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Articles: My Thoughts | At Interviews
- Mr. Ratnakar Sadasyula
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Having attended many interviews over the past 5 years, and having done fairly well enough so far, I felt I should share my experiences with you. Mind you I am no expert in cracking interviews. I have also committed many blunders and I have also made a royal mess of many interviews. What I am putting here is the experience and insights I have gained from past 5 years of attending interviews with different organizations. And its been both ways around, some of the insights are from my experience in conducting interviews also.
Do your home work properly
When you are going to an interview, get a proper information about the company’s profile. And see what you could do for the company. Getting information should not be a problem, since every third firm has it’s own website now a days. If you have any friends or relatives who are employed there or were past employees of that firm, try to glean some more information about them. This gives you an extra edge over other candidates. In case you are attending an interviews of a high profile firm like Infosys, Reliance, Wipro, TCS, IBM etc, about which you already have some idea, in that case try to get information during the interview about what would be your role and your responsibilities. In many big firms people often sit on the bench with not much productive work to do and when you ask about your responsibilities it does give a favorable impression to the employer about your seriousness.
Market yourself properly
Any interview starts off with the standard question “ Tell me something about yourself”, and this is the most critical part. Remember when you go to an interview, you are selling something, yourself. You have to market yourself in such a way, that it creates a favorable impression on the employer. Keep the introduction about yourself, short and to the point. If you are a fresher, highlight your academic record and your achievements if any. Even if you are just an average student, don’t lose hope, some of the best business leaders were college drop outs. If you are an experienced person, high light your experience and most importantly, put across how your experience can help that organization. Before I came into the IT world, I used to work as a marketing engineer for a telecom firm selling VHF/UHF equipment. The Govt organizations were the major client, and I had extensive experience in dealing with them. When I applied for a job as a marketing engineer for a computer firm, I emphasized on this point, and though I had no major experience in selling computers, I was selected, as I could deal with the Govt organizations. And mind you please don’t go on and on about your girlfriend’s name, your dog’s color, your favorite movie star, the employer is least interested in these things.
Convert your weaknesses into strengths
Too often there are certain weak points in your resume, which might not go down well with your potential employer. And during the interview, your employer is bound to raise concern about this. Now this is a critical area again and in fact I myself didn’t handle this issue properly which did cost me quite a lot of interviews in the final stage. Now remember one thing, what could be a weakness in one area, could be a strength in another area. For example if you are the silent kind who doesn’t reach out much, this could be a major weakness in a job like marketing or customer care, but if you are looking for a back end job like say office administrator or a network engineer, where you do not need to interact with the client much this could be an advantage for you. I can give you an example where certain weakness in my resume became strong point for me. When I recently started to apply for jobs, many companies expressed concern over the fact that I switched 4 companies in 4 years. Now while job hopping is something which is common in West, many companies in India, even in IT sector where job hopping is the norm, don’t take too kindly too it. Again I stressed on the fact that having worked with different kinds of organizations, it helped me be more flexible and better adaptable. While it didn’t work with many firms, many MNC’s which really don’t frown too much on job hopping, saw the point in it and I was selected by a prestigious MNC, and am also having offers from other firms also. What I have given above are experiences from my own side, but I want to emphasize on the point that if you have what you see as a weak point in your resume, try to convert that to a strength. It might not work immediately, but in the long run it will.
Justify your resume
The interviewer is going to ask you on the basis of what is there in your CV, and so please be honest about whatever you present. Don’t stuff your CV with facts just to impress the person, since when they ask you questions on it and you cant reply, you can kiss goodbye to the interview. Again I can give one more example where I made such a blunder. I was shifting from Satyam computers, where I had worked on a very complicated project. In my resume I had mentioned EJB 2.0 as the technology used in the project. Now whatever work I had done with EJB 2.0 was not very exhaustive. So when I had an interview with IBM, they caught on this point and I was asked very extensively on EJB 2.0, and since my knowledge was not too good, I was caught with my pants down here. Hence when you are drafting your CV, emphasize on the strong points. Nowadays I get so many resumes from candidates about them having experience in J2EE. Now J2EE is a vast field, and contains so many technologies, instead of that if you specified in what areas of J2EE you have good experience, that would make it easier for the interviewers to focus on the topics. The above example is something related to IT, but what I want to emphasize is whatever the field you are in, be honest about the facts and don’t try to be what you are not. This will only leave a bad impression on the interviewer.
Don’t try to be too smart or too intelligent
Often during the interview, you might find yourself unable to answer a very simple question or you might find yourself groping for a answer to a question. If you don’t know the answer, please tell the interviewer that you are unable to recall the answer. The interviewer could move on to the next question to which you might get the answer better and it does create a better impression. If in contrast you try to provide your own version of the answer, that irritates the interviewer to no end and he is going to just dig deep in and all that will happen is you will find yourself entangled in knots. One of my cousins while being interviewed for a BPO, when asked why he wanted to do the job, replied “Just for the heck of it”. Remember such sort of smart aleck answers might work during informal chit chat sessions or college fests. Giving such type of answers in the interview, would mean, that you can forget about getting the job. Needless to say he didn’t get the job.
Dress decently and properly
Many interviews have a formal dress code, but that doesn’t mean you need to dress up like a gigolo or some one going for a fashion show. Dress in something very neat, but very simple. You might be wearing a dress you bought from Janpath for around Rs2000, but make sure it is neat and ironed properly. You are welcome to wear a tie and jacket, but again its not very compulsory. In fact if you are being interviewed for an IT firm or an ad firm which have a more informal approach to work, even jeans and T-shirts are allowed, but don’t walk in with faded jeans, loose hanging shirts and sandals. And at the same time don’t be like an overdressed penguin. The interviewer only notes whether your dress is neat or not and whether you are properly dressed or not. He cares the least whether you bought the dress at Sarojini Nagar market or a flashy South Ex boutique. And for females the idea of a sexy dressed female in a micro mini attending an interview for the post of secretary works only in Bollywood movies, not in real life. Females could go for a salwar kameez or a sari or in case if you are comfortable in western clothes, go for a trouser and shirt.
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