Peter Dawson

I was reminded recently of how candidates can sabotage themselves in interviews when a financial planner called me to vent about an interview he had attended for a role with a large financial services group.

He came to our conversation with an armoury of incendiary abuse regarding the interviewer’s incompetence, lack of professionalism and inability to recognise his talents.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t a good fit for the role; in fact his skill set and experience put him at the front of the queue of candidates in consideration but his interview went south from an early stage when he thought that there was no appreciation of what he was able to bring to the table. Rather than working with the interviewer he took umbrage to a question about his achievements in a previous role. ‘If he knew anything about me he should have known that I had understated what I did in that role but he started asking a lot of questions he should have known the answer to’.

When I asked him how he thought he came across to the interviewer he missed the point saying that he now knows what he could do to grow the client’s business and didn’t appreciate how his abrasiveness was a likely deal breaker.

Candidates have a number of sabotage techniques they unwittingly draw on to ensure they implode in interviews including the abrasive approach just mentioned. The most common are:

• Lack of focus where answers to questions lack structure and often the candidate will tell a meandering story that loses the interviewer at an early stage of the telling. I know of one case where a practice manager told a story that had no relevance to the question asked and took all of ten minutes to tell it. I’m sure if there was an ejector button the interviewer would have taken considerable pleasure in pressing it.
• Jargon is often used to show case the candidate’s knowledge but often backfires when their responses are heavily littered with industry speak that only serves to negatively impact on their assessment.  This is particularly relevant to interviews where the interviewer is not an industry insider and finds they’re at a loss to understand what you are talking about.
• Waffling is common in interviews particularly where candidates are either unable or uncomfortable in answering a question. They focus on peripheral issues and steer the interviewer away from what was asked in the hope that they can distract them long enough so that they lose their train of thought or that they’ll give up and move to the next question.
• Fidgeting becomes a serious problem when candidates cling on to something like it’s their security blanket and use it as a prop for their answers to questions. I recall a senior financial planner from a private bank who wielded a shiny gold Mont Blanc pen like he was conducting Beethoven’s ninth all through the interview. My distraction grew very quickly in to annoyance and the ‘conductor’ was exited before he could get in to his next symphony.
• Mobile interruptus – here we are looking at someone who thinks that their need to answer their mobile or read and send texts or email is more important than the interview. I remember a business consultant who at the time was working for a global consulting firm spending more time on his mobile than talking to me. Needless to say he didn’t make the candidate short list and the next time I saw him was at a café where he was talking on his mobile while the other person at the table looked on painfully.
• Making inflammatory statements – the most common form of this is bad mouthing former colleagues and bosses or repeating negative rumours about companies. Malicious stories even if there is some truth to them are best avoided with a barge poll as they reflect a lack of professionalism. However sometimes interviewers when probing behavioural characteristics touch on a nerve. A senior executive was once asked what the first thing he would do if he was appointed Prime Minister and he replied that he would order the armed forces to attack one of our Asian neighbours as he thought they were a threat. Needless to say he didn’t get a call back for the role he was interviewing for.
• Telling jokes is the preserve of the fool hardy as we all know comedy is subject to taste and context. I have met only one candidate over the years who was able to effectively weave jokes in to an interview. He really had the talent to pick his audience and his timing was up there with professional comedians and if nothing else he couldn’t help but make you smile even when asked some pretty serious questions.

My advice to you budding comedians is to keep your jokes for another forum as there is nothing that kills an interview like a flat or inappropriate joke.

To avoid sabotaging your chances in an interview aim to build a rapport with the interviewer which is best done by answering what is asked of you directly and succinctly as possible and not taking them on a journey that goes nowhere, is loaded with jargon, distracting jokes or annoying phone calls or texts.

