It’s a different job market today. Lots of growth and companies clamoring for the best people. There are startup companies doubling down on their projected success by growing their staff three-fold, and Fortune 100 companies building new programs or product lines. The pandemic seems behind us, and even though that may not always be the case, we certainly have a head of steam in the job market.

This means you’ll have plenty of opportunity to be interviewed. If done right, that means there are multiple job offers in your future. The other way it could go, of course, would be that you get plenty of practice interviews. Personally, I’d prefer the former—wouldn’t you?

So, to cut back on that possibility of too much interview practice, read my suggestions regarding preparation and get ready to pull off the best interview of your life!

The Stage Has Changed

Perhaps you’ve received an invitation to interview for a job that one of your work buddies told you about. You applied, or responded positively to a headhunter, and now it’s on the calendar. It’s Zoom this time, or Microsoft Office, and you assume that all the same interview elements from before the pandemic will be present regardless of the new venue. That would be only partially correct.

Yes, the basic elements of interview success remain the same, but there are other important items to consider as well. The video interview process is quite a bit different than sitting in someone’s office and talking across a desk. In my column this month, I’ll focus on a few tips that are universal and which will be helpful to you regardless of the interview type.

Did you know that many companies make a hiring decision based on the Zoom interview? At the very least, they’ll use this video meeting to cut their “short list” down to just a candidate or two to visit the job site. Where in the past you may have had a phone meeting first with the hiring manager, your Zoom or Teams meeting could be your first introduction. That meeting will generally include that hiring manager as well as an HR rep and a few representatives from the same department—perhaps even the big boss.

In short, video interviews are much more like the pre-covid “conference room panel interview.” You must know what I mean; that was the way things were done for decades. In those face-to-face meetings, there would be a number of team members in the room with you, each with questions and areas of inquiry. The moderator went around the room to each participant, and all of them took notes as you answered. Generally, in those “olden days” you had already spent a morning talking one-on-one with the hiring manager and a few key staff. You’d come out of those meetings with an idea of who and what they are looking for; you had your questions answered and that allowed you a level of comfort before you sat down with the panel.

Off to the Races!

You don’t get that same level of comfort in today’s video interview. You’ll find new faces looking back at you . . . people with whom you’ve had no handshake. There’s been no chit-chat or opportunity to break the ice, so it can be a bit of a rough start unless you’re prepared for that.

I’ve now been in a few hundred of these video meetings, usually as a silent participant. The hiring manager does a personal introduction, describes the role and requests others to state their names and job titles. That’s it—you are then off to the races. Each person on the call is armed with a question or two and they all make notes as you reply. Some of them are making the call from their home and could have distractions, while others might be in the company conference room. You’ll get a few minutes for your own questions and then once you’re off the line, the panel will talk as a group before they go on and give a general “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.”

Preparation Wins the Day

I just went through a painful series of interviews with a client. Although I wasn’t officially a part of the panel, my client let me check in and watch the proceedings. The first two candidates were just horrible and one of my most embarrassing professional experiences. Both had done so much better in my one-on-one interviews. These first two candidates completely blew it; luckily, I had a solid No. 3. It all boiled down to being comfortably prepared and succinctly answering the panel’s questions.

When you have 45 minutes or an hour for an interview, and eight panelists in the room, you can’t take more than 10 minutes to answer every question. How would you feel if you were a panelist and didn’t get to ask your question before time was up? That falls directly on the shoulders of the candidate. Yes, you are in control of this time allotted, not them. They’re there to listen to you, so watch the clock.

My first candidate was so unprepared that he just went around and around trying to answer a question to which he clearly had no response. A two-minute expected reply went more than 10 minutes. Behind the scenes, which he didn’t see of course, the big boss sent a Teams note to the other panelists saying “Someone shut this guy down.”

My second interview also went poorly, but for a different reason. While she was able to stay on track with succinct interview responses, it was clear to me that she hadn’t done the interview preparation I requested. She was winging it, which sent a shiver down my spine, because I knew what was coming. Sure enough, when it came time to ask her own questions, she brought up such basic points that it was clear she hadn’t even Googled the company before the interview. Both of these interviews went down in flames and were the result of poor planning and preparation.

Things to remember regardless of in-person or video meeting:

• Interviewers are looking for evidence of your critical thinking skills. Therefore, as you describe an example, focus not only on the results, but on defining the problem for them as well as the approach you took in getting to that great result. Use the term PAR as a reminder: Problem, Approach and Results. Keep each element very succinct. Don’t just say you won an award—that’s a “Result.” Describe first what the Problem was, then the Approach you took, and finally end with the company award as the Result. Most of your focus should be on the “Approach” in your response—that’s where interview panelists get an idea of your thinking ability.
• An interview is made up of examples like these. Throughout the entire event, you’ll be asked questions that define your success based on previous experiences you relate back to the panel in these nugget-sized responses. They can ask for more detail if you need to dive deeper. But because of this focus on experiences, you’ll need to review your CV and make notes for yourself of every successful project and people experience that you’ve had. This needs to be done in advance, and written down, because you’ll never remember them if you don’t have at least some trigger words in front of you! Add failures as well, and what you learned from them, and especially examples of interacting with difficult people.
• Spend as much time as possible with the company website, articles and press releases, and any documents you can discover about the business and its markets. When you ask questions, don’t try and show off your preparation by asking some kind of question that you wouldn’t normally need an answer. It’s possible to overdo it, so keep most of what you’ve learned in reserve for further discussions with the company.

The Right candidate

Some unethical recruiters will position a ringer or two in the interview process so that another candidate looks better. I hope my client doesn’t think this is what occurred here…the third interviewer was just so much better than the first two, and it was the result of her true interest in the job and the time she spent preparing. She is from Africa, and the internet connection there was horrible, so I was very worried when in the first three minutes her video went out—and stayed out for the next 30 minutes.

However, her answers were genuine and “from the heart.” She was relaxed and confident—she had prepared well. She provided great examples, and always addressed each interviewer by his or her name before responding. Instead of wandering off topic and losing focus, which is so easy to do, she stayed with the question, asked clarifying questions if it wasn’t clear, and stayed friendly and upbeat the entire time. Within a few minutes, everyone felt that this was a woman with whom they’d enjoy working.

Later, when the positive decision came down on her side, she told me that much of her success was due to the advice I gave her to “Care less, and just enjoy a good conversation with people whom you’ve got a lot in common.”

For her, it was the best interview of her life and now she has to decide about a major life change and relocation. But the decision is now in her court!

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David G. Jensen
Founder and Managing Director of CTI Executive Search
[email protected]
928-274-2266
www.careertrax.com
 
David Jensen is the founder and managing director of CTI Executive Search, a unit of CareerTrax Inc, a leading search firm working in the life sciences. Previously, he had been a managing director at Kincannon & Reed, a 30-year retained executive search firm where his company, CareerTrax, had been a contractor. In 1985, Jensen founded and was CEO at Search Masters International (SMI), a top executive search practice working with biotechnology companies, which was sold in 2001 to a $4.4B human resources service firm. Prior to 1985, Jensen had established a life sciences practice for Govig and Associates (Phoenix, AZ).