Job Interviews
An expert helps you focus the conversation

by Marty Heator

Just the words "job interview" can make your palms sweat. But doesn’t "conversation" have a totally different feel to it?

Terry McGinn thinks so. Through his work for the Ann Arbor firm Career Directions, McGinn has helped hundreds of people get focused on a positive job interviewing strategy.

"It helps to think of it less as a job interview and more as a focused conversation," McGinn explains. "The focus of the conversation is on you and on the fit between you and the job."

For starters, try to relax

"On the one hand, we always want people to treat job interviews very seriously," he says. "But sometimes, people get very anxious about them, as if there is a protocol or script they must follow. There isn’t some perfect, exact way to do an interview." You can, however, treat the encounter as a conversation, and you can gently guide that conversation in the direction you’d like it to take. Here’s a rundown of some of the things McGinn suggests you should and shouldn’t do:

do

know as much as possible about the position and the company before you go in.

do

review your resume and remind yourself of those experiences and skill sets that fit the job you’ve applied for.

do

develop brief (30-60 seconds) anecdotes and stories that describe your experiences and skill sets in an interesting way.

do

stick to business. "It’s nice to be warm at the beginning of the conversation," says McGinn, "but the vast majority of the conversation should be devoted to discovering the fit between you and the job."

do

take extra copies of your resume and a list of references.

do

tailor the list of references to each specific job interview. "Think of references as people who can testify to your usefulness in this position," McGinn says.

do

take samples of your work, but take them out only if you feel it’s appropriate to the discussion.

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try to get the interviewer back to the focus of the conversation if he or she strays, but do so gently. Don’t try to take control of the conversation.

do

consult how-to-interview books for list of tough interview questions, but don’t limit yourself to the answers provided.

"Look at the questions and ask yourself ‘Which ones will I have trouble with?’ Then determine how you would answer those questions," says McGinn.

do

try to express everything as a positive. For example, in past projects and jobs, you had challenges, not problems. And don’t talk about things you don’t want to do in the future, but talk about things you want to accomplish. "Focus not on what you’re avoiding (by trying to get this new job) but on what you’re approaching," McGinn suggests.

do

try to find out what the next step is in the selection process.

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do

express authentic interest in the position. Let them know in positive terms what it is about the nature of the job itself that appeals to you. Don’t just talk about the obvious, self serving aspects of the job, such as compensation. What are the intrinsic aspects of the job that interest you?

don't

be over-rehearsed. Don’t go in feeling that you must get in a certain number of stories, and don’t sound like a tape recording when you tell them. "It’s enough to review your stories the night before and then put them away," says McGinn.

don’t

put a lot of time or energy into talking about yourself outside of work, unless those stories shed light on your fit with the job.

don’t

testify against yourself: "If asked ‘What is your greatest weakness?’ tell them about a weakness you have conquered, or tell them about a  weakness that, in the context of this job, may actually be a strength," McGinn explains. Examples would be "I tend to be obsessive about details" (when interviewing for a banking job) and "My friends say I talk a lot" (when interviewing for a customer service job).

don’t

speak ill of past employers.

don’t

ramble. "If the interviewer asks a question that is very broad and you’re not sure what he or she is looking for, offer a menu," McGinn suggests. "If the interviewer says ‘What did you do in that job?’, you can say ‘I had three areas of responsibility’ and then name all three. Then ask which of the three they’d like you to talk about. It’s better to get the topic narrowed."

don’t

assume that, just because you leave the interview feeling uncomfortable or dissatisfied, the interview went poorly. On the contrary, McGinn has seen many cases where the candidate was certain the interview was a disaster, only to be invited back for a second interview or offered the job. And if you don’t get the job, don’t be too hard on yourself. "There are so many factors that you cannot see about how the winner is chosen,

"McGinn says, "that it would be a mistake to  automatically blame it on your interviewing skills."
 

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