Couldn’t I just make up a few offers to improve my position?
If you are that well connected, the interview is a formality. Usually (95% of the time) people don’t know a damn person inside and are walking in cold.
If you’ve qualified for the interview then your skills are a pretty good match. The only questions you need to ask is: “What are some of the biggest challenges you currently face?”, “What would be my role in this organization?”. No matter what they say in responce, your answer is, “I can help.”
I’ve started at entry level programmer positions and over the many years have interviewd for a long series of jobs right up to senior level management. Anybody asking this question in an interview immediately shows their cards as being a rookie. I’ve contributed in any number of ways to many organizations and short of improving processes and solving immediate problems I hesitate to give specifics, because… If you are having problems with scope creep on a project, my past experience with tuning the shit out of a database or a nightly batch process is not going to help you one bit. In fact it will mean nothing to you at all.
The question you should be asking is “What’s your biggest problem?”, the aswer you should be giving is, “I know how to solve this. I can help.” Period.
Answering vague questions about how I was a hero once upon a time is pointless. Lead the client in the inteview to tell you about the actual problems they are facing. Then make sure they know you can solve them.
Yeah… I’m cynical about job interview processes… so what.
I feel a little picked on. Am I supposed to feel picked on?
You know, I don’t have a lot of faith in the interviewing process, either, a lot of the time. Most of my clients who get jobs get them because they prepare like hell, though. They make it their business to anticipate every question the interviewer might ask, and every possible reason why they might be disqualified for the position, and find examples of their skills and reasons why the interviewer shouldn’t disqualify them. This includes answering rookie questions, annoying questions, and just plain stupid questions. But when you really want and need a job, you go through the interviewing circus becasue you have to.
I disagree with the part about the interviewing being a formality if you are able to get the name of someone, anyone inside the company. If you belong to a professional organization or a networking group, you may have an acquaintance who can get you some information like the name of the person you should follow up with or the fact that the person interviewing you is well-known in the company for hating Tuesday afternoons or whatever . That certainly doesn’t mean that that acquaintance would be able to do anything beyond giving you that information, or even that they’d be in a position to influence the decision-making process in any way.
Count me in as someone waiting for an answer after the interview.
This would be the perfect position for me so even though I’m not exactly out on the market I’m still hanging all my hopes on it. I like the job so much that It’s really a pay cut for me.
I felt like the interview went so well. I was calm and felt like myself the entire time. Thankfully they didn’t ask vague questions because I think they’re sort of no win questions.
Anyhow, I should know by tuesday. It’s for a township so the board of supervisors has to approve whoever the admin. picks for the job. :rolleyes:
Nah. You just hit an exposed nerve is all. I appologize for being abrupt with you.
Thank you for being honest.
Yup, it a necessary evil.
A word of caution here. Choose your acquintences carefully. I have had the misfortune of losing out on oppotunities because the casual acquintance was intimidated by my higher level of expertise and I missed out on opportunities for an interview.
I couldn’t agree more. I used to go into Stepford Employee mode everytime I went for an interview, but I’ve found I do much better when I act like myself. So many people focus on being interviewed that they forget they’re conducting interviews of their own, finding out whether they really want to work for the company. If you’re not yourself and you end up taking the job, then you’re stuck. You either have to keep pretending the whole time you’re there or risk being told that you’re not the person the company thought you were. It’s not worth the aggravation.
