Tag: Interviewing

Online Dating: Jobs Edition

LinkedIn website traffic volume is booming –  employers and job seekers are proactively using the site as an effective tool to connect.   There are also many articles on current recruiting practices and social media.  As the LinkedIn community becomes more central to hiring for many companies, I have become interested in the fact that most people now are including a photo, a component of what LinkedIn considers to be “completing” your online profile.

In the USA, the convention of attaching your photo with your resume faded away in the late1970s with the civil rights movement and the establishment of ideas of equal opportunity in hiring.  Are we taking a step back as we embrace the future with social media job searches?

Few people want a potential employer to pursue them – or disregard them – because of the way they look.  Yet, unconscious or even overt inclinations can influence hiring practices. To be very objective in finding the best candidates, hiring managers likely will be combating well documented proclivites towards hiring people who look like them, preconceptions about ethnicity and gender, biases about people who they find attractive or ugly, as well as stereotypes related to age or visible disabilities.   You can read more about hiring biases and discrimination online – in essence, studies indicate that people are prone to making quick judgments, having nothing to do with a candidate’s skills and accomplishments.

The question is, how would you feel knowing that someone might not look further into your LinkedIn profile if you don’t have an appealing picture?  Do you think that your picture reflects well on you and improves your chance of getting hired?  Obviously, even in the past when photos were not readily available, as soon as a candidate showed up for the interview, a hiring manager’s biases regarding the person’s appearance could come into play.  But at this point in the hiring process, the job seeker has already impressed the employer with their resume of accomplishments, or their well written cover letter.  They have the chance to verbally counter some of the biases based on their looks.

I will continue to look for more information or articles on how hiring practices and biases may be affected now that it is so easy to find a picture of someone online. While I think this newish trend (or retrotrend?) of incorporating photos in professional profiles is not going to change, I do believe that employers can be vigilant in training recruiters to address their biases, and to acknowledge the benefits of diversity in hiring.  Here is an example of guidelines developed in the Human Resources industry, which addresses this issue: http://www.shrm.org/TemplatesTools/hrqa/diversity/Pages/default.aspx .

For you the candidate?  In addition to being thoughtful of the image you put forward via social media, there are also suggestions for breaking through biases during your interviews: http://www.culturosity.com/articles/interviewbias.htm.

Interviewing Tips for Special Cases

By Sharon Fleshman

You enter an office.  The person sitting on the other side of the desk gets up, comes forward to shake your hand, and invites you to sit down.  While this would be considered the typical scenario for an interview, there are alternative settings that you should prepare for as well.

Phone Interviews One advantage of a phone interview is that you have an opportunity to establish rapport without the initial pressure of a face-to-face encounter and you can refer to notes as needed. However, it is critical to understand that since the interviewer can’t see you, you do not have the advantage of using visual non-verbal cues to reinforce your answers and convey enthusiasm about the position. Therefore, you must make sure that your tone of voice is as energetic as possible. Making sure that you are well-prepared and well-rested before the interview will be helpful in this regard. It is often said that smiling and having good posture while you speak enables you to maintain a natural and upbeat tone without becoming monotone in your pitch. While notes may be helpful, do not become so relaxed as to read them verbatim. This can make you sound stilted and less engaging to the employer.  If an employer calls unexpectedly and you are not prepared or in a good location to interview, always feel free to suggest setting up an appointment to have the discussion at a later time.

Video Interviews Video conferencing is a great option for employers who are on travel restriction, or otherwise cannot travel to campus to interview students. For video conference interviews, make sure that the space that you are in is not cluttered and does not distract from the conversation. You should be dressed professionally since the interviewer will see you. If you plan to use Skype, try to do a practice run with a friend to make sure you work out any potential technical glitches before the interview. Penn Career Services now offers video conferencing (ISDN, IP, Skype and GoToMeeting) to allow employers to interview students remotely. Students interested in reserving the equipment should go to: http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/reservingspace for further instructions.

Panel Interviews For panel interviews, you are interviewed by multiple people at the same time and will likely be seated around a table with your interviewers.  This setup may seem daunting, but don’t let it intimidate you. The key is to engage everyone in the room so make sure to offer eye contact to all of your interviewers.  For instance, while answering a question, look at various people and as you wrap up your answer, make sure you are once again looking at the person who actually asked the question. If you are able to get the list of interviewers before the interview, try to memorize their names and learn about their duties and backgrounds ahead of time.

Group Interviews During group interviews, you are being interviewed along with other candidates. This usually takes place by way of an activity that requires a group discussion, perhaps leading to a group presentation.   Often with these interviews, employers are trying to sense how you would operate as part of a team. To that end, you need to strike a balance by making meaningful contributions to the discussion without dominating it.

