EARLY BIRD BOOKS
FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY
LOVE TO READ?
LOVE GREAT SALES?
GET FANTASTIC DEALS ON BESTSELLING EBOOKS
DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX EVERY DAY!
RON FRY
FROM CAREER PRESS
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Career Press was founded in 1985 as a niche publisher of targeted career directories. Today, Career Press and its imprint New Page Books boast an active, strong-selling backlist of nearlya thousand titles. We have helped millions of job seekers, businesspeople, and consumers of all ages with the practical, helpful information they need. Our philosophy has remained constant since our founding: We publish the highest-quality books on topics most needed in the marketplace, written by established, credentialed, media-savvy professionals.
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.CAREERPRESS.COM
FOLLOW US:
@CareerPressInc and Facebook.com/CareerPressInc
Career Press is one of a select group of
publishing partners of Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Find a full list of our authors and
titles at www.openroadmedia.com
FOLLOW US
@OpenRoadMedia
25th Anniversary Edition
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 2016 by Ron Fry
Cover design by Howard Grossman
978-1-5040-3043-4
The Career Press, Inc.
220 West Parkway, Unit 12
Pompton Plains, NJ 07444
www.careerpress.com
Distributed by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
Introduction
You Are in Charge
Chapter One
The Interview Process
Chapter Two
Who Are You?
Chapter Three
So, Tell Me About Yourself
Chapter Four
Questions About Your Education
Chapter Five
Questions About Your Experience
Chapter Six
Questions About Core Competencies
Chapter Seven
Questions About Your Current (or Last) Job
Chapter Eight
So Why Us?
Chapter Nine
Questions About Your Personal Life
Chapter Ten
Questions to Wrap Things Up
Epilogue
I’ve Got a Secret
Index
I started writing the first edition of this book in 1989, and the parallels with that year are a little eerie.
The unemployment rate then and now is 5.3% and, then and now, has fallen steadily for two years. The 1989 economy had recovered from a 1982 recession and falling oil prices, and weathered a 1987 market crash. Our “ho-hum economy,” as the New York Times recently characterized it, is still recovering from a 2008 market crash and the Great Recession. The price of oil has fallen precipitously.
Unemployment figures and pundits paint a contrasting picture—while the job market for current or recent college grads is considered the best in a decade or more, there are 6.5 million people “working part time for economic reasons.” In other words, 6.5 million people who would prefer to work full time but can’t find a full-time job.
Whether we are in a booming economy or a recession, most of the things you need to know and do during the interview process do not really change. In the 27 years since I wrote the first edition, an ever-changing job market has morphed from a seller’s (employee-friendly) market to a buyer’s (employer-friendly) market and back again. But in good times and bad, the power this book has given interviewees—whatever their ages, skills, or qualifications—has continued to grow.
I certainly couldn’t boast of my own interviewing skills before I wrote this book. On the contrary, I had often not gotten jobs for which I was eminently qualified. So I spent quite a lot of time learning all the mistakes you could possibly make, having made each one of them—twice.
Now, as a veteran of the other side of the desk as well (I’ve hired hundreds and interviewed thousands), I can tell you that interviewing is more serious business than ever before.
Employers are looking for “self-managing” employees—people who are versatile, confident, ready and able to work with a team, and not afraid to roll up their sleeves, work long hours, and get the job done. “That’s me,” you chortle. Congratulations. But you won’t get the chance to prove yourself on the job without making it through the interview process.
There has been one significant development since the last edition of this book. According to the Wall Street Journal, hundreds of companies—including 457 of the Fortune 500—are using some form of “personality” testing that aims to correlate specific personality traits with success in a particular job. One test vendor, Infor, claims to assess more than a million candidates a month.
While tests such as Myers-Briggs and the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) were popular during the 1960s and ’70s, we are clearly in a new age that Time magazine recently noted “is being driven by a collision of two hot trends: Big Data and analytics…The result is a mostly unchallenged belief that lots of data combined with lots of analytics can optimize pretty much anything…even people. Hence, people analytics.”
