Thoughtful preparation important regardless of interview style

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Dear Joan:
I have been selected to participate in a "structured interview" for an internal position I have applied for with my employer. First off, what is a structured Interview and what is the best way to prepare for it?

Answer:
The term has been used to describe a variety of interview processes. Here are a few possibilities and how you can prepare.

Your interviewer may be using the same structured list of questions to interview each person. Rather than meandering through your application and resume and using them as the source of questions, your interviewer is going to be more methodical and compare each candidate to one another based on how he or she answered the same questions.

The questions will likely be developed from the job description and list of qualifications. Review each of these documents carefully before the interview and be prepared to give a lot of examples that will illustrate how your past experience matches the current needs of the job.

Another interpretation of the structured interview is when a group of people split up the duties and each person takes a particular angle. For instance, in one company I worked with, a peer, several employees and an internal customer interviewed final candidates. This way, each interviewer could look at the candidate from his or her unique perspective. Afterwards, the group got together and rated each candidate on pre-established criteria.

In any event, the best way to prepare is to come up with several CAR stories for each job qualification. Interviewers are looking for behaviors you have exhibited in the past. CAR stands for Challenge, Approach, Results. If you can illustrate some of your past challenges and describe your approach and results, it will make for more compelling stories that will be remembered. It’s easy to say, "I’ve always enjoyed managing people." But it won’t be as powerful as telling a story about an employee you coached who turned his performance around or about the steps you took to reduce turnover and improve job satisfaction.

Finally, don’t forget the intangibles that are so important when applying for a new job. Besides job qualifications, interviewers are always looking for qualities such as enthusiasm, friendliness and a quest for challenge and growth. Saying that you have these things won’t do it. You need to prove it with your past actions and choices. Good luck!

Dear Joan:
I’m a manager in a small business and I’ve been doing a lot of interviewing lately and I’m stuck in a rut. I get tired of asking the old standard questions such as, "What are your strengths?" "What are your weaknesses?" "Where do you want to be in five years?" There must be some contemporary questions I’m just not aware of. I realize that each job requires different questions but can you help me with some suggestions for some generic ones that get at some good insights about a person?

Answer:
Your best bet is to develop questions that allow the candidate to describe his or her past experiences in each of the categories of the job. In addition, here are some general questions I like. They seem to illicit revealing responses that tell me a lot about a candidate.

• "What objections do you think I have about hiring you?"
• "What have your peers said about you in your past jobs? Why?"
• "What is the best advice one of your managers has given you about your performance? What caused him/her to offer that advice?"
• "What would cause you to leave this job (if you got it)?"
• "Tell me a success story about one of your employees."
• "Tell me about an employee who didn’t work out. (Probe for what the person did to try to turn around the person’s performance)."
• "What do you see as the biggest downside to this job?"
• "What makes you laugh out loud at work?"
• "What has been your proudest moment at work so far?"
• "Describe a peer, whom you found irritating, and tell me how you managed the relationship."
• "What fantasy job have you always dreamed of?"
• "When you retire, what do you want your former colleagues to say about you?"
• "What has been your biggest disappointment in your career?"
• "Describe how you handled a new project that was out of your comfort zone."