Hiring Managers Do Not Always Know What They Want

Do you ever interview and wonder if the hiring manager knows what they really want? Do you ever ask that question specifically in an interview, and get a vague answer?

Of course. It happens all the time.

That’s the topic of my latest post in the Washington Business Journal, “Sometimes the Hiring Manger Doesn’t Know What They Want (Until They See It).“

How to Prepare for Your Interview

Here’s Kelly with a few tips about how to prepare for your next interview:

(Sorry about the video quality on this one, we’re working hard to get our technology to play nicely together. )

Job Search / Interviewing / Negotiating Salary and Managing Your Career

If you haven’t noticed that red logo over there on the left side of your screen, you might not realize that I also write a weekly post for The Washington Business Journal.

So, in case you missed it, here are links to a few recent posts:

Money:

• How to Handle the “Desired Salary” Question When You Apply for a Job Online
• How to Answer: “What Are Your Salary Requirements?” in a cover letter
• How Top Performers Negotiate Salary

Job Search/Getting an Interview:

• How Long Will Your Job Search Take?
• What Your Resume Can’t Do For You

Interview Advice:

• How Was Your Interview?
• The Important Attribute Job Seekers Rarely Demonstrate
• How Are You Perceived When You Interview?
• How to Interview for a Senior Executive job

Career Advice:

• When is it Time to Quit Your Job?
• Are you Being the Invisible Man (or Woman) in Your Career?
• Why The Job Market Matters More than Advice from Your Parents
• Why Doing What You are Told Will Ruin Your Career
• When the New Job Doesn’t Work Out

I hope you find them useful. And please feel free to leave a comment to suggest future topics!

Smart Questions to Ask in an Interview

I dread the part of the interview when I ask candidates, “Do you have any questions for me?” I am often disappointed by their questions. It often feels like a waste of time. (Whatever happened to curiosity anyway?)

The problem is that some candidates don’t have any questions, and others seem to be asking questions only to make themselves look good. What I really want are people who are asking questions to help evaluate for themselves if the job is a good fit. So what kind of questions are best for that? One of my favorite writers, Jeff Haden, suggested the following questions in an article for Inc magazine.

 1. What do you expect me to accomplish in the first 60 to 90 days?

Great candidates want to hit the ground running. They want to make a difference.

2.    What are the common attributes of your top performers?

Great candidates also want to be great long-term employees. Every organization is different, and so are the key qualities of top performers in those organizations. Great candidates want to know because 1) they want to know if they fit, and 2) if they do fit, they want to be a top performer.

3.     What are a few things that really drive results for the company?

Employees are investments, notes Haden, and every employee should generate a positive return on his or her salary. In every job some activities make a bigger difference than others. You need your HR folks to fill job openings… but what you really want is for HR to find the right candidates because that results in higher retention rates, lower training costs, and better overall productivity. Similarly, you need your service techs to perform effective repairs… but what you really want is for those techs to identify ways to solve problems and provide other benefits–in short, to generate additional sales.

Great candidates want to know what makes a difference. They know helping the company succeed means they succeed as well.

4.    How do you plan to deal with…?

Every business faces a major challenge: technological changes, competitors entering the market, shifting economic trends, etc.

So while a candidate may see your company as a stepping-stone, they still hope for growth and advancement… and if they do eventually leave, they want it to be on their terms and not because you were forced out of business.

Say I’m interviewing for a position at your bike shop. Another shop is opening less than a mile away: How do you plan to deal with the new competitor?

Bottom line, Haden says: A great candidate doesn’t just want to know what you think; they want to know what you plan to do–and how they will fit into those plans.

I Am Perfect for this Job

You saw the job advertisement and thought to yourself, “I am perfect for this job. This is tailor-made for me.”  Excitedly, you dashed off your cover letter and applied right away. Your resume is ideal for this job. You know you have a mortal lock on it.

