You Majored in What? (35 page)

The same numbers game applies to the short encounters you might have with employers at a job fair as well. They may greet hundreds of candidates at a fair, but it’s likely that only about ten or so résumés will be placed in that special pile designated for follow-up. And the decisions are based on a two-minute conversation with you in a noisy and crowded room teeming with people in suits.

Are you grasping the importance of preparing for your encounters with people who have the potential to hire you? Particularly when the economy is slow or the unemployment rate is high, employers can afford to be very selective in their hiring choices. And unfortunately, you seldom get a do-over in the interview-encounter process. Just like résumés that receive a few seconds’ glance, your quick encounter with a potential employer is going to determine your fate.

Hey, what happened to that positive mindset in Chapter 3? Where’s the rainbow in the midst of this rain? It’s you. You’re going to be the person who moves forward in the process, because you will be better prepared for your interview or chance encounter with the daunting amount of wisdom you’ve acquired about yourself, the job search process, and the position you’re seeking. You will have stories and responses crafted that will leave a lasting and positive impression on the interviewer. There’s a little-known fact about career books: only about 10 percent of the people who buy them actually read them the whole way through, so if you’re reading this paragraph, you’ve already surpassed 90 percent of your competition. You already have more knowledge and are better prepared for the process. And now that you know how steep the competition can be, just like those
American Idol
contestants you will practice, practice, and practice to get better.

INTERVIEW SHAPES AND SIZES

When you think about an interview, what image comes to mind? If you’re like most people, it’s a vision of you and one other person in a small room asking and answering questions. Perhaps you get an immediate visceral sensation of anxiety. Or maybe you see yourself skillfully answering whatever question is asked. You might hear someone asking you that annoying typical opening line that’s almost as bad as
THE QUESTION
: “Tell me about yourself.” Or maybe you’ve read about stress questions such as “I’ve seen lots of good people today. Why should I hire you?” Or case interview questions where you have to answer strange queries, such as “How many gas stations are in Los Angeles?” Or requests for behavioral responses, such as “Tell me about a time when you solved a problem under pressure.”

As mentioned earlier, it’s easy to search the Internet and find list after list of possible interview questions. And that’s actually a good idea. Gather up the questions and practice answering them, because you will likely get one or two of them. The problem is no list can cover every single scenario. There are simply too many questions and too many types of interviews and interviewers. Chaos theory has returned. Employers often have a personal favorite question they like to ask each candidate, and that question varies widely. Some like asking slightly off-topic questions, such as “What are you reading aside from your textbooks?” Others like to know what you already know about their company or position. The situation is too complex to be reduced to a few simple answers. That’s why you have to be prepared to answer anything that is thrown at you, whether it’s predictable (“Tell me about yourself”) or out in left field (“Why are manhole covers round?”). But don’t worry; you’ll learn how to approach these situations with confidence. You are already skilled at taking the complex (your life) and making it manageable (identifiable threads and themes). Interviewing is no different. Strong interviewing skills rely on your knowledge of yourself (features and benefits), the position, field, and/or organization you’re seeking, and your ability to quickly establish a relationship.

Interviews come in basically two sizes: short and long. The shorter interview is a screening interview and constitutes your
first conversation
with the potential employer. These interactions can last anywhere from two minutes to thirty minutes and take place at a job fair, in an office, on the phone, or even via e-mail. Sometimes they are called screening interviews and they rely on relatively quick answers to basic questions. Notice the emphasis on first conversation—even when you’re simply answering a phone call to set up the interview, you’re being interviewed. It is the first impression (aside from the résumé/ cover letter if that’s been part of the process) that the employer will have of you. In addition to the stories you’ll be creating shortly, it’s helpful to have a short speech about your plans prepared, what some career specialists refer to as an elevator speech or a sound bite.

The long interview usually takes place at the workplace, but again, it could occur over lunch in a restaurant, or at a neutral site like a hotel meeting room. A long interview is any conversation that lasts more than thirty minutes. Long interviews are more comprehensive, with questions that will dig deeper into your background and knowledge. A longer interview may last all day and include meetings with several managers and executives.

As for the style of the interview, much depends on the interviewer and the industry. Certain industries, such as investment banking and consulting, are known for case interviews where you (and perhaps a group of fellow interviewees) are presented with problems to solve in an allotted period of time. You are not only being judged on your ability to formulate an answer (and by the way, there may be no one correct answer), but also your thinking skills, and if it’s a group setting, your teamwork skills and leadership potential. It’s not unusual to experience some of each of these interviewing styles with one organization due to the personality of your interviewer. Some of the basic interview styles include the following:

• Directive interviews that rely on a series of preselected questions and proceed rather matter-of-factly

• Nondirective or free-flowing interviews that are more like a conversation or exchange (but be careful here—sometimes that approach is taken to make you relax and let down your guard)

• Panel interviews where a group of current employees will ask you a variety of questions

• Behavioral interviews that encourage you to provide examples of your skills and use your past as an indicator of the likelihood of future success

• Case interviews that present special problem-solving situations that may or may not be related to the actual job

Last time I gave an interview, they told me to relax and say what
I felt. Ten minutes after broadcast, I got transferred to an outpost
so far off the star maps you couldn’t find it with a hunting dog and
a Ouija board.