You may now have to take the DISC Assessment, which will grade you in four areas—Dominance, Defiance, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. Or the Hogan Personality Inventory, which assesses five. The 16PF measures 16 “normal-range” personality traits and five “second-order” traits. The California Psychological Inventory uses 18 scales in four classes to determine what the test taker will do in specific on-the-job situations. And the Caliper Profile will assess 25 personality traits related to job performance. The winner of this personality numbers game so far is Gallup’s Clifton Strengthfinder, which measures 34 traits (but is most interested in your top five).
I know from experience that you cannot “beat” these tests. If you try to choose the answers you believe are “obviously” the ones showing your leadership, motivational, or team-building skills, you will not succeed. Since you can’t really prepare for these tests, relax and try to answer the questions honestly. Most such tests are merely trying to identify the jobs for which your “personality type” is best suited. And at most companies, they are merely one component of the interview process.
I will leave it to others to argue whether it is possible (or desirable) to accurately test for job-specific “success traits.” Whatever you believe about this new trend, it is clearly another obstacle many of you will need to hurdle.
Interviewing was never easy, and right now it is as hard as ever. Companies are taking far longer to make hiring decisions, and only after subjecting prospective employees to these tests and scheduling more and longer interviews.
But of all the tools in your professional arsenal, your ability to shine in that brief moment in time—your initial interview—can make or break your chances for a second go-around, and, ultimately, dictate whether you’re even given a shot at the job.
Like playing the piano, interviewing takes practice, and practice makes perfect. The hours of personal interviewing experience—the tragedies and the triumphs—as well as my years as an interviewer are the basis for this book. I hope to spare you many of the indignities I suffered along the way, by helping you prepare for the interview of your worst nightmares—at a comfortable remove from the interviewer’s glare.
Will you have to answer every question I’ve included? Certainly not—at least, not in a single interview. But chances are, the questions tomorrow’s interviewer doesn’t ask will be on the tip of the next interviewer’s tongue. Why? It’s a mystery.
I didn’t realize 25 years ago that I would start a competitive publishing battle to see how many interview questions could be featured in a single book. There were always more than 101 questions in my book once one considered all the variations that I listed. But the success of that first edition led to an unfortunate numbers game. Soon there was a book touting 201 questions and answers, then 301, then 500, and, in a final burst of one-upmanship, 501.
These numbers really don’t matter, especially if a single word change in one question magically transforms it into another. So please don’t count the questions in this edition or worry that you need to look at these other books to get a more “complete” list. Believe me, the ones in this book will suffice!
Most interviewers are not trying to torture you for sport. Their motive is to quickly learn enough about you to make an informed decision—should you stay or should you go? By the same token, if you know what they’re looking for, you can craft your answers accordingly (and reduce your own fear and anxiety at the same time).
I hope you’ll take it a step further and use these questions as the basis for some thoughtful self-exploration. You’ll need to be prepared to think for yourself—on your feet, not by the seat of your pants.
While it is certainly competitive, the interview process is not a competition. Rather than thinking of yourself as an athlete trying to “out-answer” the other candidates, consider an interview your chance to be an artist—to paint a portrait of the person you are, the candidate any company should like, respect…and want to hire.
Chapters 1 and 2 offer a detailed discussion of the work you need to do and the things you need to think about long before you strut into your first interview. Interviewing may not be 99 percent preparation, but it’s certainly 50 percent.
In Chapters 3 through 10, we’ll get into the meat of the book—the questions for which you must prepare and the answers most interviewers are hoping to hear. Each question is generally followed by one or more subheadings:
THUMBS UP (What’s a good answer?)
THUMBS DOWN (What’s a poor answer?)
I’ve listed the follow-up questions you should expect or variations an interviewer may substitute after many of the questions.
The questions in this book are grouped by type; they are not in some suggested order. Many of the questions in chapters 8 or 10, for example, may well be some of the first questions asked in every interview! So read the entire book and prepare for all of the questions in any order.
