节目资讯
刊物:职场秘诀
日期:2009-10-10
难易度:Low
关键字:interim, debrief, cordial, rapport, cocky, decompress
Advanced Studio Classroom is on the air.
Interviews are not easy, but Advanced magazine is here to help you.
Hello, listeners, welcome to Advanced Studio Classroom.
This is Bill Quinn.
Today it’s October 10th, and we’re on day two of our BUSINESS article: Mastering
the Interview.
It’s found on page 20 of your Advanced Studio Classroom magazine.
And uh, you can see a picture of those three guys up at the top next to our
title.
They look extremely happy to be waiting for their interview.
Comfortable.
And the company has put them on these really comfortable chairs you can see
there also.
Yeah.
So, uh, it’s just an ideal situation.
Well, I do have an ideal panel back for day two of this article.
I’ve got Bradon Bryant, Dawn Day, and Steve Hsia.
Hello, panelists.
Hi, Bill.
Good to have you guys back for this article, and it’s a lot of fun, actually,
talking about this.
Going through the interview process is not fun, but um, actually talking about
what we can do and things like that.
And I just want to get maybe a quick thought from everybody from yesterday.
And first I’m gonna go to Steve.
That’s right, Bill.
I know you asked me if I had any examples of good or bad interviews.
I thought I’d share one very quickly.
Uh, it was this time when I was interviewing for a consulting job, one where
they typically ask you brain-teasers or just tough questions just to see how you
think.
OK.
And I was just wrestling with a problem, but in the end I just felt so
frustrated in front of the interviewer that I just... I said I gave up.
And I knew the interview was over just then.
But then the interviewer just looked at me and said,
”Well, you know what? You answered that question the best that... that I’ve
heard so far all today, and it’s a shame that you just threw in the towel like
that, that you just gave up.”.
And from that moment I just knew from now on I had to keep my cool in these
interviews.
Did they... They didn’t hire you?
No, they did not.
Oh, OK.
Well, it’s a learning experience, so it’s... it’s something you gotta go
through, so you gotta go through that difficulty.
The next time you would handle it.
And in fact, we’re gonna talk about that a bit later today: what to do after the
interview when you had a situation like that.
And also joining us is Dawn Day.
Hi, Dawn.
Hi, Bill, it’s good to be back.
Good to have you here.
Thanks.
Did you have an example or two, good or bad?
Uh, bad. More bad than good, I would say.
Everybody’s got bad.
Yeah.
I remember the first interview I went into.
I was so intimidated and so nervous that I just kept saying things that I didn’t
even really think about.
So I said... said a lot of empty phrases.
Oh.
I just kind of was sitting there and quoting out of the book, and so it was a
bad experience.
OK.
Yeah.
Did they hire you?
They didn’t.
They didn’t.
Yeah.
Well, give yourself credit for accurately reading the situation.
Yeah. I guess you can put it like that.
Yeah, but three people at the top, I... I think I looked like the one on the
left.
I was just kind of sitting there and not knowing what to expect.
Yeah, this guy’s like petrified.
Is he breathing? I don’t know.
I would hope he is, but...
Yeah.
You have to remember to keep breathing.
You have to keep breathing.
It’s important, you know, to keep calm, you know.
Yeah.
It’s important.
Brandon, you.
Interviews, wow.
I remember one in particular, Bill.
I went to... This was a recruiting job at a university.
And I wasn’t expecting one part of this interview, Bill.
They asked me to go and basically give a speech in front of a few people on how
to persuade students to come to the university.
Really?
So I did give the speech.
Yeah.
But I didn’t get the job.
So I guess I didn’t do quite what I was supposed to.
I don’t know.
But that was... Man, that was kind of difficult.
That’s an interesting challenge for you.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, here we need you to give the speech and see how you do.
Right. But I can understand why they would want that because you need to do
that, you know, in the job.
So...
Well, there’s two things too.
One, they wanna see, you know, what you do.
