I can guarantee you already know how the meeting will go, before you walk into the room. There are obvious tells. Are the tables bolted to the floor? Are the chairs comfortable? How many people are smiling? Talking to each other? The way someone is taught, and the way someone teaches impacts so much more than retention of material. This kind of first impression is just as important as any other.

Personally, I have worked with multiple companies, and seen both good trainings, and bad. What sets them apart is the way they talk to you. I have had trainings where they talk to you like a person, and they take breaks, and trainings where they drone on and on, like Charlie brown, but school is required.

The atmosphere makes a difference too. Most trainings happen in a large room, with neutral colors, and have the same general seats, but who is next to you? Do you know them? Do they look like they want to be here too? I would argue that the next key difference comes down to the people, and the social atmosphere of the place. No one want’s to be somewhere when everyone is having a bad time when they get there.

A third key detail is the presenter. They need to be passionate enough, and care enough that you want to listen. Notice that I said nothing about the content of the training, the media involved, or what time it happens. These can all be fixed in a second with the right atmosphere, and the right people. Trainings that teach rather than bore to death aren’t about the content of the training, though that may have some effect, but the real indicator is how they are taught.

The next interviewee walks in the room, their eyes flitting around nervously. You can see the nervousness growing as they glance around the dark conference room, the empty chairs, the bookshelf, and finally their own seat, and the resume in front of them. As you begin with traditional questions, you see them straighten up, collect themselves, and grow more and more confident in their answers to your questions. The nervousness fades away, as the answers grow more precise, more descriptive, and surpass the job description that was recently updated. Your filter of questions has succeeded, finding the potential employee, and the best possible answers. As they leave, you find yourself smiling to yourself, and hoping that this ends up working out for eveyrone.

As you leave your interview, a flood of anxiety comes rushing back. “Did I answer correctly?” “Did I overstate something?” “Did I accurately portray myself?” “Will I get a job offer?” Taking a deep breath, you remember all the careful steps that originally put you at ease. The clear preparation, and structure of the interview was evident, showing careful foreplaning for each step. You remember meeting the department manager of the position they were hiring for, and the clear descriptions of expectations. You remember being emailed a clear, and well-defined job description. And you remember tells from the interviewer themselves. The way they tensed, and the way they relaxed, the initial impression, and the final impression. As you go to leave, you’re not worried anymore. You totally aced it!

It is this intentional preparation that makes a hiring process effective. From the choice of questions, and the benchmark answers, to the locations, to the way you talk to the candidate, to the little pressures both people feel throughout the interview. Each little piece should be carefully crafted to show whether or not the candidate fits into the wider company puzzle. The best interviews end up filling that puzzle with a cohesive image. The worst interviews leave the company puzzle in ruins. Destroying more than they help.

Credit to Opolja from stock photos.

You walk in, placing your resume on the desk, and take a seat in the obscenely fancy chair across from the hiring manager, as they stand, smile and say “Welcome! Shall we begin?” You’ve had extensive correspondence with this individual, and this interview is the culminating effort to all your work, and in it, rests your hope for this job, and any prospects it may provide, but as you look around the room, you notice the manager isn’t holding your resume, as you would expect. He notices, and says “Tell me about yourself”. You pick up your resume, and begin to recite all the important strengths you assume apply to the job, and the person across from you starts nodding, just subtlety, as you say some of these attributes. Then towards the end they scrunch their face a little, and ask a different question. “What makes you a good fit for this position?”

This is a very difficult question to answer. This stems from the fact that a job description can never truly quantify all that a supervisor would require of you, as that is constantly changing, and adjusting with the company, and your place in it.

In my own personal experience, I have had the most success when I go above and beyond the job description, instead of fulfilling the basic duties. This is how I go about writing my own descriptions as well. It isn’t about what the person can do, it’s about what they will do, and the scope of their ability. The nature of the second question asked by the hiring manager is negligible. You already told them about the scope of who you are. The question better asked is on your end, simply “Am I what you are looking for?” The manager has a written job description that will consistently fail to quantify the impact any employee will have. And if used it correctly, those essential checkmarks of basic tasks lead their ultimate decision, not based of the job description, but on the possible impact, and the ultimate intent of the person to be hired.

istock image. Credit to Jacob Wackerhausen