How to prepare to interview your interviewer
Posted Thursday, August 07 2008 by The JobsBloggers
This ERE article - A Recruiter's Guide to Candidate Interview Prep - has some interesting insight into the candidate - recruiter - hiring manager relationship and offers up some sample questions you can ask interviewers on the big day, like ...
Candidate Positioning Question 1: Defining their Skill Sets
I’ve researched the company and reviewed the responsibilities; however, please give me an idea of what you need accomplished with this position — say, in the first six months to two years?This is an excellent question that requires the hiring manager to define exactly what needs to be achieved or accomplished in a specific timeline. Once defined, the candidate should give examples of where they have excelled in those skill sets in the past. (Give real life examples! Don’t just say “I can do that.”)
EXAMPLE:
I’ve been there and I’ve done that and here’s an example and here’s how it affected the bottom line ……OR: I’ve not been there and done that, but I’m looking forward to adding that to my professional experience. (Then give the hiring manager an example where you had to quickly become the subject matter expert on other skill sets in the past.)
Worth checking out!
Gretchen
7 commentsTagged as: gretchen, interviewing
Comments
These are good tips. Just that there are a lot of times you feel you didnt do well, in which case asking about the job itself seems odd.
I have a question, how many times in an year can you interview. In the past 1 year i interviewed about 5 times, and did not get through even once, out of which i guess two times i did really bad, but others (in 2 cases) i did reach up to as appropriate. And most of the times the recruiters as me to keep applying. Do you think i should not apply for atleast 6 months, and how does the old feedback influence the new ones assuming i do the new ones well ! Sometimes its the lure of being called again and again, that forces you to go, but sometimes you think if the feedback is bad then why am i being called again and again, but then i again think that since i didnt get to as appropriate in 3 cases, i did very bad. Whats the best option in such a scenareo, shouldnt the recruiters stop calling me for sometime (even if i apply) , isnt it like wasting their time and they wasting my time, and helping me blotch my record more and more ? Is it like that ?
Actually I wouldn't mind an answer myself on the previous posters question.
Anybody who knows me, knows my desires regarding Microsoft.
But I wouldn't mind knowing if there IS a such case as "applying too often" (Yes, I MIGHT just be the bar on how often you COULD potentially apply)... ;)
Do you automatically get thrown off into the block list at EHS if you apply just a LITTLE too often?
Cheers all.
Honest question from a silly person.
Sean
Friday Funny Guy
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Randy - There's no set rule for the number of times* you can interview within a year. Yes, we do store interview notes and review information prior to future interviews. If the recruiters keep calling you, you must be doing something right. :) It can often take several interview attempts before you find that right job.
* The exception here is that our US college recruiting team usually only interviews applicants once per academic year since they conduct interviews for all openings for that school year.
Sean - Janelle answered this question a few months ago: http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog/archive/2008/01/09/am-i-applying-for-too-many-jobs.aspx
Gretchen
cool ! Gretchen you are the best, thanks for answering my question.
Sean, thanks for the answer, usually its always confusing on whether applying and interviewing a lot of times is bad, sometimes (mostly if you are in seattle area), you feel like trying again and again, since its so close to your place :) but then there is a lot of times the team doesnt like you for whatever reason, bad coding , bad design etc .. but then since i felt i am being called again, there is a possibility that the number doesnt matter, of course i dont have the intention of wasting their time and my time, but everytime, i feel i am reaching the right job and right direction ... maybe it will take me 3-5 more attempts :) , but yes its not fun to interview again and again too since the process (especially if you dont get through) is painful. I have already attended 6 full loops in the past 16 months.
Not only was the above tips great but the comments I find added a lot to it. To be honest i mean not just in reference to Microsoft applying i always placed a limit on the number of times I applied somewhere. But I guess the note storing on the interviews is blessing and a curse but can be used to the interviewees advantage at times.
I had interviews with two different groups (two days) about a week and a half ago.
One thing I made a focused effort to do was to listen to how each of the interviewers described their roles, the words they chose, the sorts of issues they focused on, so that when it came time for them to say "Do you have any questions for me?" I could ask them things that were strongly founded in their own experience.
The questions I like to ask in interviews come from just a couple of basic areas:
* Job responsibilities
* Personal perception of the job
* Why you like to work there, if you do
Obviously these are only a tiny subset of what you can ask. When I finally got to the 5th interview on my second day, the questions I asked the Program Manager were much different - I asked about how he saw his role relative to his various leads and testers, what his day to day interaction and responsibilities were, because at HIS level, my curiousity is more about how I'm going to be interacting with him and what he thinks of his employees.
The first day of interviews didn't go as well as I'd have liked. The second day went unbelievably awesome - I just immediately clicked with the entire team, nailed the coding questions, and kept my stress level low the entire day (this one I think is crucial - you aren't going to be a creative problem solver if your stress level is so high you can't see straight. My solution to this was to forget I was interviewing and just think of the problems I was solving as the same exact kinds of coding problems I've been solving for years. This shuts down the "oh crap!" part of the brain and turns on the parts for which problem solving is second nature.
And I'll be starting at the end of September :)