Ten Ways to Be a Better Interviewee

Interview. The very word strikes fear into the hearts of most people. Your mouth goes dry, your blood starts pumping, you forget every important detail in your life. It is an ordeal that ranks up there with prostate exams and oral surgery. Most people see the interview process as a modern day auto-de-fe; expecting to be tied to a table and tortured for information.

It doesn’t have to be that bad. It’s not the inquisition. Trust me on this. I have interviewed many hundreds of applicants for positions ranging from fry cook to loan officer to electronics technician. It’s not about polish, it’s about believing in yourself and presenting yourself well.

1. It’s a Two Way Street – The first thing to remember is that an interview isn’t just about the company finding out if you are right for the job, but you finding out if the company is right for you. Are their business ethics in line with yours? Is your supervisor’s management style acceptable to you? Do your personalities click? Will they allow you to wear kilts on casual Friday? These are important things to consider.
2. Ask Questions – this goes with the previous one. You won’t know any of these answers unless you ask questions. If possible, answer their questions and then pose one of your own that is on the same subject. Have a list of questions to ask when the interview is over. This not only gets you information, but shows that you are intelligent and thoughtful. Questions not to ask: Will you go out on a date with me? Can I have my vacation now? Are your kids really as ugly as they look on that picture?
3. Dress Slightly Better than You Would On The Job – Even if you wears overall every day, wear a shirt and tie for the interview. Your boss wants to know you can look nice if you need to. I have had potential interviewees show up in sweat pants, in super-tight micro minis, spandex, and on one occasion a woman wearing flip flops (for a bank interview). Her toenails hadn’t been cut in a long time and looked like some they had some kind of fungus. Gross.
4. Visual Clues – look around the interviewer’s office. Is it neat and organized? If so, they value that. Are there pictures of their kids everywhere? Then they value family. Do they have baseball player action figures everywhere? Then they probably are childish and you don’t want to be there. Is there a death metal poster on the wall? Pictures of dogs? Whatever you see can be worked into the conversation and will help them remember you as someone that they liked.
5. Read the Newspaper – read at least the first page of every section of the newspaper on a daily basis and you can hold a conversation with anyone. Hate football? That’s OK, if you read the first page of the sports page, you know what teams are winning (not the Cardinals) and can hold a conversation with a sports fan. Bored by the theater. No big deal, if you read the first page of the entertainment section, you will at least know what plays are in town and can talk about them if that’s what the interviewer is interested in. Be careful with politics, but at least you can be knowledgeable by reading he first page of that section.
6. Email Professionalism – The best thing you can do when job searching is set up a new email account just for that job search. Make the account your name so that it is easy to remember, such as rodgerloar@yahoo.com. That makes it easy and keeps the job search sites from flooding your personal account with advertising. Never use a goofy email on your email. Here are some actual examples I have seen in applications for professional positions: ladiesman@.... death@.... imabitch@... Needless to say, I didn’t call any of them.
7. Buzzwords – Know what the company values. Research their website. Research the industry. Be able to intelligently speak about their goals, their past, and their industry. Use words that they will key into and understand. Be sure you really know what you are talking about. If you are applying for an electronics job, please don’t tell me that diodes don’t have polarity (yes, I was told that).
8. Chill – do whatever you have to do to relax before an interview (except for smoking pot or drinking a quart of tequila). Breathe. Listen to gentle music. Whatever it takes, try to be relaxed and comfortable going into the interview.
9. Practice – A great way to be relaxed is to be prepared. Look online for a list of common interview questions and have several different friends bombard you with them. Discuss the answers and refine them. Have them ask you questions of their own. The more practice you have, the easier the real interview will be. Also, go on as many interviews as possible. This will help you be confident too. On the hundredth interview, it’ll be no sweat. Even after you have accepted a position, finish out any interviews you can. You get the extra practice for the future, and who knows, you just might get a better offer.
10. The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth – My rule for interviewing was this: Lie to me and you are done. Period. If I catch you in a lie, I won’t hire you. Don’t tell me you are fluent in Spanish just because you had two semesters in high school and can say, “Donde estas los baños” or “Deme otra cerveza.” As an interviewer, I used to love to use this as a check. I would say, “your resume shows that you are fluent in Spanish,” and when they answered, “Yes,” I would instantly hit the speaker phone and call one of my Spanish speaking employees in, saying, “Danny, can you come in here, I need to test this person’s Spanish for work.” Nine times out of ten, the interviewee would begin backpedalling right away. Game over. Epic fail. Be open and honest. Trust me, lies will come back and bite you.

Interviews aren’t that bad if you are prepared and practiced. Give me a call if you want some practice and some personal coaching.

A few real interview moments:

• I interviewed a guy with gauged ears. Large ones. I had a window in my office that overlooked the room where my employees worked. I could see people walking around through his earlobes. Weird.
• I interviewed a guy who had red hair, freckled skin, green eyes and tiny round gold wire glasses. He has a small red mustache and beard and was very short. Did I mention the green shirt and the last name that began with O’…? I had a hard time holding a straight face through the entire interview because all I kept thinking was, “Is he here to steel my lucky charms?” To this day, I swear that I interviewed a real live leprechaun. True story.
• How about the large woman who came in for a front desk position wearing extremely tight spandex, an extremely low cut blouse, and flip flops with gross nails (see # 3 above). Her fingernails were clean, they were just three inches long. She was also wearing waaaaayyyyy too much perfume.
• Or the guy who showed up for an interview smelling of terrible body odor, wearing sweat pants and a torn t-shirt. I sprayed my office with Lysol after he left.
• I believe in giving some small practical ability test as part of the interview. I had a guy applying for a position that required some math skills for percentages. I gave him a brief five question math quiz in which he got every answer wrong. OK, we continued the interview, but at some point, he decided it was over. He looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t see any point in continuing these questions, you have my resume and have seen that I have the math skills for the job (pointing to the paper with the wrong answers); I’m the right guy for the job, so let’s move on.” I laughed out loud for a moment and then explained that he had all of the answers wrong. He said, “Well, I guess I’m done here,” and walked out.
• I had an interviewee applying for a phone customer service position who cussed repeatedly throughout the interview, dropping the f-bomb on multiple occasions. He then proceeded to share a story about having sex with a stripper on his last trip out of town and how his wife didn’t know.
• I had another interviewee who managed to turn every question back to how “the bastards” at his last company had laid him off after twenty years. He kind of resembled Tom Smykowski on Office Space, but he had this angry edge that said he might just go postal at any time. He even said at one point, "Boy, if I could just have a few moments alone with my a**hole manager..."

This post is Number 7 in a series of Ten Top Ten Lists on improving yourself. This series will be posted daily. Tomorrow: Ten Ways to Be a Better Cook.