CONQUERING THE JOB INTERVIEW
BY CAPTAIN BOB
The job interview is the most misunderstood and least prepared-for portion of testing. No matter how many degrees and certificates or how much training and experience you have, if you can`t present the package when sitting on the other side of the table at the job interview, you won`t get the job.
NUGGETS FOR SUCCESSFUL JOB INTERVIEWS
Nuggets, presented and discussed below, are simple tools or approaches that help to uncomplicate the job interview process.
THE JOB INTERVIEW IS LIKE AUDITIONING FOR A PLAY.
You must know your lines. Do you meet the minimum requirements? You`ll get bonus points when you personalize your presentation. Personalizing your answer will separate you from the other clone candidates. Everyone has personal experiences that no one else can tell. When you start incorporating these experiences into your oral board answers, you will accelerate past the clone pack.
Stories are more than facts. I was coaching a candidate who was a federal firefighter in Yellowstone National Park in 1989, the year it burned. He was telling me a story about his experience, but I was getting lost and finally said, “It sounds as though you were trapped.” It turned out that he was trapped. The helicopter was supposed to meet his crew, but the crew had taken the wrong turn and become trapped.
It was an exciting story but was presented as a recitation of facts. He didn`t recreate the event or convey the excitement or the “magic” of the event that could have drawn the panel into the story with him.
If the firefighter were to retell the story the way it should have been told in the first place, the members of the job panel would have become trapped with him. Their hair would have started to stand up on the back of their necks, and they would have been able to see the embers dropping around them. That makes a difference when taking an oral board.
A Stanford University study on selling one`s self or a product showed that the seller`s knowledge about the subject or product counted for only 15 percent and the seller`s enthusiasm to get the job done accounted for 85 percent.
While sitting on a job panel a few months ago, I watched the magic take place as several candidates excelled. They all received top scores because they relayed their own personal experiences. No one else could tell the story. One of the raters, after one candidate left, asked, “Did you see how he used that experience from his job at UPS in answering the question?”
What are you actually doing during an oral board or a job interview? You`re trying to sell yourself. You`re trying to get that job! What you are really doing is auditioning for the part of a firefighter, a captain, or an engineer–just as actors audition for a role in a movie or play. If you were auditioning for a part in a play, would you have to know your lines? Would you have to know your part? Yes! It`s the same thing here. You have to know your part and your lines before you show up. You must be able to say something. Does a Broadway play start on Broadway? No. It starts in Iowa, Miami, or San Francisco, where they`re working out the script, getting the music right, getting everything set, and selling enough tickets so the play can be taken to the bright lights of Broadway. It`s the same thing with the job interview. You have to take this puppy on the road! And you must get your script set up and your lines down so that you have something to present.
TO LEARN YOUR PART, MAKE AN OUTLINE OF WHY YOU WANT THIS POSITION, WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO PREPARE FOR IT, WHY YOU WANT TO WORK FOR THIS AGENCY, AND SO ON. IT MUST BE ABOUT YOU–NOT A CLONE OF SOMEONE ELSE.
You must sell yourself. You can prepare to do this by making an outline that will be about you–not anyone else. It will include information such as the reasons you want the job, what you have done to prepare for it, the reason you want to work for this employer/organization, your strengths and weaknesses, at least one strong point that illustrates why they should hire you, and the answers to any other potential interview questions. This outline will become your script for the part in the play for which you`re auditioning.
THE OUTLINE WILL BECOME YOUR SCRIPT TO AUDITION FOR THE PART. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, REHEARSE, REHEARSE, AND OVERLEARN THE PART UNTIL IT BECOMES SECOND NATURE TO YOU. THIS WILL HELP PREVENT STAGE FRIGHT.
You`re going to practice, rehearse, and overlearn it until it becomes second nature to you. Then it`s going to be in your subconscious. That`s where the magic takes place, because once it`s in there, you can`t be fooled. Some might say, “Well, that`ll be canned.” It`s not. It`s certainly planned, though.
