Interviewing
Preparing for the Interview
Research the Employer
The more information you have about a prospective employer, the better prepared you will be during the interview. You need to know about the organization's products, trends, and employment requirements. This is vital for interview preparation.
Suggested information to review on the company:
- Name, age, location, and number of plants, offices, and stores
- Type of products or services
- Growth history
- Anticipated growth (current size within industry)
- Current challenges (chief competitors)
- Parent company
- Subsidiaries
- Major activity of company
- Annual report (if they are publicly held)
Many information sources such as newspapers, industry publications and directories can help the job seeker in researching companies. You should be able to locate most of these in a public library. Some examples include:
- American's Corporate Families
- Annual Reports
- Chamber of Commerce Membership Directory (Local)
- Dallas Business Journal
- Directory of Business Information Resources
- Directory of Corporation Affiliations
- Dun & Bradstreet Business Information Reports
- Employer's Annual Reports
- Fortune Magazine
- Industry Magazines (Specific to your field)
- MacRae's State Industrial Directory
- Million Dollar Directory
- Moody's Manual
- Newspapers (Local)
- Standard and Poor's Register of Corporations, Directors, and Executives
- Thomas Register of American Manufacturers
- Wall Street Journal
The Internet also provides a vast amount of resources for researching companies. Start with our Resources.
5 Things About You
Here are five things that most employers want to know about you.
- They want to know if you are qualified for the position.
- What are your greatest strengths?
- Do you have experience in this field?
- What do you believe you bring to this job?
- Why should I hire you?
- They want to know what motivates you.
- What motivates you to put forth your greatest effort?
- Where do you see yourself five years from now?
- What is more important to you, the money or the job?
- What did you like most about your last job?
- They want to know about the negatives.
- Why did you leave your previous job?
- What did you like least about your last supervisor?
- What is your greatest weakness?
- What did you like least about your last job?
- Why have you been unemployed so long?
- They want to know if you are a good fit.
- What kind of people do you find it hard to work with?
- Tell me about a time when you worked as a member of a team.
- In what kind of environment are you most comfortable?
- Do you prefer to work alone or with others?
- They want to know if you want their job with their company.
- What are you looking for in a position?
- Who else are you interviewing with?
- Why are you interested in this position?
- What do you know about the company?
No-Show Policy
Candidates may remove themselves from an interview schedule through the Eagle Network system until two working days prior to the interview date. After that, it is imperative you contact the Career Center ((940) 565-2105) to cancel or change appointment times.
Candidates that fail to attend their scheduled interview times without notifying the Career Center, will be restricted in applying for other positions or schedules listed through the Eagle Network system. To restore access to the system, a candidate must complete the following steps.
- Schedule an appointment with the Director, Associate Director, or Scheduling Coordinator.
- Furnish a formal letter of apology to the employer, along with a properly addressed/stamped envelope.
The Career Center staff will review and approve this letter during the candidate's scheduled appointment.
Questions for You to Ask
Prepare questions to ask the recruiter, such as:
- What do you think are the three key skills/strengths vital to this position?
- What characteristics do the achievers in this company seem to share?
- Is there a lot of team project work?
- What would I be expected to accomplish in the first six months on the job? in the first year?
- What are some of the department's ongoing and anticipated special projects?
- Identify a typical career path in your organization for someone with my qualifications.
- How is an employee evaluated and promoted?
- What is the retention rate of individuals in the position for which I am interviewing?
- Tell me about your initial, as well as future training programs.
- What are the challenging facets of this job?
- What industry trends will occur in this company?
- Describe the work environment.
- What are the company's strengths and weaknesses?
- How would you describe your company's personality and management style?
- Is it company policy to promote within?
- Tell me the work history of your top management.
- What are your expectations for new hires?
- What is the overall structure of the department where this position is located?
- What qualities are you looking for in your new hires?
- What is the next step in the hiring process for this position?
- Do not ask about salary and benefits.
Practice, Practice, Practice. You only get one chance.
Behavioral Interviewing
Behavioral Questions
Examples of Behavioral Questions related to Job Competencies:
ADAPTABILITY — Tell me about a time when you had to adjust to a classmate's or colleague's working style in order to complete a project or achieve your objectives.
ANALYTICAL SKILLS / PROBLEM SOLVING — Tell me about a situation where you had to solve a difficult problem. What did you do? What was your thought process? What was the outcome? What do you wish you had done differently?
COMMUNICATION — Give me an example of a time when you were able to successfully communicate with another person even when that individual may not have personally liked you (or vice versa). How did you handle the situation? What obstacles or difficulties did you face? How did you deal with them?
CREATIVITY — Tell me about a problem that you've solved in a unique or unusual way. What was the outcome? Were you happy or satisfied with it?
DECISION MAKING — Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision without all the information you needed. How did you handle it? Why? Were you happy with the outcome?
FLEXIBILITY — Describe a time when you put your needs aside to help a co-worker understand a task. How did you assist them? What was the result?
GOAL SETTING — Tell me about a goal that you set that you did not reach. What steps did you take? What obstacles did you encounter? How did it make you feel?
INITIATIVE — What was the best idea you came up with during your professional or college career? How did you apply it?
INTEGRITY/HONESTY — Give an example of a policy you conformed to with which you did not agree. Why?
LEADERSHIP — Tell me about a team project when you had to take the lead or take charge of the project? What did you do? How did you do it? What was the result?
INTERPERSONAL SKILLS — Give an example of when you had to work with someone who was difficult to get along with. How/why was this person difficult? How did you handle it? How did the relationship progress?
PLANNING AND ORGANIZATION / TIME MANAGEMENT — How do you prioritize projects and tasks when scheduling your time? Give me some examples.
TEAMWORK — Describe a situation where others you were working with on a project disagreed with your ideas. What did you do?
STAR Method
When answering behavioral questions use the STAR Method and convey specific situations, actions, and outcomes/results.
| Situation | Use specific details about a situation or task. |
| Task | Tell what led to the situation or task? |
| Action Taken | Discuss what you did and who was involved? |
| Result or outcome | Communicate the outcome? |
Probing Questions
Employers will follow up their main question with probing questions which are designed to elicit specific details that help them assess you in light of the job's success factors. Probing questions may involve asking you to reflect on your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and attitudes and may also seek to uncover the kinds of dialogue you engaged in and the specific outcome of a given situation. Some examples of probing questions include:
What were you thinking when that happened?
What kind of mental processing do you utilize to evaluate a given situation?
What was your reaction?
How are you prone to respond in a given set of circumstances?
What did you actually do?
Can you organize and implement a strategy?
What did you actually say?
Do you communicate effectively in a variety of settings?
What did other people/the other person say in response?
How well do you handle praise and criticism?
How did it finally turn out?
Do you see things through to completion?
What was the final result?
Are you success-oriented?
What did you learn about yourself as a result of this situation?
Are you motivated toward self-evaluation and self-improvement?
What did you learn about others as a result of this situation?
Did this experience give you some perspective about how you deal with people?
What, if anything, would you do differently given the same situation?
Did this experience give you some perspective about how you deal with people?
Is there anything else I should know about this situation?
What makes you unique from the last person who answered the same question?
Job Competencies
Employers are increasingly using behavioral interviewing in the hiring process. This type of interview is based on the idea that the best way to predict your future performance is to examine your past and present performance. Behavioral interviewing also gives interviewers a chance to see how good you are at thinking and communicating "on your feet". Prepare for Behavioral Interviews by researching what job competencies an employer might seek. Some examples of Job Competencies are below:
|
|
|