Effective vs Ineffective Interviewing
I’m sure that all of us have had a job interview if not multiple job interviews by this point in our life times. If you have had the opportunity to be involved in multiple interviews, you’ve probably started to rank them based on how they were conducted and how well you thought they went. I myself have been involved in more than a dozen interviews in my college years alone and can still clearly remember the great and the not so great ones while the mediocre interviews have faded with the sands of time.
The worst interview that I’ve been a part of was during my sophomore year of college with Skanska Construction, a mega contractor based out of the United States. Skanska had been known to hire practically anybody who applied and interviewed for a position and it showed in the interview that I was a part of. The two men who were conducting the interview showed very little interest in the process and seemed somewhat preoccupied with other things instead of focusing on the possible new hire sitting across from them. Overall it was very poorly conducted and there were few questions asked of me. On the other hand, my best interview, was with the company that I am currently employed with, Walsh Construction. This firm is a lot smaller than Skanska and it shows. The company itself has a family based structure where even the company executives interact with new hires and people at the bottom of the work flow chain. The interview process was very laid back and the interviewers were friendly. After asking me a couple of questions about what I was looking for in a company and my life story, they proposed we switched roles and instead I would become the interviewer and ask the three company members questions instead (about their roles, the company, and advice about the industry).
What made the second interview vastly more effective than the first was the successful recruitment plan they had in place. Walsh knew the exact candidates they were looking for based off of the position’s job duties and requirements, the organization’s goals and values, and the skills and experience that the candidate possessed. I look forward to working with a company that takes so much pride in the way that they present themselves to people interested in their firm and the public as a whole.