By Peter Dawson, The Dawson Partnership, Author of Successful Recruitment – Building your business through best practice

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These interviews invariably start off innocuously with the interviewer asking you a range of background questions drawn from your CV. From there they will in disperse straightforward questions with the curve balls. For the uninitiated it can be very disorientating as you wonder what is going be asked next.

Curve ball questions are wide ranging covering an array of topics and often seem out of place in the interview but they are specifically designed to provide an insight in to your values, priorities, motivations and prejudices.

Some examples of curve ball questions are:

• What is your passion in life?
• Who inspires you?
• If you could be another person who would you choose to be?
• If you had a dinner party and you could invite anyone who would you invite?
• If you were the Prime Minister what would you see as your first priority?
• Where would you like to go on holiday and if you could choose anyone to join you who would that be?
• Are you a cat or a dog person?
• What didn’t you like about your last boss?
• Do you think women are discriminated against in the financial services industry?
• Your boss is promoted and someone you don’t like is brought in to replace him/her. What would you do?
• You find out that someone is spreading malicious gossip about you at work what would you do?
• You are offered a promotion a close friend has coveted. What would you do?
• You are commended for a piece of work that was a group effort. Would you say anything?
• Someone has made a snide joke about someone in the office. Would you take it up with the person who made the joke? Or report them to your boss or HR?
• You come up with an innovative business solution and someone else claims it as their idea. What would do?
• Your boss flirts with you and you feel uncomfortable about it. What would you do?
• You have the opportunity for secondment to another business unit that would provide you with invaluable experience but your boss doesn’t want you to go. What do you do?
• You’ve been successful in securing a new job and a week in you hate it. What do you do?
• A recruiter calls you with a great career opportunity but the company you are with has provided you in your career advancement with training, promotions and challenging work. What do you do?
• What is the biggest mistake that you have made and what did you do to rectify it?

These twenty questions are the tip of the ice berg and it is not unknown for interviewers to put a great deal of emphasis on curve ball questions using follow ups to chase down particular motivational or values based issues. However, they can be also problematic for the interviewer unless they have considerable experience in interviewing and understand how the mosaic of questions will illicit responses that will build candidate profiles that they are seeking.

For the candidate it is important that they take a cautious approach particularly when asked questions that they are not comfortable with. Navigating your around some of these questions may also reflect negatively on you as the interviewer might think that you are trying to avoid giving a truthful response.

If you are not sure how to answer a particular question then tell the interviewer explaining your reasoning. If he/she is not able to assist then either tell them that you are not comfortable with the question or answer to the best of your ability without compromising yourself.

Quite often candidates can feel ambushed by curve ball questions and try to outsmart them by making up an answer they think will be viewed positively, however your best course of action is to do what you think is the best thing for you and answer the questions honestly.

As an end note; a candidate was asked the question, ‘if you were the prime minister what would you see as your first priority?’ He answered that he would bomb one of our Asian neighbours and was surprised that he didn’t get the job.

Peter Dawson

Principal

The Dawson Partnership

Author of Successful Recruitment – Transforming your business through best practice

www.dawsonpartnership.com.au

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Finding the right job starts with a good interview.

The job you want is within your grasp and all you have to do is get through the interview. To make sure that you are best placed to get yourself to the front of the queue there are five things that you can do:

1. Do research on the company by:

• Accessing the company website. This will provide you with an overview of the business operation, divisional structure, management team profiles and the annual report if it is a listed company. You can also
• Drawing on other information on the web including news articles and profile pieces that will give you further insights as to the company’ operation and business strategy. It pays to be cautious as some information may be open to question at best or mischievous at worst so always ensure the source is reliable
• Contacting friends and former colleagues who are or have worked in the company but it pays to not take the word of one person alone particularly if they give you  negative feedback as this may reflect a bad experience that may not be the fault of the company

2. Learn as much about the role as you can through: 

The position description

The position description is an important source of information as it will provide you with information on the company, the role and candidate requirements. It should address the purpose and main responsibilities of the role and set out the management function and reporting lines along with key stakeholders, key results areas, business unit strategy, candidate requirements (knowledge, skills experience and qualifications and personal traits).