And um, also they wanna see just how you handle the situation.
Right.
And... oh, and I think Steve learned that too with the difficult question, the
brain-teaser, which...
A brain-teaser is a challenging puzzle that we have to figure out.
And uh, a lot of times they’re not really even looking for the right or perfect
answer.
They just want to see how you handle the situation.
They just wanna make sure you don’t panic, so...
They don’t expect perfection.
That’s right.
So...
I had uh, experiences from both sides of the desk, I would say.
Um, when I was with uh, one company I was working for, ATP, Automatic Data
Processing, and we were selling computer software... for payroll and human
resources.
And when I went through the process of interviewing for them to be in sales and
marketing with them,
I had about seven or eight interviews over the course of about a month and a
half, and it was... they were these two- and three-hour-long things.
They were just excruciating.
Detail.
You talk about picking my resume apart.
These guys were just like with a magnifying glass on everything.
And also in part of that process, I was in Charlotte, North Carolina.
They flew me up to New Jersey and I had to meet with two vice presidents of the
company, and then these guys were just experts at torture.
And uh, it just was this awful, long, drawn-out process.
I ended up getting the job.
And uh, if I didn’t get the job, I probably would have gone back and killed
them.
But, ah...
It’s understandable.
No, no, no... no, no.
But anyways...
So, that was my experience. It was an awful challenging difficult... experience
but also very learning and I did grow from that.
And then I learned a lot about interviewing techniques.
And then on the... other side of the desk, in that job I had to do interviewing
of job candidates.
I would go on campus, to universities, and interview graduates, soon-to-be
graduates, and other people I would interview - experienced people - in other
situations.
But the bad situations for me there were we would have sixteen or so candidates
scheduled for the day for half our interviews.
And in some instances I immediately knew within a couple of minutes that this
person was not a match.
And so I struggled with, ”Man! What do I do with this now?” Because I’ve got
this young person who is excited, nervous and all the stuff, and I don’t... and
they are not a match,
but I don’t want to just discourage them and just by... you know... after five
minutes, ”Well, sorry, we don’t need you.”.
You know?
So we try and at least go through the process and help them learn some.
So that’s why it’s not all fun for interviewers.
It is not fun.
So... And it’s actually hard to pick through.
The worst part of interviewing people is if you have one position and you got
two or three people who can fill up.
Mmhm.
And you gotta tell one of those... or two of those people ”No.”.
That’s the... That’s probably the hardest part, because you know it’s a good
person and it’s match but you’re not gonna hire them.
That’s the hardest part.
So...
OK.
Listeners, uh, we’re on day two, October 10th of this BUSINESS article:
Mastering the Interview.
Turn to page 21.
Let’s have our first reading.
(Music).
3. Keep it businesslike.
Even if the interview’s going great, don’t let down your guard.
Be cordial, be professional, be polite and be engaged.
”If you’ve built a strong rapport, keep on task,” Bushey said. ”Do not
overshare. Don’t get too comfortable.”.
OK, listeners, yesterday we started off with do’s and don’ts.
We’ve got a total of seven do’s and don’ts that are tips for our readers.
And today we start out with number three, Dawn.
Keep it businesslike or keep it professional.
You don’t want to be over... friendly.
Yeah, you don’t be. You don’t wanna be overly friendly.
Don’t come in like this guy is your best buddy and don’t be so casual.
Don’t let your guard down.
And then when we let our guard down, then that means we become a little too
casual.
You know, we’re not completely professional.
And that next sentence advises us to what?
To be cordial, be professional, be polite and be engaged.
OK, cordial, Brandon.
Cordial just means that you are very friendly and very polite,
that you are professional but, again, not like this is your best friend so that
you give the interviewer a lot of respect.
Engaged.
And ”engaged” just means that you know what’s going on.
You’re listening to the interviewer and you are responding, and you’re not just
sitting there kind of like this guy over here on page 20 in the chair frozen,
but that you... you are taking action and you are engaged in a conversation.
