Control It

I shall deal with the "Self Made Man" interviewer first.

This breed can vary from the kid out of college who struck it rich at the first try and is drunk with success and the trappings that go with it, to the third or more generation direct line relative of the founder of the company.

The former, if your creature runs true to type, adores the sound of its own voice and possesses a pair of ears that switched off as soon as success came in the door. The modern reception that looks like it came flatpack from a well known do it yourself superstore often indicates this type.

This creature will start your interview rather nervously. In fact there may be no discernible start as such. You will assume it has got underway when a form of verbal shorthand starts issuing forth. Office speak, trade lingo, call it what you will, you will be lucky to understand one word in three.

The way to deal with this type is to listen intently to catch as much as possible and allow the tirade of staccato expressions to flow. You play a waiting game until the opportunity of getting in on the conversation presents itself and then you pounce.

It won't do any good to simply talk when the creature stops for breath; you will have to make some gesture to stem the flow of near meaningless words and phrases. If you can't think of anything to say or do to bring this about slam shut your brief case and say:

"Stop there for a moment Mr. potential employer, I need to clarify exactly where we are, so that I can to understand what you are looking for in an employee. Tell me exactly what it is that needs to be done.

Without waiting for an answer, continue:

"You have built an organisation here in a very short time and deserve much credit for doing so. Is this vacancy for a new position, part of your continuing growth, or would I be replacing someone who has left the company or been promoted?"

"First things first - run a typical working day past me, just so I can get the feel of what you are looking for."

If there is no response to your prompting, mention a few tasks you know would be required and slip in one or two you know will not apply. That ought to get the level of attention required.

If you let the interview run on and on, and allow your interviewer the luxury of telling you how clever he is, you will simply run out of time and have said nothing about yourself.

Your abilities, your suitability and desire for the job will never be known to the one person who will decide who is to be offered the position. When he comes around to making the appointment he will have nothing in his recollection of the interview on which to base the decision.

You run the risk of rattling the creature's cage if you make a move that could in any way be interpreted as being aggressive, making him dance to your tune, but what the hell. You will have made your pitch, said your piece, had your two pennyworth. If you say nothing it will be as if you had never attended the interview, as if you had never met in the first place.

The second type of "Self Made Man" is the one related to a descendant of the founder, and the description perhaps inaccurate in the sense that the business and the position held are inherited. However, the behaviour pattern can be quite unique.

This individual has been brought up in the business and consequently knows all about the company, the competition and the industry in general.

Identified by a cool calm and collected manner, this variation of the self made man usually has little to say to you. Your interview may begin with the asking of a few questions but these will be of little consequence. There may be difficulty in getting conversation to flow and your problem is likely to be the reverse of that with the new kid on the block type of "self made man". This presents a great opportunity - an opportunity to play your cards in the way you choose and tell your tale. Easy. Take the line:

"Mr. prospective employer, before I tell you about myself and my experience let me say this: the fact that you are such a well established and respected company in the egg painting industry sets you apart from the run of the mill employer. Do you know; I have friends who quite literally do not know who they work for? How can anyone experience a sense of belonging, of being part of a team, a winning team, if that person is working for a faceless conglomerate? I'm a team player looking for the right team."

"I am very aware of the prospects offered by a company like yours and know only too well the value of building a career with such a company".

Easy isn't it? I could go on but I don't want to bring tears to your eyes.

P class=pullquote>You should have no difficulty dealing with prospective employers such as these and It is very easy to construct a dialogue profile for your part of the interview.

Make sure you do not over enthuse, waffle on and go over the top.

We will now move on to the other end of the spectrum and talk about an initial screening interview by a member of the personnel department.

Selected to carry out this task are members of staff who do something else for their main occupation that requires no more brain cells than a geranium. This type of work requires a degree of patience equal to that of a Biblical character whose name escapes me at the moment.

This type of interviewer, and the content needed to successfully activate a follow up is perhaps the easiest to identify but one that can be quite tricky to effectively manage.

Uppermost in your mind should be the fact that this person is a relay station. No more. No less. You are, in essence, talking into a funnel down which all you say and do will pass, with no guarantee that what comes out the other end will bear any resemblance to what has been said or done.

