The First Question I'm Going to Ask When You Come in for the Interview

by Margaret Lisi

Last week I talked about being on one side or the other of an interview, and how knowing your “must haves” made hiring, or accepting an offer, much easier. I opened up the inside of my head as the person doing the hiring, so let’s talk now about what a prospective employer may hear when listening to your pitch for the job.

A good friend recently had two quite different experiences hiring a social media manager. One interview was with a man who asked for the interview. He had diverse, practical business experience, and had completed certification courses in social media and other practices.

The other interview was with a young woman straight out of school, whose resume was built solely on internships.

The first question: “What do you want to do and what are you good at?” Followed closely by “Why are you here?” as in, this place at this time, in this interview.

So who got the job? The young woman. Why? It seemed such a natural choice to go with experience, especially as the company is expanding its services and there’s no room to blow it with social. But when my friend asked the confident guy those first questions, he didn’t have good answers.

“I want to do something different. I thought I’d try marketing. I like to crunch numbers.” It turned out, the candidate was looking to change careers and, while doing the right thing by getting training in aspects of marketing and social media, he never really nailed down what it was he wanted to DO. The questions quickly undid the candidate, who probably walked out thinking, “well, that didn’t go very well.” And he was right.

The woman came in confidently as well. My friend is an intimidating interview, but this applicant was ready. Same questions, different answers.

“I want to be a social media manager. I’m good with people, so eventually I’d like to run a team. I think social media is interesting, I’m good at it and there are a lot of ways to go in the industry. Oh, and I ran my own business throughout college so I feel I know what you’re looking at from the business side, too.”  BOOM!

Everyone tells you to prep for the interview. But good interviewers are good at tipping you off-point. If you aren’t truly prepared by knowing what you want and are good at, and what makes your step peppy every day as an employee, we’ll find that out. As employers, we’re looking for people who are good and want to get better. At my friends’s company and mine, we want happy, productive employees. No wonder she got the job. Will you?

Culled from https://exploreb2b.com