Additional interviewing tips and resources for students and alumni from undergraduate and graduate programs are available on the Career Services website.  Best wishes for interviewing success!

Tips for buying time in a job interview – did they just ask me what kind of fruit I would be?

Dr. Joseph Barber

It is always a good idea to think in advance about the types of questions you might be asked in a job interview, and to come up with a plan to be able to answer them effectively. Some questions you know will come up (e.g., tell me about yourself, or why do you want this position?), and it makes sense to prepare some good answers to these tailored for each job interview. However, you cannot prepare for every question that interviewers can ask, and there are always going to be some questions that leave you momentarily speechless as your brain scrambles to understand the question and tries to piece together information to make an adequate answer.

Employer: “If you were a fruit, what kind of fruit would you be?”

Candidate’s brain: A fruit? A fruit? What do you mean a fruit? Why are they interested in fruit? Just pick one, surely it doesn’t matter. Wait, but what is the most confident and skilled fruit? Perhaps they are looking for a certain kind of fruit? Is a tomato actually a fruit? I hate fruit! Apple?

Candidate: “Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…………….”

And it is not just strange questions that can catch people off-guard. Many behavioural-based interview questions start off with the following phrase:

Give me a specific example of a time where you…[showed initiative, took a leadership role, thought quickly on your feet, etc.]

But what happens if you suddenly can’t think of a specific example? With a little time, chances are that you can find something from your past experiences that you can talk about, but how do you give yourself that time. There is nothing wrong with a bit of silence, and it is probably better to be silently thoughtful for a short time than to just say the first things that pops into your head in a rambling, nonsensical way. However, the longer the silence becomes without you saying anything, the more awkward the moment will become – especially if you are on a phone interview and the interviewers cannot see you thinking.

The following responses are not answers to tricky questions (I don’t know what kind of fruit you are), but they can hopefully buy you and your brain some time to come up with an appropriate answer

That’s a very interesting question – let me think about the best way to answer this for you.

Yes, everyone knows that by “interesting” you actually mean “difficult”, but this response can be helpful to give you some breathing room before you attempt an answer.

So, you are looking for an example of [leadership experiences, team work, etc.]. Well, there are a couple of good ones I can talk about, but I think the one that is the most relevant is…

For many tricky questions, you can repeat the question you have been asked back to the employer in your own words (don’t just repeat the question word for word), and use this time to begin to construct your answer. In this case, by the time you get to the phrase “but I think the one that is most relevant is…” you should have something to say!

You know, I was actually thinking about this question the other day when I was looking at your website/talking with a colleague of mine who works on….

If it is appropriate to the question, a response like this not only buys you some time, but also shows that you have been proactively seeking out information – which might be something worth highlighting.

I’m not sure that I have an exact answer to your question, but I can share a related experience that I think gets close to what you are looking for.

It is never a good idea just to say “I don’t know” to any interview question. If you really don’t have an answer, you might use the “I don’t know, but here is how I would find out” approach instead. The complete strategy is 1) here is what I do know; 2) here is what information I am currently missing; and 3) these are the approaches I would take to get an answer. Additionally, you could then provide an illustration of how you have used your skills in the past to be a quick and effective learner. Even if you can’t answer the exact question asked by an interviewer, you can probably give an answer to a similar one that could be just as relevant.

Before I answer, can I ask if you’re interested in that issue from a [technical, policy, etc.] perspective or from your [customers’, clients’, students’] point of view? 

Sometimes, the hesitation in answering a question comes from an uncertainty about what the interviewer is actually asking. You want to maximize your chances in an interview by answering the questions that they are actually asking you, not the ones that you think they are asking you. This type of response helps to convey the idea that you are conscious of the variety of perspectives that might exist within an organization. Don’t sound in any way defensive, and make sure that you keep your tone light and positive.

I am wondering if you can just clarify what you mean by….

This is another approach to buying you time and ensuring that you understand the question.

I’ve never been asked that question before; I need a minute to think about it.

This is an honest response, but remember that the phrase “I need a minute” is just a generalization. A minute is a long time to sit in silence, so don’t actually take the whole minute!

Oh my goodness, is that a squirrel eating a banana?

This was a phrase uttered by my friend’s thesis advisor during a meeting where my friend was pouring out his heart about whether he should stay in graduate school or not. In his advisor’s defense, there was actually a squirrel eating a banana. So, this type of response is probably best left to situations where there are actually squirrels eating bananas or similar extreme occurrences. When I interviewed for my postdoc at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the interview room looked out at a gate where the Disney characters gathered before heading out into the park. While it was fairly shocking for me to see a giant Mickey and Pluto walk by every 15 minutes during the interview (sometimes with heads, other times quite disturbingly without), this would not have been a good thing to point out to the person who saw this occurrence every day.

