“A hiring manager is going to stifle a big yawn.” Erica Benson, CEO of A-Solution uses the acronym SELL to describe a successful interview technique: showing your accomplishments, enthusiasm to demonstrate your interest, listening to understand what precisely you’ve been asked, and leveraging your skills to show how the company could benefit from your expertise.
Ask hard questions. “It’s always amazing to me that candidates are so poorly prepared to deal with asking questions at the conclusion of their interview,” says Mornell, who suggests considering the interview as a business conversation. This is as much an
THE RESUME, THE PITCH, THE CLOSE
investment for you as it is for the prospective company. Questions help present you as more engaging. Employers are looking for specific feedback. “They’re listening to the questions the applicant asks as an indicator of how deeply they’ve thought about our company, our job, and our industry. [Based on that] they judge how intuitive applicants are, how creative and insightful they are.”
At the same time interviews are becoming increasingly more structured, particularly with applicants at senior levels. “This is just not a hire,” explains Bradford. “It’s an investment. That’s more the mentality now than ever before. Employers want to see as many candidates as they can so they can make comparisons, simply because there are more people to see. So instead of it taking two rounds of interviews, you may be called back five or six times.” If you understand the structure of the interviewing process and you have done your homework, you will be best prepared to handle these sessions.
Interviews today are more situational and behavioral-based, with employers asking questions based on real or hypothetical events. “If they see that you managed individuals on your résumé, they may ask how you handled a difficult employee or missing a deadline,” says Benson.
But the newest technique is called Targeted Selection, a technique put together by a company called Development Dimensions International (DDI). “It is so process-driven that the questionnaire is based on the job analysis,” says Young. “A set of questions is formed from looking at the résumé and in most cases you are interviewed by a panel. That’s why you’re talking to so many people.” Each interviewer will ask a set of questions in anticipation of the candidate completing a STAR: They present a situation, ask about the candidate’s particular task, ask what action they took, and what was the result of that action?
“If a person doesn’t answer all four effectively, they don’t get a complete star,” explains Young. “But if you know the technique, the moment they use it on you, you know where you’re going.”
KEEP AN OPEN MIND
As critical as it is to be focused and strategic, this tight job market also requires applicants to be flexible and open to less traditional work options. Mason suggests finding project work. “There are a number of different interim staffing organizations that exist depending on the industry. They supply companies that are looking for people with a set of skills for