Talking to people who have the same or similar roles

Often it is useful to talk to people who are working or have worked in a like role as they will be able to provide you with a view of their experience which may prove invaluable to you. Just make sure that there is a close similarity in the roles as otherwise you may gain an inaccurate view of the role for which you are in contention.

A mentor

If you have a mentor who has broad ranging industry experience they may be able to help you add another dimension to your information gathering process. Even if the mentor doesn’t have a detailed knowledge of the role or the company, they may be able to present you with additional questions you should be asking and/or refer you to someone that does know.

3. Be prepared for the interview

The interview is the make or break so it is important that you are able to position yourself as preferred candidate. To make an impression you need to not only be able to tell your story in terms of what you have achieved in your career coherently but be able to engage with the person you are being interviewed by. Most good interviewers will be well prepared and will have read over your CV. They will have a range of questions including those designed to draw out your behavioural responses. You need to treat the interview as a discussion focusing on pertinent role and company related questions and be prepared to answer questions succinctly providing clear examples where possible.

4. Avoid interview traps

I have seen good candidates fail at interview and this has been mainly due to lack of preparation. There are a number of interview traps that you should be aware of:

• Familiarity with the interviewer
• Hesitancy in answering questions and not being able to directly address an issue raised by the interviewer
• Not being able to answer questions coherently and succinctly
• Big noting yourself

5. Make sure the interview is a conversation

The best interviews are conversations where the interplay between the candidate and the interviewer is not constrained and there is a level of rapport between them. This can make for an environment where rather than curt and dried questions and answers there is free-flowing discussion that can cover off issues in more depth and illicit candidate responses that are often broader in context and provide more insight in to their abilities and their motivations.

Thorough planning of your interview strategy will provide you a framework and the requisite tools to ensure you are in the best possible position to not only take away all the information that you require to make a decision as to whether the role is for you, but position you as the preferred candidate.

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Peter Dawson, Principal, The Dawson Partnership

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In part two I will take you through the interview questionnaire and in particular what should be included to ensure you are in the best position to get the information you need from the candidate to make a proper assessment of their suitability.

Interview questionnaires can be divided into three parts:

The first part is the candidate background, including career history, educational qualifications, industry participation including memberships of associations, candidate interests including hobbies and community involvement.

Most of this information should be readily found in the candidates’ CV. An easy way for you to commence the interview is to ask questions about the candidate’s choice of career and how they chose each of the roles they have had to date.

From there you can readily move to the other areas asking a lot of why questions and address the level of their participation when talking about community participation and so on.

The second part is to drill into the detail of each role. It is useful to focus on the last ten years of the career history as going back further is like reading an historical novel; while it might be interesting, it often yields little more than some filler to the discussion.

You need to draw out the candidate as to the scope of the roles held and the achievements in each role. It is advisable to be very specific in your questioning asking them about their input in to projects.

I have come across candidates that have claimed responsibility for a major project and yet when I asked them to take me through the details of the various stages of the project management stumbled in their responses. The more you drill down in to the detail the more the candidate is able to confirm their claims as to their role.

While on the issue of detail, you should ask the candidate to confirm not only the scope of each role but the dates of commencement. It is not uncommon for candidates to ‘smooth’ dates filing gaps when they weren’t working.

Where there is a gap make sure you know what it is about. Was it a redundancy or termination for a matter of which you should be made aware?

You should ask questions about the role in terms of responsibilities and if the candidate had managerial responsibilities ascertain the size of the team and the roles in the team. You can always ask the candidate what he thinks his team thought of him/her if they were to be asked.

Most achievements are quantifiable i.e. new clients brought on board, dollar targets met/not met in terms of sales or cost control and you should ask questions specifically to draw out details of these achievements.

