Recently a student sought a meeting with me to discuss the
dos and don’ts in a placement interview. Here is a record of my discussion with
her – you can easily make out that the name is changed to prevent identity; but
this record of our discussion is true.
I then circulated the draft of this post to some of my
students for their comments. Yashaswini and Naveen responded with brilliant
observations. Those are insightful. [I am reproducing their views with their
permission.] I trust this entire post will be useful to many. Do not hesitate
to place your comments; I am sure that you must have a point or two to add.
Madhuri: Hello Sir, I am going to appear for a placement
interview and I have a lot of questions on my mind so I sought this meeting.
Vivek: Tell me what those questions are, let us discuss.
M: I am quite nervous about facing the panel in the first place.
V: You should not be nervous about it, all MBAs get placed
and surely those with your talent get placed on the first day. And nobody stays
in the organisation till his or her retirement, so joining a good company is
only a good head-start.
M: yes, but I get nervous facing the panel....
V: It is natural for a young person to be nervous at that
stage, but there is a simple trick that you can follow. When the interviewer
asks you a question please hear him carefully and then repeat it in your words.
M: Why?
V: If the interviewer knows that you have understood the
question well, it reassures him that you are an active listener. But this can’t
be applied to small and direct questions when he asks about your hobbies.
M: So give me an example.
V: If the interviewer asks you as to how you will increase
market share of a certain product by 2%, please say “I heard you say that I
should talk about the strategy I will use to improve market share of product X by
2% in next one year, right?” This is a simple trick that does two things,
firstly it allows you some additional time to prepare your answer
simultaneously, and secondly it reassures the interviewer that you got the
question right.
M: Interesting.
V: How will you answer it?
M: Well, I will talk about increasing number of
dealers......
V: Stop there. The interviewer is interested in knowing how
you think more than specifics of the answer.
M: So?
V: The way to answer such questions is to disclose your
thinking....first talk about what the drivers of market share are, and then
talk about how you will handle each one....share of preference, voice and
distribution. Remember to move from basics to specifics. That will tell an
interviewer how you think.
M: May be I must practice answering such questions......it
is interesting. Tell me how should I answer when they ask “what are your
strengths and weaknesses?”
V: As an interviewer
I was always amused by answers to this question. Students know this question
will be asked without fail, so they come very well prepared. They tell
strengths disguising them as weaknesses – “When a job is given to me I become
very impatient and cannot rest unless it is over” is passed as a weakness! Ha
ha!!
M: I too feel that it is so funny. How should I answer it?
V: I have always felt that a good many people do not know
their own strengths and weaknesses. I too fall in that category. Moreover there
are people who believe that strengths and weaknesses are context specific.
M: Yes....
V: The interviewer wants to know you as a person to come to
a conclusion whether or not you are suitable for a job he has in hand.
M: Yes....
V: Then why no tell him how you have changed over last six
or seven years; let us say since you passed your 12th.
M: You mean how I have developed as a person. And I should lead the discussion to my
development ....
V: Yes. That is the point. Tell the interviewer that it may
help him to understand you better as a person. Then tell the interviewer that
you have a greater awareness of social problems as a result of your training in
the last two years, or that your interactions with union leaders made you aware
of different reality, or that some books have made a mark on your mind. And
there is a technique of telling this to others.
M: Really? Tell me.....
V: Make a statement first, give example and then explain the
point you made. Three steps.
M: Tell me how.....
V: Hmmm.....For example, you may say that a certain book,
say Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead, or Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning or the
famous book Tuesdays With Morie, - and I am naming these books because these
are read by a large number of students – left a mark on your mind. Then step
two – explain which book you read and what is the subject of the book – and then step three - tell the interviewer
crisply what it did to you or what appealed to you most. You can do this
mentioning an event too.
M: I am now clear about how I should prepare for an
interview. One more question....What is one thing I must avoid.
V: Just be your natural self, authentic. Any mask that you
put on is easily seen by others and it does not make a good impression. Do not
be anything but authentic.
Vivek
Dear Sir,
It was a very good read. Infact it took me to my interview preperation
days. I loved the paraphrasing bit.
As far as a critique is concerned.
If you want your
conversation with Ms.M to be posted, you can surely go ahead and post it. However, if you are thinking of posting
something which will be useful for students to prepare and attend interviews,
then you will have to add some more bit.
For me, The Interview is like a movie, the interviewer is the audience
and interviewee is the director. For the movie to be impressive, efforts
director puts behind the screen is as important as how he presents it to the
audience.
I was hit hard in my summers
because I did not prepare for it. I did not want to make the same mistakes in
finals. I had devised a plan for my preparation. I hope my preparation helps
you in helping other students in preparation.
There are three types of questions any interviewer might ask.
1. General Life and Self questions
eg. Tell me about your self,
Strengths and weaknesses, Achievements etc..
2. Resume Based questions
eg. Projects done, people
met, competitive participations, key achievements on resume.
3. Academic questions
eg. Questions related to
Law, Comp and Benifits, PMS, OB etc....
The strategies for answering these three types of questions is quite
different.
1. General Life and Self questions
These questions are usually asked to find more about the person. Most of
the questions are already known. Tell me about yourself is surely a starter
question. However, the difference one can make is through his/her clarity of
what is said and the effectiveness of the tone and the speed at which we say.
The answers for these questions should not be too long neither too short. There
should be a clear message at the end of answer.
One key point is to make the answers our own. If I dont feel that
something is my strength then I can never feel comfortable saying this to
others. Hence, even though we say something, We would have told them I didn't really meant what I
say.
