The 5 Secrets of the Hire

Understanding how an interviewer thinks when conducting an interview is crucial in turning that meeting into a job offer, because there's a lot more involved than just saying you can do the job. No matter what your profession or current place on the professional ladder, every job interviewer will be evaluating you against the same essential criteria. In Knock 'em Dead 2006, I refer to these criteria as the Five Secrets of the Hire, and getting a grip on them will improve your odds at any interview.

The First Secret: Ability and Suitability
Candidates who win job offers are always the ones who prove themselves able and suitable; able in that they can do the job, and suitable in that they understand the small role their position plays in making a contribution to the bottom line. Every working professional has a combination of skills that broadly define ability and suitability. It is useful to itemize your technical/professional skills as they parallel the requirements of a job, then to recall incidents that profile each of these skills. These real life illustrations of you at work, doing the job successfully, allow the interviewer to picture you behaving in the same way on his or her payroll.

Additionally, every profession within a host industry develops certain sensibilities, certain ways of doing the job, specifically tailored to the unique needs of that particular industry. For example, a sales professional working in manufacturing is functionally the same as a sales professional working in the service industry, yet the marketing considerations and sales process will differ widely because of the products sold. Your "industry" or "profession specific" knowledge," when subtly demonstrated, can help set you apart other candidates.

The Second Secret: Everyone Hires for the Same Job
Jobs do not get created for the love of mankind, it only happens when the extra manpower will help contribute to profitability. Another way of looking at this is to say that people get hired to prevent problems from occurring within their sphere of influence, through their professionalism and industry knowledge, and to solve them expeditiously when they do occur. In reality, this is the first and most important part of the unwritten job description for any job. A simple illustration would be the receptionist: without said receptionist, calls wouldn't get routed and that company's business would slowly grind to a halt. So regardless of job or profession, we are all, at some level, problem solvers.

Think of your job in terms of its problem-solving responsibilities. By identifying the particular problem-solving business you are in, you will have gone a long way toward isolating what the interviewer will want to talk about. You might identify the typical problems you tackle on a daily basis. Come up with plenty of specific examples and recall how you solved them. These steps can help you to develop useful problem- solving examples from all areas of your responsibility.

1. State a problem you typically face in your job or an unusual problem that required special efforts.
2. Isolate relevant background information and the special knowledge or education applied to tackle this challenge.
3. List the skills and professional behaviors that you employed to solve that problem.
4. Recall all your considerations, the plan of attack and your ultimate solution.
5. Quantify the solution in terms of team contribution and the bottom line, if possible in terms of money earned and money or time saved.

With plenty of examples to hand, you can use them to effectively illustrate your answers to those tough interview questions. Additionally, when you ask about the initial projects that will be tackled in early months, you show that you are focused on the problem solving elements of the job and glean the information necessary to give answers more carefully tailored to the employer's immediate concerns.

The Third Secret: Professional Behavior
Remember the first day at your first job? You went looking for the coffee machine and there on the wall was a hand written sign: YOUR MOTHER DOESN'T WORK HERE, PICK UP AFTER YOURSELF. That's when you realized that to succeed, it was necessary to develop a whole new set of professional behaviors. Making employers aware of behaviors that make you effective in your work, like time management and analytical skills, increase your odds of receiving a job offer. However, simple statements don't leave a lasting impression, whereas illustrations that show you employing professional behaviors at work do leave that lasting impression.

The Fourth Secret: Motivation
In a tightly run job race, when there is little to choose between two top candidates, the offer will always go to the most motivated.

When you want a job, can do it and show your enthusiasm for that job and the company, it is a direct compliment to the interviewer who probably spends the majority of his or her waking hours at that job. You make the hiring decision that much easier, because the interviewer will correctly surmise that a more motivated employee will turn in a better performance.

The Fifth Secret: Manageability and Teamwork
Manageability is defined in different ways: the ability to work alone; the ability to work with others; the ability to take direction and criticism when it is carefully and considerately given; and the ability to take direction when it isn't carefully and considerately given.

Portray yourself as a team player with your every word and action. When answering interview questions, identify your role as a team member, and use the pronoun "we" when appropriate. If you are asked how you handle criticism, explain that you listen, confirm understanding and agree on a course of action and follow-through on it. Another aspect of teamwork is the ability to work well with others regardless of their sex, age, religion, appearance, disabilities or ethnicity. Don't bring up these issues during a job interview. Even a casual reference to such topics demonstrates insensitivity to the rights of others and will likely put a question mark by your candidacy.

With possession of these five secrets you have powerful ammunition to take to the interview. Integrate the lessons into how you prepare for and answer questions, and you will reap the rewards — while your competition must resign themselves to a sour grape harvest.