Introduction
My candidates always ask me how they should behave during their job interviews. Strangely enough, as managers, most of them have had to interview hundreds of people who want to work for them. They are already experts in the field and yet stress makes many of them doubt their own competence. The title is misleading: there are no real secrets in what follows, and no single rule that fits every situation. Let’s drop the taboos!
7- The Famous Dress Code
There are no firm rules about what a man or a woman should wear to an interview. Professional dress is of course always appropriate, but please, ladies and gentlemen, stop worrying about it before your interview. Under no circumstances should you allow the choice of clothing to become a distraction from the content of what you are saying. Dress appropriately but, above all, be comfortable.
6- Punctuality and Presentation
I am always taken aback when a candidate arrives late, or in a poor mood. You need to arrive prepared and with a positive attitude. Arriving late is a “death knell” for your application before the interview has even started in 95% of cases. Traffic or bad weather are not the recruiter’s problem. Management positions in any field are highly coveted opportunities and arriving late for your interview is not a desirable way to start. Especially in the upper echelons of decision-making, I repeat, especially in the upper echelons of decision-making…
5- Don’t be a “Know-it-all”
For more “technical” management positions, in engineering or business development of any kind, it can be tempting to want to demonstrate your knowledge. You absolutely must demonstrate your knowledge and skills in a clear and concise manner, but be careful not to overdo it. Particularly at the corporate level, recruiters are an integral part of HR, so they are ‘corporate gatekeepers’. Showing that you know more than them (which is true 95% of the time) is a risky bet. It’s better to keep it conservative, with a clear and simple message. Launching into long monologues will not help you gain the esteem and respect of HR, and that respect is a necessary step before you reach the big boss.
4- Salary Expectations and Hiring Conditions
Two big taboos in the job search! The advantage of doing business with an employment agency is that you will know the salary before you go for a physical interview. You will also know the conditions of employment, which will not be the case if you approach the company directly. If that is your situation, be sure to ask people in the field to get a sense of the “market”. You don’t want to inflate your demands, but lowering them is also counterproductive. It can be perceived as a lack of stature. Be honest with yourself, especially about the performance you will be able to deliver. If you exaggerate your salary demands, you are also exaggerating your talents, so you won’t be holding that dream job for very long…
3- Interview = Discussion
The primary purpose of a job interview is to establish a connection between two people. You absolutely must have good chemistry with the manager in place and that same manager must feel that you are interested in what they have to say & offer. Long heroic monologues will get you nowhere. For every question asked, give a direct and precise answer. The recruiter will usually ask you to elaborate, and that is when you can go into depth.
2- Be Yourself and Analyze Your Situation Carefully
For a manager, moving to a new job carries serious risk. Unlike employees, a manager who misses the mark at some point in his or her career can see his or her credibility diminished, or even his or her career destroyed. There are many reasons for this: poor fit with the boss, too heavy a workload, incompatibility with the company’s “philosophy” and so on. If you lose your job after a few months of employment, it is almost certain that recruiters will have doubts about you. References will not be taken seriously, and it will take some time for your credibility to recover. So the stakes are too high to “fall back into the trap”. Never try to tell the recruiter what they want to hear. It is impossible to predict 100% of what someone wants to hear, especially when the question is a philosophical one about how a company operates.
I’ve seen candidates who are masters of interviewing get fired because they didn’t deliver the goods. I’ve seen excellent candidates interview poorly and still do excellent work afterwards. There is always a rigorous analysis to be done before starting a job change process. But please be yourself. You will always have to fit in with the person in front of you of course, but not at the expense of what you can really contribute. Misplaced pride has no place in an interview…
1- Know How to Choose
The biggest challenge for a decision maker: where do I go from here? The purpose of this writing exercise has nothing to do with “absolutely getting the job”. Interviewing well also means recognizing when an opportunity may not be right for you. Knowing how to pick your battles is perhaps the most difficult lesson for a manager to master. You are a manager because you like to lead, even control. It is very easy to believe that nothing can stop you, and yet the wall can go up very quickly. Believe me, when you hit the wall, it hurts…
Conclusion
I hope these few paragraphs will help some of you in your hiring process. The important thing is to be yourself and to understand the people in front of you. If you don’t have a good chemistry with the recruiter, just tell yourself that this job might not be for you and… on to the next one.