Your next few days pass in a blur of happy daydreaming about how great this new job will be. You do your research on the company, tell all your friends about it, envision working there, happily realize the commute is only 15 minutes … this is destiny calling.  Then you go for the interview.

In the interview, you had a great brilliant answer for everything. You knocked it out of the park. They didn’t say it, but you know you are everything they are looking for. It’s obvious, right?

And then you get your rejection letter.

What?

First you are stunned, and then hurt and disappointed, and then embarrassed.  (What will you tell your friends now?) And then …  you get mad.

How could they? No, how DARE they? What’s WRONG with them anyway?

What’s wrong is that you only had your interpretation of what you thought they wanted .. but you did not have any knowledge of what they actually wanted:

• You didn’t know that the hiring manager wanted someone with a different perspective than yours. You were too mainstream, or perhaps not mainstream enough.
• You didn’t know that the hiring manger wanted someone with different skills than yours, and that your brilliant interview answers revealed less depth than you thought you had, or perhaps too much focus on one area.
• You did not know who you were competing with for the job, or what everyone else brought to the table.

The plain fact is that you can never know hundreds of factors in the hiring decision.  You never will. Just because you may think a job is perfect for you, does not mean that the hiring manager will agree . . .  so you sound just a bit self-absorbed when you tell them in your cover letter or interview that you are “perfect for the job.”

If you take an interview and think it’s a perfect job for you, simply say “I am very interested in this position, and am confident that it’s a great match for my abilities.” But never presume that you are perfect for it, because you will never know what the hiring manager’s definition of “perfect” really is.

Should You Go on Practice Interviews?

I recently got an email comment on my post about “How Great Candidates Blow it in an Interview.” (In my post I was talking about the need to intensively prepare for interviews.) An astute reader said “In some cases, especially when the person has cast a wide net (not preferred of course), the position is not exactly right for that person.  As a result, the candidate might not present him/herself in a confident manner or the vibe is just not there.”

Well said.

This is precisely the reason I do not recommend taking “practice interviews” for jobs you are not keenly interested in. Many people suggest that interview practice is helpful, and I agree with that, but interviewing for the wrong job is the wrong kind of practice. It’s like playing a casual game of wiffle ball or softball to prepare for a major league baseball game.  Sure, some of the aspects of the game are similar, but the stakes are different, the “vibe” is different, and you are play acting and not sincere.

So definitely practice your answers to tough questions with someone, but don’t interview for jobs where you are not a fit.

Little Things Matter Just as Much as Big Things in an Interview

The hiring manager was emphatic, “If they don’t send a Thank You note after the interview, they’re not going to be invited back for a second interview.” My conversation that day with another hiring manager in the same organization went quite differently. He didn’t give a fig about Thank You notes. His hot button was intensive research, “If they haven’t prepared for the interview by looking beyond our website, they are not who I am looking for.” The second manager expected each candidate to have spent about three hours on research, and he expected that they would walk in with at least 15 thought provoking questions that demonstrated an understanding of both the industry and the organization.

If an organization hires you, you will be spending about 2,000 hours a year with them. But they’ll only interview you for about 4 hours (if that). So during the interview process, they are paying 500 times more attention to little things–things that won’t matter nearly as much after you start work. You’ll really be under the microscope in every interaction. So you simply must be more meticulous keeping  track of the little things–all the little things–because you never know what their hot button issue is going to be.

“Duh! Of course I’ll do that!” you say. But consider this idiotically simple list below:

• Did your resume or cover letter have any mistakes?
• Were you on time and prepared for the phone interview?
• Were you on time and dressed appropriately for the interview?
• Did you prepare for the interview properly?
• Were you ready for their interview questions, and did you have relevant experiences you could confidently share?
• Did you ask smart questions during the interview?
• Did you send a Thank You note to everyone you met?
• Did you send references or other follow-up material in a timely manner?

Obvious and idiotically simple, right? Except at least a third of candidates routinely fail to do this. That’s because what it takes to keep a job is quite different than what it takes to land a new one.