Those achievements that are not quantifiable may need some discussion around the candidate’s role in delivery. If, for instance they were responsible for instigating a cultural change program, you might want to ask them about how they implemented the program and was it considered a success by management and the employees themselves.

The third part of the questionnaire is the behavioural section where you can explore how the candidate handles certain situations and their outlook on various issues.

These questions start with ‘tell me a time’ or ‘give me an example’. Some of the most effective behavioural questions can be disarming. One that is constantly used consistently is ‘Tell me a mistake that you have made and what you learnt from it?’

I know of a senior executive search consultant who asked all candidates the question ‘If you were made Prime Minister tomorrow, what is the first thing you would do’. Evidently one executive asked this question replied ‘launch an attack on Indonesia’. Needless to say he wasn’t offered the role.

Behavioural questions add meat to the bone of an interview questionnaire, strengthening your understanding of the candidate’s behaviours and motivations. This is particularly relevant where you have a work place culture that will be conducive to certain types of individuals.

For example, the culture may be suited to those who are focused on achievement but not on making a lot of noise about it. The behavioural interview questions can be tailored to draw out those who would be a fit to this culture.

Above anything else, it is important to invest time in thinking through how you will put together the interview questionnaire and what should be included. If you think that you may need some help, then you should consider speaking to an HR/recruitment consultant who can provide you with suitable advice.

www.dawsonpartnership.com.au

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All too often an employer will take an ad hoc approach, taking little time to prepare for the interview. What transpires is often a meandering discussion where most of the core areas are, at best, only touched on and at worst, overlooked entirely.

This is not limited to those who have little interview experience; often the key offenders are those who have extensive experience and that in itself can be their Achilles heel. I recall speaking to a practice manager responsible for recruiting financial planners and when I asked him what preparation he made before each interview, he laughed and said ‘I don’t do any. I’ve been doing this for years and know what to ask’. But when I queried him on a particular interview he conducted with a senior financial planner, he admitted that he had left some of the key criteria for the position out of the interview.

Even employers who exercise caution when making decisions about their business seem to take a more relaxed approach to interviews – and this is not limited to those who work in the same way as our practice manager. Often it is a matter of familiarity with the candidate that lulls the employer in to less formal way of conducting the interview.

Candidate familiarity can be a positive in that you might know the interviewee as a colleague from the industry however often that knowledge doesn’t replace a formal interview where the candidate has to talk about a range of pertinent issues in a formal context.

The key to successful interviewing lies in the preparation for each interview. This not only ensures that you cover off all relevant issues, but gives the candidates a sense that you are treating the interview process seriously. I don’t know how many times I have had positive feedback from candidates who felt that the time spent with a prospective employer was well spent due to thoroughness of the questions asked.

Alternatively, I have had numerous experiences where candidates provided negative feedback on prospective employers who came across as disorganised. Some of these stories are close to comedic where employers have the wrong candidate CV, spend the whole interview reading the CV, or continue dealing with other business matters during the interview.

One financial planner told me that the interviewer was constantly distracted by phone calls and when he wasn’t speaking to someone on the phone, was checking the markets on his computer. The employer was taken aback when the candidate turned down the offer when it was made to her.

Then there are those employers who are so organised that they have compiled a check list of questions that are a mile long that would, under normal circumstances, take hours to get through. Rather than streamline the questions they plough on regardless even if the candidate is less than fully responsive. This cookie cutter approach can spell the death knell for the candidate who makes a hasty retreat from the opportunity, never to be heard of again – and once again the employer is mystified as to what has gone wrong!

The most productive interviews are a positive two way experience. I always advise clients that they should they allow the candidates to ask questions about the role and the business itself. It should also be looked on as an opportunity for the employer to sell the opportunity to the candidate in terms of the scope of the role now and potential career development in to the future.

In part two of this article I will take you through the structure of the interview questionnaire and the types of questions that you should consider using.

www.dawsonpartnership.com.au

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