—COMMANDER JEFFREY SINCLAIR
IN BABYLON 5 (1994)

So are you grasping the complexity and chaos of the interview process—how challenging it is to predict what questions you’ll be asked or the type of interview you’re going to have and how it will be conducted? While it’s a good idea to develop some basic responses to common questions, your time will be much better spent focusing on two key preparation strategies: storytelling and SWOT analysis.

WHY IS STORYTELLING IN A CAREER BOOK?

How important do you think it is to be:

Remembered
Trusted
Persuasive
Authentic
Considered a leader

in the job search process?

And how would you like a remarkable tool for making sense of the chaos of an interview? Well, once again, you’re only a few blank pieces of paper away.

With all the information you’ve been developing from your Wandering Map, your collection of mindsets, your experimental wanderings, and the various exercises you’ve completed so far, I suspect you are starting to see how some of your findings could be crafted into stories that would resonate with a prospective employer. Even though you may not know how or where you’re going to use these stories, taking the time to develop them now will help you clarify your experiences and view them in a new way.

Great storytelling is one of the most powerful skills you can master for the job search and interviewing process. And the good news is that you have been telling stories all your life. Whether you were entertaining your friends with a saga about that white-water rafting trip where you almost drowned or explaining to your parents the mysterious dent on the bumper of their car, you were developing plots, creating characters and dialogue, and forming compelling themes about your bravery or innocence.

Stories abound in college—and not just in English class. Courses in anthropology, history, psychology, sociology, Latin-American studies, and so on, all use stories to convey meaning and information. And outside the classroom, stories surround the legacy of the sports program, the rumors about that odd professor, ghosts haunting buildings where something bad happened one time, and other folkloric tales of your institution.

When you tell a story, you convey a piece of yourself, a snapshot of your life that allows the listener to know more about you and builds trust. In the same way that you needed to “show” rather than “tell” your skills in a cover letter or résumé, stories help you show the interviewer the veracity and sincerity of your statements. People distrust self-serving statements such as “I’m a good leader,” but if you follow that statement with a description of how you raised funds and created a management team to develop an evening program on global sustainability involving guest speakers and catered food, the employer will know that there is substance behind the style.

Telling great stories in an interview can mean the difference between a job offer and a rejection letter. My first employer after college told me that the key reason she hired me (the only liberal arts major in a management-training program full of retail-merchandising and textile majors) was the story I used to explain how I knew the store from my childhood and how I had an understanding of who shops there and why. Your ability to describe your skills, your character, and your experiences in a manner that compels the interviewer to listen will be the beginning of an amazing career. And when you’re on the job, your ability to tell the right story at the right time will impress colleagues and supervisors, settle disputes calmly, and give you the reputation of someone who is intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, and valuable. You can even build powerful long-term relationships through the impact of your storytelling.

Can you recall a story you learned from a family member, a professor, or maybe even someone at a job you held that has been memorable for you? What did it teach you? What did you learn?

One of my favorite stories is from the time I served on a housing board for a college that was in the process of moving the fraternity houses from one concentrated area (the quad) to smaller houses along the periphery of the campus. At an open meeting scheduled for the fraternity members to voice their opinions of this change, the volume level steadily increased as the members talked over one another, all arguing the same basic theme: that the social life of the campus would be ruined because they would not be able to hold their parties in the quad. The quad parties had been the source of many wild weekends and happy memories for both students and alumni. Where and how would students party?

Several members of the housing board tried to reason with the students; some even began raising their voices as well. The associate dean who chaired the committee sat silently throughout. Finally, as the last of the members argued his point again, the dean quietly said, “How many cat skeletons do you see in trees?” Everyone froze, not sure they had heard the statement correctly. The dean repeated himself, “How many cat skeletons do you see in trees?” The room was silent as participants looked at one another trying to make sense of what he had said. All eyes refocused on the dean. “The reason you don’t see cat skeletons in trees is because they figure out a way to get down. Now you fellows are much smarter than cats. I suspect that even though this location option is removed, you will find a new way to hold your parties. I have total faith in your ability.” And with that, the fraternity members sat mute, and even smiled a little at the dean’s faith in them (knowing, of course, that he was right).

That meeting happened more than ten years ago, but the story remains fresh in my mind. That associate dean is now the president of another college. His brilliant observations and stories have endeared him to many colleagues and students throughout his career. And I tell the cat skeleton story again and again when the situation warrants. It never fails to amuse and calm people down.

OK, so you get that telling stories is a good thing. Maybe you’ve even read on the Web somewhere that you should tell a story in an interview about your greatest strength. But here’s the catch: while it may be known that storytelling is a great interview technique, most students and recent grads tell monstrously
awful
stories.

They ramble on for ten minutes, causing the interviewer to forget the original question. Sometimes they’ve only prepared one story and tell it repeatedly regardless of the question. They tell stories that don’t answer the question. Or they tell stories that are too brief, assuming that “I am great at solving problems; I did it all the time in my classes” is a story. They even shock employers with the topics they select for their stories (such as one demonstrating their ability to get things done by describing the night they drank too much yet managed to stumble back to the dorm at 3:00 a.m. and write a paper for a 9:00 a.m. class). Telling a weak story or telling a story badly pretty much guarantees your job hunt will continue. You must tell the right story at the right time and in the right way.