Despite the emphasis on “great answers,” I do not recommend rote memorization. Trotting out a staged, “textbook” answer to a question is not the point of the interview process… or of this book. It is actually more important to concentrate on the “What do they want to hear?” section after each question, to have an understanding of why the interviewer is asking a particular question and what you need to do to frame a winning answer.
The “thumbs down” after many of the questions indicate answers that will make the average interviewer cringe and the busy interviewer simply suggest you try another firm.
I’m going to assume that you have already been on enough interviews (or, if you’re a recent graduate, read enough interviewing books), to know that there are rules to follow during interviews. So I’m not going to discuss most of them here.
But there is a list of “no-no’s” that are so important, failing to avoid them can virtually doom any chance you have of securing the job before the interview even starts. Given their seriousness, I thought it prudent to remind you of them:
A key part of the interview process is preparation—researching the company, industry, and position, preparing pertinent questions, being ready to sprinkle your knowledge into the conversation. So failing to do any of this will not impress most interviewers. I have had candidates ask me what exactly my company did.
The immediate and obvious answer: Not hire them.
For many interviewers, showing up late is immediate cause for canceling the interview. It doesn’t matter that traffic backed up, your cat threw up a hairball, or you just got lost in the elevator.
Being on time is not racing down the final corridor with moments to spare. Some interviewers agree with New York Giants football coach Tom Coughlin, who declared that team members were late for meetings if they didn’t show up fifteen minutes early.
Poor grooming is a basic turnoff. Wearing so much perfume or cologne that a gasping interviewer lunges for the window isn’t recommended. Nor is wearing more makeup than a runway model, clanking along with a pocketful of change or an armload of bangles and bells, or sporting an unkempt beard (or, for some interviewers, even fashionable stubble).
Given the tube tops, sneakers, short skirts, and patterned stockings I’ve seen waltz through my door (and all on one candidate!), some of you may need to review the appropriate dress for every interview.
While women no longer need to sport a black business suit and pearls, dressing tastefully in professional apparel is still a must. And that black suit will still work in most environments.
Men should wear a white or light blue shirt, conservative suit, silk tie, and shined dress shoes.
No one should think of wearing ties that glow in the dark, T-shirts advertising anything (but especially not X-rated), or any clothes even you know are totally unprofessional.
If you lie about anything—especially where and when you worked, what you did, where and when (or even if) you attended college—you will be caught. No matter how lowly the job, there are significant expenses involved with hiring someone to perform it. So companies will take the time to check out references. The higher up the food chain you climb, the more intense their scrutiny.
Even if the lie is inconsequential, the very fact that you lied will, in virtually all instances, be immediate grounds for dismissal. Lacking a particular skill or experience may not automatically exclude you from getting the job. Lying about it will. Just ask former NBC news anchor Brian Williams about the consequences of “shading” the truth or “misremembering” an experience.
While honesty may be the best (and only) policy, it is not necessary to share anything and everything with your interviewer. Anything you do in the privacy of your own home is not something you need to share.
And do be smart enough, when asked what interests you about the job, not to answer, “Heck, I just need a job with benefits. I’m three months along and can’t wait until my maternity leave starts.”
Don’t underestimate the effect of your own body language on the interviewer. While many people don’t mean what they say or say what they mean, their nonverbal actions reveal exactly what they’re feeling. According to studies, more than half of what we are trying to communicate is being received nonverbally.
To many interviewers, your failure to “look them in the eye” indicates you have something to hide, as does being overly fidgety or nervous. Greet the interviewer with a firm handshake, face him or her, sit straight up, and, of course, look them in the eye. Breaking eye contact occasionally is also a good idea. Staring without pause for more than a few seconds will make almost anyone nervous.
Likewise, interviewers are looking for people who are enthusiastic about what they do, so sighing, looking out the window, or checking your watch during a question will not create the right impression. If you don’t seem interested in the job, why should they be interested in hiring you?
But you can be too aggressive. One candidate said to me, barely five minutes into our interview, “I’ve got three other offers right now. What can you do for me?”
I showed him where the exit was.