A lot of times we say that.
Sometimes we might say, ”Oh, I wasn’t very engaged in this conversation,” or ”It
wasn’t an engaging conversation.”.
OK.
And you’re involved and you’re paying attention.
You’re leaning forward to showing interest.
And then uh, Jess Bushey, a consultant from the previous day, goes on to say,
”If you build a strong rapport, keep on task.”.
If I build a strong rapport, Dawn.
That just means that uh, you established a good relationship with the
interviewer, so you’re relaxed and you’re casual but you’re not too laid-back.
Yeah.
So there’s a fine line between that.
You’re not too laid-back, but at the same time you reflect that you’re
comfortable in this situation.
OK.
And uh, Bushey also says: Do not overshare. Don’t get too comfortable.
You’re not hanging out with your buddies.
And uh, do not overshare.
We used to call that the information dump, and that’s when... Just imagine a
dump truck and... a dump truck.
And we would ask a question and the person would just unload multiple paragraphs
of information, and I would be sitting there, my eyes would start to glaze over,
and I’d be thinking: I don’t need to know all of this.
So do not overshare. Just keep your answers crisp and on target.
OK.
Number four we’re going to listen to right now and Steve’s gonna tell us all
about it.
(Music).
4. Hold the attitude.
Learn about the company by checking business websites like Hoover’s and Manta,
Bushey said.
Show the interviewers that you’ve studied the company, but don’t be boastful
about it.
”You can’t be too prepared, but you can be too cocky,” Bushey said.
So our fourth do and don’t for today is to hold the attitude.
What this... What... what this means here is to do your homework on the company,
to really research what the company does, what its mission is, uh, what their
different product lines are, for example.
But at the same time when you’re actually at the interview and you want to show
them that you... you’ve really done your homework, you don’t want to be too
boastful about it.
”Boastful” here just means very proud that you know this information and that
you’re just saying it just to impress, not necessarily to show that... that you
have a thorough understanding of the company.
It’s a very fine line, Bill.
Hey, that’s a great point.
There’s two... There’s actually two issues in this section here.
The first one is learn about the company.
And it says the ”prepare, prepare, prepare” part.
There’s no excuse today not to be prepared.
You can go on the Internet, enter the company’s name and google and within
fifteen minutes know everything you need to know, right?
That’s exactly right.
I’ve actually been to the Hoover’s website and it’s very, very, very helpful to
prepare for interviews.
They have, like Steve mentioned earlier, the mission statements about the
company, you know, financial statements, recent news even about the company.
So right now you really don’t have an excuse to be unprepared and not do your
homework.
No excuse to be unprepared.
And then that’s the first issue in this section, right, Brandon? And the second
one is?
The second one is don’t be overconfident, or here we see ”cocky”.
Cocky is an informal word that we use to mean that someone is overconfident and
it’s in an unpleasant way.
Many times people that we run into, maybe they are very sure of themselves, we
say,
meaning they will tell you maybe everything that they know about a certain
subject and it can be very irritating.
I’m good.
I know I’m good.
Let me tell you how good I am.
Yes.
You got time?
I’m gonna tell you how good I am.
Yeah, right, nobody... nobody wants to be around anybody like that.
That’s an extreme, but we can actually be in an interview and we can try...
maybe show too much.
And you know, a lot of times it’s good to be prepared,
but they don’t want you to say, ”Oh, well, I studied your company and I saw
that, well, Phil Archer was the CEO back in 1950 and at that time...”.
You know, they don’t want to know everything like that.
And... and if you do come across too boastful about it, they look at that and
say: Well, this is kind of an employee he’s gonna be or she’s gonna be.
Yeah, it really sets the interviewer off, doesn’t it, Bill?
Right.
One of our terms from yesterday: to set somebody off.
Yep.
OK.
Number five says, ”Keep your chin up.”.
Let’s find out what thatmeans.