Situation
In the workplace, interviews are mostly associated with selecting a candidate or seeking a position for yourself. Either way, selec- tion criteria will be based on skills, knowledge, qualifications, experience and, most importantly, a set of attitudes that creates sufficient rapport between the parties.
When interviewing others, you will be conscious that it is as easy to select the wrong candidate as to choose the right one, and that you may not find out whether you made the right choice until several weeks or months later. Beyond the glowing aspects of a curriculum vitae (CV) and a convincing presence, you will want to find the real person and to understand the contribution that they can genuinely make to your organization.
The fact that some people are good at being interviewed does not necessarily indicate that they will be good at the job. As an alternative to this, it may be worth considering a ‘group assessment
centre’ approach where several candidates effectively compete for a position. This gives you as the employer the opportunity to observe objectively how different individuals cope with specific tasks and with each other, and then provides a basis for a much more direct and revealing one-on-one interview afterwards. As an interviewer it can sometimes be difficult to balance the amount of information you should give with the amount of information you should receive from the candidate. With a reserved candidate it can be all too easy to compensate for that reserve with saying too much yourself and missing the responses against which you can make a reasonable assessment. How many times have you heard ‘He only asked me three questions and talked himself for the rest of the time’?
Although it is true that interviews are a two-way sales process, it is the prerogative of the interviewer to control the process and modify his or her approach in order to reach the right basis for assessment.
When selling yourself as a candidate at an interview, it is easy to believe that talking about how good you are will endear you to the interviewer. Claiming that you will be an excellent employee who will excel in the interviewer’s environment will be less convincing than being specific about the contribution you believe you could make and why. Generalization and abstract claims tend not to work in your favour.
Behaviour
If an interviewee says ‘I’m really good at selling’, that is less impressive than saying ‘I’ve exceeded my sales targets for the last three years.’ A claim without evidence to back it means very little. Likewise, if body language and tone imply arrogance, it will produce a non-neutral response in the interviewer, who will either resist that arrogance or, if of a compliant nature, will submit to it but probably switch off. Either way, it skews the interview and probably leads to an unsatisfactory result.
Specific skills and capabilities to widen your range 179
Conversely, if an interviewer says ‘Right then, tell me what you can do for my department or our organization’, the candidate has no clue about what, in the eyes of that interviewer, will put him or her in a good light and is likely to feel disadvantaged rather than encouraged. The reply may be less effective as a result and the interviewer will have learned little of value to the selection process.
Many interviewers are ill-prepared, may not have read a CV thoroughly or simply do not appreciate how to ask the questions that reveal the real person behind the factual information. As a result, the interview does not flow and it is a less than satisfactory learning process for both participants.
Interviewees may not have considered fully how to present themselves in the best light. It may be in the way they dress, the way they speak or the attitudes that they display. They have not taken account the needs and wants of the interviewer and may just be seeing things through their own eyes. They are unlikely to be able to influence the interviewer if they do not really know what the interviewer wants.
NLP observation
Because two people will always see things in different ways, it is important for interviewer and interviewee to have considered the other’s perspective in preparing for an interview. In the interview itself, adjustments always have to be made in order to ensure mutual understanding of the information exchanged. In a case where information is hard to extract, the approach will need to be varied until you get the result that you want.
Interviewer and interviewee need to be able to sense feelings, reactions, body language and the underlying meaning of the words used to convey questions and answers. Picking up the differences between generalized comments and observations, whether points have been accepted or deflected and contexts are clear or unam- biguous are all part of the interviewer’s and interviewee’s necessary skills.