Yes, you need to be confident, enthusiastic, and cheerful (and brave and clean and reverent…), but, as this example clearly illustrates, you can overplay your hand
Avoid becoming defensive when there doesn’t appear to be a reason: The interviewer asks what she thinks is a simple question and you act as if she has accused you of a crime. You start to sweat, hem and haw, and try to change the subject.
What are you hiding? That’s what the interviewer will be thinking. And if you aren’t actually hiding anything, why are you acting so defensively?
Try to make every minute of your interview a positive experience—introducing negativity of any kind is virtually guaranteed to dim your chances. (Which is why the interviewer may introduce negativity, just to see how you handle it.) So complaining about your last job, boss, duties…or even the elevator ride upstairs…is getting yourself off on the wrong foot.
There should be a new reality series featuring the bizarre behavior of some interviewees, as they chew, burp, scratch, swear, cry, laugh, and scream their way into our hearts. Interviewees have shown up drunk or stoned, brought their mothers with them, fallen asleep, even gone to the bathroom and never returned.
Keeping your cell phone on during the interview qualifies as inappropriate behavior. Actually receiving or making a call ranks as bizarre.
Remember what the interviewer is thinking: If this is your best behavior, what (gasp!) do I have to look forward to?
Interviewing over lunch is a situation fraught with potential dangers. Slurping spaghetti or soup or wiping barbeque sauce off your tie is simply not attractive, even if you are. Ordering the most (or least) expensive item on the menu sends an unwelcome message. And what happens when the French dish you didn’t understand but ordered anyway turns out to be something you can’t even look at, let alone eat?
If you can’t avoid a lunch interview (and I would certainly try), use your common sense. Order something light and reasonably priced—you’re not really there for the food, are you? Remember what Mom told you—keep your elbows off the table, don’t talk with your mouth full, and put your napkin in your lap. Don’t drink alcohol (even wine), don’t smoke (even if your host does), don’t complain about the food (even if it was lousy), and don’t forget that this is still an interview!
Throughout this book, I will attempt to give you the ability to formulate answers that respond to what the interviewer really wants to know. The more responsive your answer is to the interviewer’s stated (or unstated) needs, the better. Since the best answers are “customized” to fit the company’s needs and your qualifications, it’s often difficult, if not impossible, to say that a particular answer is “right” or “wrong.” But there are answers that are clearly wrong:
Any answer, no matter how articulate and specific, that fails to actually answer the question asked.
Any answer that reveals you are clearly unqualified for the job.
Any answer that provides information that doesn’t jibe with your resume and/or cover letter. (Don’t laugh. I, for one, have proudly given details about a job I left off my resume. The interviewer didn’t laugh either.)
Any answer that reveals an inability to take responsibility for failures, weaknesses, poor decisions, and bad results or that tries to take full credit for a project to which others clearly contributed.
Although many interviewers will not consider inappropriate dress, poor grooming, or a bit too much candor an automatic reason for dismissal, an accumulation of two or more such actions may force even the most empathetic to question your suitability. (Some items, of course, such as dishonesty, may well lead to an immediate and heartfelt, “Thank you…please leave.”)
You also need to always gauge the interviewer’s response to what you’re saying, not just the answers you’ve given but the questions you’ve asked. Listen for verbal clues and watch the body language that will often tell you how you’re really doing. Again, you don’t want to kill a potential job because you were overly aggressive on the interview.
If you know what to look for, you’ll get extra clues from the body language of an interviewer:
Lack of eye contact or “shifting” eyes are usually seen as a sign of dishonesty or, at best, discomfort: “Mr. Interviewer, are you planning any more layoffs?” {squint, shift, squirm, blink…) “Uh, no, Jim. So, how about dem Bears?”
Raised eyebrows indicate disbelief or even mild distain, along the lines of “Oh, really?”/“You don’t mean that, do you?”/“Gee, how’d you figure that out?”/“You don’t actually expect me to buy that, do you?”
A smile at the wrong time can be a sign of discomfort or an indication of a complete lack of appropriate social skills.