The proceedings will be relayed to a higher authority. Hopefully what is reported will be in your favour, and see you through smoothly to the next round. Alternatively they may or put you out of the running once and for all. You may do badly in your interview and get a favourable report, or do well and get a negative one.

We are talking "whims" here.

Screening of prospective employees is not a subject that is covered in any depth in your average college course. If your interviewer has had any training at all it is unlikely that he or she will have had much experience.

Criteria will have been developed for evaluating the interview proceedings and the content distorted to a greater or lesser degree depending on what he/she deems to be important.

Two elements, proceedings and content, will get you through to the next round - or put you out of the running altogether.

Reinforcements are required - you need something that will speak for you after the interview is concluded. Your fate is in the hands of the personnel department's appointee.

If all you leave behind is a memory of your achievements, experience and personality, and these are strong enough to see you through, well and good. If however you take into account that you are one of a number of competitors requiring the endorsement of the screening interviewer, and stand a chance of being lost in a sea of impressions that said interviewer has to absorb and evaluate, you will be taking a more realistic look at the situation.

Don't forget, you have no way of knowing how strong the competition is as you will, as likely as not, never see who your competitors for the job are.

Imagine how much more effective it will be if you pre-handle the situation and have prepared a "dropper" to leave behind.

This "dropper" (Job Hunters jargon) may consist of a number of items. To begin with you have the CV that has over-viewed what and who you are and detailed, to some degree, your experience. Supplement this with a few items that are relevant to the job for which you are being interviewed and a more tangible impression is left behind.

I have a slightly nutty teenage daughter who is besotted with horses. She can't help it, she's been like it for years. Last year she wanted to get into a well known agricultural college which teaches horsy subjects and had to face a rigorous interview.

In addition to the usual certificates of achievements and letters from teaching staff she took along photographs of herself riding horses of varying shapes, sizes and configurations accumulated over the past few years. Naturally she got the place. She's my daughter isn't she? But she insists the photos helped.

Now I am NOT suggesting that you rush around having your photo taken slaving over a hot keyboard or driving the company's Vauxhall Cavalier.

There is however nothing arduous about producing some graphs or bar charts relevant to your achievements in previous occupations. They can be produced in colour. These may illustrate the achievement of sales, distribution, production or other targets, first time fix achievements relating to the service of machines, number of cows milked in a given time, number of widgets manufactured this year over last and so on.

Use your imagination; think laterally.

One picture is worth a thousand words as someone said. Pictures are forever.

Slip a few of these into the file the interviewer is holding on you. You can bet your boots nobody else will have thought of it. Brownie points all the way.

The first priority is to be remembered, the second is to be remembered in a positive way for your plus points as opposed to your minus ones.

Let's assume you have managed to put yourself across in the most positive way possible and your interviewer from personnel is buzzing at what you have said and demonstrated. You still have to make sure that the image you have worked so hard to create remains in the interviewer's mind until he/she writes their report to higher authority.

Pictures will help you to do this.

Interviewers, if they are any good, are all things to all men. They can charm the birds from the trees when interviewing one person, and behave like a demented halfwit to the next. They simply adopt an attitude that they judge will encourage the interviewee to open up as fully as is required for a judgement to be made as to suitability for the job.

Depending on the type of company, you could be in front of the Managing Director, who is looking for one type of employee, or a Departmental Head who would prefer someone quite different. Managing Directors might favour a dynamic, ambitious type who would serve the company well while climbing the promotion ladder whereas a office managers may be a plodders with but a tenuous hold on their position and fearful of young blood coming into the company.

These people need to avoid ambitious types who are likely to be a threat to them in the future. Try to understand this condition; it is widespread.

You have to find out and make an assessment of who and what that person is and play your cards accordingly.

Add to this the complication of a large company which can afford the grossly overrated talents of a personnel department, and you have a can of worms waiting to be opened. Personnel departments often do the initial screening of applicants on behalf of the department requiring the employee.

If you have done your preparation correctly you will know everything there is to know about your interviewer well before you meet and have virtually made your assessment before you start talking.

You should be aware of some of the tricks interviewers get up to.

