Work With Me, People: Interviewing For A Job
by. Ed Brett
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In the past year I’ve conducted 30-plus interviews for “professional” positions reporting to me, positions requiring both technical skills and strong experience. After about the 10th interview I started making notes regarding what I’d seen, little things that I would have liked to have fed back to the candidates after the interview if I had a chance. What follows are some of the personal, admittedly idiosyncratic advice I’ve collected but, alas, not distributed. Until now.
Show up on time
“On time” means 10 minutes early. You can pick up all sorts of nifty little bits of information while you sit in the lobby waiting for the interview to start. You can get a sense of how old your potential coworkers are, what the dress code is, whether it’s a noisy place or a heads-down place, whether the company seems professional and slick or down-home and folksy, even whether the physical environment has natural light. Some of this might be handy in the interview; more of it will be handy when you get the job offer and have to make a decision.
Turn your phone off, not to vibrate
A vibrating phone is a distracting phone. Do you want me thinking about your phone or do you want me thinking about you?
Your resume and cover letter is important, but your interview is way more important
When I evaluate resumes I’m scanning for a few key things to see if I want to talk to you, and after that the resume is simply a conversation guide for the interview. I want the resume to give me a clear picture of work history, a general sense of the scope of responsibilities you’ve had, and a good indication of technical skills.
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