A tightly clenched jaw, pursed lips, or a forced smile may indicate stress, anything from a boss’s reprimand to an early morning fight with a spouse. While the cause is clearly not your problem, you need to make sure the effect does not become a distraction during your interview.
“Closed” positions of the hands and arms—clenched fists, arms folded across the body—are not positive. They may also indicate boredom or negativity.
An interviewer who is slumping or leaning back in his chair may be showing disrespect, arrogance, or disinterest. It is surely a sign that you have to ask a question to get him back into the conversation.
If the interviewer keeps nodding rapidly for an extended period of time while you are asking or answering a question, it may be shorthand for “Be quiet and let me say something now.”
Doodling, chewing on a pencil, scratching, playing with one’s hands, moving things around on a desk, or acting distracted are typical signs of nervousness. Don’t interpret it as anything more than nerves unless something else tips you off. Again, ask a question to get the focus back on you or, even better, a question about her. Most people like to talk about themselves, especially a not-too-experienced interviewer who seems to be nervous about interviewing you, believe it or not!
But don’t overanalyze the situation. An interviewer vigorously rubbing her eyes may just be telling you she didn’t get enough sleep last night or is suffering from allergies.
Most job candidates think of the interview in completely the wrong way—as an interrogation or police lineup. And they see themselves as suspects, not as the key prospects they really are.
This book will show you that you are, to a very large degree, in charge of the interview. It will convince you that you are there not only to sell the company on you, but to make sure that you are sold on them. It will give you the powerful questions that will work whatever your age, whatever your experience, whatever your goals.
Despite my sterling reputation with employment offices, the first edition of this book became a bestseller. In fact, it continues to sell, year after year. I don’t pretend to know why it has done as well as it has, but I will hazard a guess: It is simple, straightforward, practical, and written in a welcoming and humorous style. (Okay, I suppose that counts as four and a half guesses.)
And it has clearly helped literally hundreds of thousands of candidates prepare for every type of interview and every style of interviewer. I’m pleased and proud that this new edition will help many more of you!
It will not, however, spend very much time preparing you for the questions you need to ask during the interview. Luckily for you, I’ve already written the companion book to this one—101 Smart Questions to Ask on Your Interview—whose sole purpose is to do exactly that. And I have just revised it as well. Using these two books together, you will be amply armed for any interview and any interviewer.
—Ron Fry
You’ll probably have to go through more interviews than your predecessors for the same job, no matter what your level of expertise. Knowledge and experience still give you an inside edge. But these days, you’ll need stamina, too. Your honesty, your intelligence, your mental health—even the toxicity of your blood—may be measured before you can be considered fully assessed.
You may also have to tiptoe through a minefield of different types of interview situations.
Do all you can to remain confident and flexible and ready with your answers. No matter what kind of interview you find yourself facing, this approach should carry you through with flying colors.
Let’s take a brief tour of the interview circuit.
Telephone screening is an effective tactic used by many interviewers, but some rely on the strategy as a primary means of qualifying candidates. For many of these interviewers, the in-person interview is little more than an opportunity to confirm what they feel they’ve already learned on the phone.
Interviewers who typically fall into this category are entrepreneurs, CEOs, high-level executives, and others short on time and long on vision. Their guiding philosophy could be summed up as: “I have a personnel problem to solve, and I don’t plan to waste my valuable time talking in person to anybody but the very best.”
A telephone screener is also often the dominant interviewer at small- to mid-size companies where no formal Human Resources (or Personnel) department exists or where such a department has only recently been created. The primary objective of the telephone screener is to identify reasons to remove you from active consideration before scheduling an in-person meeting.
Among the common reasons for abrupt removal from the telephone screener’s short list: evidence that there’s a disparity between your resume and actual experience, poor verbal communication skills, lack of required technical skills.
If you are expecting a call (or calls) from telephone screeners, make sure family members know how to answer the phone. Hint: A sullen “Huh?” from your teenage son or brother is not the best way. And by all means avoid cutesy answering machine tapes: “Hi!” [giggle, giggle] “We’re upstairs getting nasty!” [giggle, snort] “So leave a message, dude.”
