the hiring authority through the progression of your career, academic preparation and key career accomplishments that are specifically related to the position at hand. In other words, you are providing the listener(s) with reasons to see you as a viable solution to their need.
Ask not what the company can do for you. Ask (or, in other words, answer) what you can do for the company. While communicating your accomplishments, describe to the hiring authority how you have saved time, improved sales/revenues, reduced costs or expenses, enhanced communications or workflow, solved or taken proactive steps to prevent organizational problems.
Take the time to evaluate your strengths, script them, rehearse, fine tune, and rehearse again. Delivering a well-prepared infomercial with ease, grace and confidence is the first step toward catapulting you to the top of the candidate pool.
Now that you’ve completed phase one, let’s talk about the ‘greatest weakness’ question. The most powerful answer you can deliver will provide the interviewer with a legitimate former weakness that you corrected, what prompted your awareness of the weakness, what steps you took to resolve, and how that corrective action benefited your employer. The strategy is to address the question without raising any red flags.
Following is a representative answer to “What is your greatest weakness?”
“In my previous position, I was skilled in navigating MS Word and Excel. However, my manager asked me to produce a new monthly report. Reflecting on her request, I realized our current tracking systems wouldn’t generate the most efficient documentation. I spoke with our IT department and learned that Access software would produce what she was looking for. I asked IT to begin designing the structure to support our mission while I completed a fast-track evening training program. Ultimately, I picked up a new skill, my manager received a monthly report that exceeded her expectations, and it was delivered in the most time efficient manner.”
Yes, it is a rule. All interviewers are compelled to close the interview with "Do you have any questions?" Of course you do. That’s a rule too.
Here are a couple of questions that demonstrate your genuine interest in learning more about the employer’s needs while providing you with insight that will allow you to address them in follow-up interviews.
"What were my predecessor’s greatest strengths in this role?"
"If you were able to add two additional strengths to her qualifications, what would they be?"
"What are the top two priorities that need to be addressed when I come on board?"
Your sole mission is to secure the job offer. Your departing words should be along the lines of:
“I am genuinely interested in pursuing this opportunity. What is the next step in your decision-making process and what is your expected time frame?”
Cleveland Jewish News 03/2006