When I started my preparation, I collected few of these questions (First
got a collection of 20 questions from the net). Selected, 5 questions out of it
(Considering my laziness at that time :P). Wrote answers for each of the
questions. Got it vetted by my mentor (Snigdha our senior). Incorporated her
inputs and rewrote it again.
When I started practicing it, I
could find that it was not easy to put things written in spoken. There was a
lot of tweaks that had to be done. I virtually used to go on a walk with the
paper with these answers written in it in my hand. Imagine a interviewer,
Imagine his reactions when i answer each one of the question and practiced my
tone, facial expression, speed and even body language.
Finally, when I was in a position to answer all these 5 questions. I
could find my self to have understood me better. I was more confident and clear
in what I said.
2. Resume Based questions
eg. Projects done, people
met, competitive participation, key achievements on resume.
These questions are asked to understand what the person has done in
past. Indirectly saying I want to know What you have done not who you are or
what the company is doing. I spoiled couple of my interviews in summers with
these kind of questions, by mixing things up and not answering the what part
properly.
Resume preparation(which includes preparing yourself based on resume)
becomes the most important trick. Everything in our resume and every word we
say based out of that resume should be known to ourselves. {am hinting that if
we don't know something or not confident about something, we should not put
that on resume.}
1. Make sure redundant data
is not part of your resume
2. Make information as
specific as possible.
3. Structure resume based
on your strength [Highlighting is a way to invite questions...]
I had framed answers for each and every project I did. A simple trick
here is to relate each project with something which you have read or worked on.
During my fieldwork days, I used to apply leadership theories, in a training
model I created. I used expectancy theory in the Summer project working on
compensation restructuring. Relating things builds a lot of confidence and
gives the interviewer a taste of our application orientation. In other words we
tell the interviewer, I not only know things but also can apply based on requirement.
3. Academic questions
eg. Questions related to
Law, Comp and Benifits, PMS, OB etc....
I was weak in this section, These questions are asked to test the
knowledge level of the candidate. Usually the consulting company prefers these
questions. FMCG might be more concentrating on law questions.
all my days in TISS, it was more of a experiential learning. So, I had
to really sit with the books. My approach was to take project i have done in
the past. Read all the theory related to the project, so that I can relate each
other. Once that is done and feel confident I used to read other chapters of
the subjects.
Say, If interviewer asks what is expectancy theory, then I will tell him
the definition, how i used it, how is it useful otherwise. With this approach,
I had selected only few subjects (Law, Comp & OB) I had taken a risk by not
reading all the subjects, however I thought my resume which is in front of them
will rule the interview more than the subjects which I have read. Even if they
had asked something on which I don't know or I have not worked on, I was
prepared to say "Sorry I don't know" {After all you also got to tell
them that you are honest ;) }
Sir, hope it helps.
Thanks
Regards
Naveen Keshava
Dear Sir
This was a great read... got me reflecting on my days as an interviewee,
dreading the campus placements. And then in the last 2.5 years have been on the
other side of the table. I have been to a couple of campus interviews, watching
as student after student comes in each carrying so much hope.
There are some things that struck me in this...
The first is your last statement about authenticity. I have been in
interviews where I have said “I don’t know” so many times and yet got selected.
Where I have been pulled into a discussion where I took a stand and eventually
had in the course of the discussion was made to see a different point of view
and say “Yes you are right and I am wrong. Your way makes more sense”. But I
still got through. I never understood why till I actually stood on the other
side and was a listener. I realized it doesn’t matter what u do or don’t know
today. What matters is how transparent you are. You need to stop thinking about
what they want to hear and think more about what you need to say. I find that
the more you think about the former the more you tell yourself that that IS
YOU. And then you end up coming across very strange in the interview. The Pen
picture of you that an interviewer draws up is incomplete.
So I was glad to read about that piece on authenticity. I don’t know if
it is possible for you to elaborate on that further. But it would be great if
you could point out how. Everyone tells a student to “be themselves” but it is
so hard to capture how.
Also that thing about weaknesses. So many interviewers ask that. The
most charming one I have heard (we hired this girl) was “Oh I get so angry at
times with people. I have a nasty temper, very low tolerance and can get
extremely impatient and when that happens I am highly ineffective and very
displeasing to be with”. I wish people would just say it – I can’t plan my time
or I am not a good multi tasker or I am not a very good team player, I like to
work on my own… an organization that can’t accept or allow weaknesses can’t be
a very real place to work in can it?
Finally, almost every time I go to campus, this happens – we interview
someone, find him/her highly unsuitable. But we hear in a bit that some other
company (usually quite a good one) has picked him/her up. I always used to
wonder in the beginning how they could have done so when the drawbacks were so
obviously clear. Today, reading this post, it came to me. That one interview
with Nokia is NOT who the person is. Nor are the many “bad” interviews. Every
interview is a confluence of the moment and the person and the panel and then
the biggest of all – chance! All four come together to make the interview a
good one. The moment might be wrong and the student may be nervous and trip up.
The panel might be a particular kind and not like particular kinds of students.
You might have revised Pay for Performance but they asked you about Employee
Engagement surveys. Someone told you they grill you on acads but you faced what
was an out and out behavioural interview. You never know and no matter how hard
you prepare you can never foretell what might happen in that room. So at some
level, students need to stop over preparing for interviews and learn to go with
the flow. When you go with the flow there is no good or bad interview. This is so
much easier said than done and often can only be said by someone NOT going
through the process themselves.
I would really like to know your thoughts on this too...
Warm regards
Yashaswini Vishwanathan