First

The coffee supply is by far the most notable. A receptionist is instructed to persuade you to accept a cup whilst you are waiting for the current interview to finish. The cup is full to the brim with scalding hot coffee so there is no room for the milk. This is in a plastic container with the little opening flap broken off so that gaining access to the contents presents you with a challenge that you do not need at this moment in time. By the time you have successfully achieved this, slurped enough of the coffee to make room for the milk, scalding your mouth in the process, you are so flustered and agitated you're in no state to give of your best at an interview.

You do your best to recover of course, you look around for somewhere, anywhere to put the coffee, and make an effort to compose yourself.

What then happens is your interviewer breezes in, warmly shakes your hand in greeting and invites you to "follow me".

You are led down miles of corridors and up several flights of stairs, at a cracking pace. You trail along behind, coffee searing your fingers on its descent to the pale pink carpet.

Never accept a cup of coffee whilst waiting for an interview.

You don't need it, you will not perform the better for it, so say no. No matter how persuasive the receptionist, keep on saying no.

Second

Beware of the old chestnut, the low interview chair. Nothing you can do about it, some small minded people are convinced that if an interviewee is seated in a lower chair then that person is disadvantaged.

Childish in the extreme, this dodge is easy to counter. Simply say as you settle down in a luxuriant manner:

"What a comfortable low chair Mr. Interviewer. Do you interview a lot of tall people?".

It won't get you a higher chair but it will let the cretinous brain cell disadvantaged excuse for a human being know that you are on to him.

Third

Be aware of the likelihood of engineered distractions but don't over react to them. The interviewer may have arranged for a 'phone to ring while the interview is in progress. This is usually situated on another desk or window sill. Do not ignore it. Shut up as soon as it starts, invite the interviewer to answer it by saying, "It can't be for me, only you knows I'm here". You then SHUT UP and watch your interviewer hop around the room wondering what to do next. DO NOT continue with what you were saying until the interviewer is sitting down. When you do, recap, going over the last words you were saying.

Your interviewer will probably interrupt and make an attempt to distract you by asking you a question on a new subject. Answer it in full and then say, "Would you like to finish off what we were talking about before the 'phone rang?"

DO NOT mention what it was you were talking about - see if the bozo knows. Chances are he will not. However, if your interviewer is a woman she will remember. I will expand on women in interview situations later.

Once you are seen to be in command of yourself and are possessed of a level of confidence the childish games will cease.

Remember, you are not out to beat an opponent, you are there to project the image of one who is composed and quietly confident of being offered a job. Strive for a balance between being quietly confident and keenly interested in every word your interviewer speaks. Conversational equality if there is such a thing.

A special mention of a few things to bear in mind when being interviewed by a woman.

Women are often very good at interviewing; they have the cool calculating single mindedness required for the task.

They also give less away by body language, I have a lot of respect for women in business, especially in the field of interviewing.

Chauvinistic males beware. If you are being interviewed by a woman DON'T patronise her. She's heard it all before and you will finish up needing to be scraped off the ceiling. Another big DON'T is how you address her. I assume the right to call everyone by their first name. If you are not comfortable with this, ask.

ASK her outright as soon as you meet. Say something like:

"Lots of people like to be called by a shortening of their name or have their names pronounced in a certain way. How shall I address you? Are you Joan Hunt, J Olivia Hunt or do you prefer Miss, Ms or Mrs Hunt?"

The woman who can resist getting into a discussion over this load of useless time wasting trivia has not been born yet. The female of the species are suckers for such chat lines.

Woman have an easier time in an interview situation, They just do. They have it rough in many other areas of the business world but in interviews they are able to relax and handle the experience with less apprehension than their male counterparts.

All the woman has to do is tilt her head slightly to one side, smile and say:

"Would you like me to call you William or Bill?"

The male of the species hasn't been born who doesn't respond favourably to such an innocent question posed in such a friendly and pleasant manner. I've fallen for it no end of times and on occasion I still do. I shall move on.

Very hastily.

Interviewers often have a proper job within a company. I am assured they have been known to make a meaningful contribution to a company's smooth running.

Whoever's doing the interviewing make careful note of the following:

Interviewers often employ people because they can visualise the candidate doing the job for which they are being interviewed.

Many selection processes employed in the recruitment of personnel, and there are a great many, count for very little if the interviewer can visualise the candidate doing the job for which he/she is being interviewed.