Given that there are some creative approaches to buying you some time in interviews, here is a list of ones you should probably avoid:

  • Coughing
  • Fainting
  • Faking a medical emergency
  • Having a medical emergency
  • Taking a drink of water (OK, a sip might give you a few seconds, but don’t keep drinking as you are thinking!)
  • Grabbing a Twix
  • “Accidentally” falling off your chair, spilling your water, knocking your papers off the table.

Do you have any other suggestions for approaches you can use (or definitely should not use) to buy yourself time in an interview? If so, comment away!

Fun in an Interview Suit

Yesterday as I walked down Locust Walk past a student group promoting an upcoming concert, one of them shouted to another passing student, “Hey! You in the suit! Come to this concert tonight. It’s more fun than OCR!” I laughed out loud at this creative sales pitch.

OCR (On-Campus Recruiting) is one of those things that “adults” would probably say is good for you. Perhaps no one would define it as “fun.” But it might actually help you get what you want. Same thing goes for wearing a suit.

How could dressing up in a suit and interviewing be more fun? We asked David Letterman for suggestions (not really), and the resulting top-ten list is as follows. (Please note, that as an “adult” I must refer you to our online interview resources and tell you that the following is not to be taken seriously!)

The Top Ten Ways to Have Fun in an Interview Suit
10. Dress up like Ben Franklin (except for the hair).
9. Select final-round candidates based on how long they can keep jumping in a moon bounce.
8. Challenge other candidates to arm wrestling to determine who gets the final second-round interview.
7. Wear a zoot suit.
6. Make every Tuesday costume day and make internship/job offers to candidates who show up in the best costume.
5. Bring your cat to the interview with you. Consider wearing matching outfits.
4. Forget that the tie you borrowed from your dad is a light-up birthday tie.
3. “Accio!” Use the summoning charm from Harry Potter to bring a job offer directly to you.
2. Wear different colored socks. Or don’t wear socks but color your ankles with markers.
And the #1 way to make interviewing more fun: Have John Cleese as your interviewer!

“I’ll never get a job!” – Cognitive Distortions, A Career Short List

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a theory and practice of psychology that focuses on how we think and perceive our world, and how these perceptions can change our experiences.  This field has identified common mistakes people make (more information from Wikipedia here.) These types of thinking errors are called cognitive distortions.

I want to write about cognitive distortions as they relate to your career.  You would not guess how many times I have heard a student say “there are no jobs in my field” or “it is impossible to find an internship now” – something along those lines. Of course, the student and I both know that the statement is generalizing, may even be hyperbolic.  Yes it is hard to find work, but are there NO job openings whatsoever, even since the economic downturn in 2008?  I haven’t met a single person who would take their own emphatic statement as the full truth.

So what’s wrong about making an exaggerated exclamation?  Well… the problem is that we often start to believe our own distortions, or use the feeling associated with them to guide our behavior.  Even if you know there are SOME jobs out there for you, if you go with the feeling such a statement might generate or enforce (frustration, helplessness) you are bound to stop trying when in fact, persevering in your networking or other job search efforts might be the name of the game.   My suggestion is to be aware of the messages you convey to yourself – think about if they are helping you, or may be making things worse.

Below are a few statements that may seem familiar, the cognitive distortion involved (From: Burns, David D., MD. 1989. The Feeling Good Handbook. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.), and an alternative that might be more helpful:

“I am so frustrated – there are no jobs in my field.” Emotional reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.” Possible alternative: “I feel frustrated right now.  I am going to focus on sticking to my strategy and getting some support from Career Services.”

“I can’t believe I messed up that one question at the interview, I am sure that ruined my chances of getting to the second round.” Mental filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.  Possible alternative: “My answer to that one question kind of stank, but the rest of the interview went pretty well.  I need to practice in case I get that question again.”

“If I can’t become a professor I am going to have to wait tables – what else is there for PhDs?” All-or-nothing thinking: You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. Possible alternative: “I don’t know what I am qualified for besides being an academic; maybe I should explore my options.”

“Nothing came of my contacts at that career fair, I don’t know how I am ever going to get a job.” Overgeneralization: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. Possible alternative: “That career fair was a disappointment, so I am going to look into other strategies for my job search.”

“I still haven’t heard back regarding the job application. I must have done something wrong.”  Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event for which, in fact, you were not primarily responsible. Possible alternative:  “There are many factors that affect a hiring decision, I wonder if they need more time to decide or more information from me.”

When you are job searching, as in other parts of your life, your attitude can affect your outcomes.  Make sure you are serving yourself well when you reflect on your own thoughts and behaviors.  If you are interested in learning more about cognitive therapy and working on cognitive distortions, I suggest you read books by Dr. David Burns, Dr. Aaron Beck, and learn about the work at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Cognitive Therapy .