What could be better than answering questions from the comfort of your own home?
For starters, conducting a telephone interview has cost you two valuable tools you can employ during in-person interviews: eye contact and body language. You’re left with your skills, the facts on your resume, and your ability to communicate verbally.
Don’t be discouraged. Always project a positive image through your voice and your answers. Don’t overdo it, but don’t let the telephone be your undoing either. If your confidence is flagging, try smiling while you listen and speak. Sure, it might look silly—but it absolutely changes the tone and timbre of one’s voice. I also like to stand, even walk around, during a telephone interview. It seems to simultaneously calm me down and give me more energy.
You have a right to be prepared for any interview. Chances are the interviewer will call you to set a time for the telephone interview. However, if she fires a question at you as soon as you answer the phone, there’s nothing wrong with asking her to call back at a mutually agreeable time. You need to prepare your surroundings for a successful interview.
Next to the phone, you’ll want to have a copy of your resume (which you’ve quickly reviewed), the cover letter you sent or emailed, a list of questions you’ve prepared for them, a notepad, your research materials on that company, and a glass of water. You will also want to have already answered nature’s call—you surely don’t want to excuse yourself in the middle of the interview—and placed a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door, so family members or roommates don’t interrupt. You never want to put the interviewer on hold for any reason.
Many personnel professionals fall into a different category: human screens. For them, interviewing is not simply a once-a-quarter or once-a-month event, but rather a key part of their daily job descriptions. They meet and interview many people, and are more likely than a telephone screener to consider an exceptional applicant for more than one opening within the organization.
A primary objective of a human screen is to develop a strong group of candidates for managers (the third kind of interviewer) to interview in person. To do this, of course, they must fend off many applicants and callers—a daunting task, because the human screen or the department in which he works is often the only contact provided in employment listings or posts.
Among the most common reasons for removal from a human screen’s “hot” list are: lack of the formal or informal qualifications outlined in the organization’s job description; sudden changes in hiring priorities and/or personnel requirements; poor performance during the in-person interview itself; and inaction due to uncertainty about your current status or contact information. That last reason is more common than you might imagine. Human screens are usually swamped with phone calls, emails, texts, resumes, and unannounced visits from hopeful applicants. Despite their best efforts, they sometimes lose track of qualified people.
Human screens excel at separating the wheat from the chaff. Because they are exposed to a wide variety of candidates on a regular basis, they usually boast more face-to-face interviewing experience than members of the other two groups. They may be more likely to spot inconsistencies or outright lies on resumes, simply because they’ve seen so many over the years that they know when a candidate’s credentials for a given position don’t quite pass the “smell test.”
And while interviews with a telephone screener or the hiring manager may be rushed because of their hectic schedules, human screens are often able to spend a comparatively long amount of time with particularly qualified candidates.
Not surprisingly, human screens often react with a puzzled look if others ask them to offer their “gut reaction” to a particular candidate. Because they’re generally operating a step removed from the work itself, their assessments of candidates may be more black and white than gray: Either the candidate has three years of appropriate experience or she doesn’t. Either he has been trained in computer design or he hasn’t. Of course, this analysis may overlook important interpersonal issues.
There aren’t many career books that will advise you to make a beeline for the Human Resources department of a company you’ve targeted. In fact, most, if not all, will tell you to avoid it like the plague if at all possible. What have these poor (formerly personnel) people done to generate such animosity?
Nothing at all. I’m sure many of them are very nice people who do their jobs very well. The problem is that their jobs have little to do with actually getting you a job. They are not seeking candidates to interview and hire; they are trying to maximize the number they can eliminate. They can say no. And they do. A lot. But they can’t say yes.
In addition to not being able to actually offer you anything more than coffee or tea (and maybe a personality or drug test), many Human Resources departments may have (surprisingly) little idea about what hiring managers really want in job applicants. The more technical or specialized the field, the truer this statement.
I know of a Human Resources director who recommended a candidate for whom English was a second—and not very good