One of the toughest things for job candidates to do is to be themselves. They think they must send someone else in to do the job. The result is that they end up giving a less than great performance. The more sure of yourself you are and the more conversational you can be, the better off you`re going to be. On the job panel, we members are trying to find out whether you`re going to mesh with what we want. That`s number one. And would you believe it? We like to hire people we like!
Think about it. If you were on a job panel and a candidate who performed as a robot came before you, as compared with a candidate who was really conversational and delivered a message that included some personal experiences–stories you`ve never heard before–which candidate would you rather hire? It`s human nature.
During one test recently, one of the candidates didn`t answer the questions the way the panelists would have liked them to be answered, but he was still given the job because the panelists liked him.
–Tools. What tools can help you to practice? Video is good, but you`re trapped watching it. A mirror`s great. You get out of the shower and have the towel working while you, the actor, practice your lines. When we go to a play or movie, most of us relate less to the actors than to the roles they are playing. The reason for this is that the actors are good–they have their lines down. We have been taken in with the part. It`s the same thing on a job interview.
Peers can help you prepare. Many candidates go to mock orals. Don`t get trapped, however. You must ask some serious questions, such as the following: How many job interviews have these folks been on? How long has it been since their last interview? Have they been on any outside their departments? Most candidates think they can do a couple of mock orals and that with a little luck they will make it. Luck generally is on the side of the prepared. Consider also whether your friends will tell you that you`re really bad. Most times, they can`t bring themselves to do that.
A very effective tool is the tape recorder. You will need to be married to it–take it everywhere you go. When coaching candidates, it is difficult to get some of them to use the tape recorder. They think because they have it written down and in their head that it`s going to come out of their mouth correctly. What comes out of your mouth will not come out in the same way as it is written down or organized in your head. I`ll guarantee you that.
A volunteer candidate with many credentials took his wife with him on a job interview. While she was waiting in the outer room, she heard her husband`s oral presentation. She said, “He stunk! And he didn`t know it!” If he had used the tape recorder and practiced, he would have understood what was going on.
While presenting oral board questions to firefighters who attended the fire technology program at a nearby college, I asked one candidate, “Why do you want to be a firefighter?” He gave me this drone, mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble. “Buddy,” I said, “you need to get a tape recorder.” I saw him two months later, and he told me he was “thinking” about getting the recorder. He had been to two interviews. Six months later, when I saw him again, he reported that he had “asked Santa Claus” for a tape recorder. Six months this fellow had been testing. At a seminar a couple of months later, he informed me that “After I get on a fire department … mumble, mumble … I`m going to give seminars like you.”
I asked what his major was in college. He replied, “Speech therapy.” Talk about the blind leading the blind! He`s in the business and can`t realize what`s going on.
You must get a tape recorder and be married to it. One recorded practice session is worth 10 speaking-out-loud sessions. The tape recorder will help coach your timing and inflection; reduce stage fright so you won`t freeze up like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz; show you where to cut out material and eliminate “ands,” “uhs,” and “oks”; and let you know if you sound like Donald Duck. Practice makes permanent.
–First impressions. Before you walk in the room, your application and resume have already given some impression of you to the interviewers. I can`t tell you how many times we`ve seen applications with misspelled words and the wrong sequence in chronological listings. If you have the opportunity to get that application ahead of time, take it, photocopy it, then plug in the information. Have a qualified person correct it. Put everything down. Then you will have something to transfer to the real application, which will become the boilerplate. You will be able to use it any time you have to prepare a new application. Make a photocopy, because you never know when you`re going to be called to that job interview. I have talked with people who did not keep copies of applications they had filed six to eight months before and couldn`t remember what information they had put on them.
–Resume. Try to keep the (entry-level) resume to one page. Do not submit a book; the board doesn`t have enough time to read it. And don`t go to any interview thinking you`re going to hand the resume to panel members and that they are going to read it at that time. That is not going to happen. Often candidates come in and try to hand out resumes. It upsets the normal flow of the interview. Panel members are going to read the resume before the candidate comes into the room. If you can submit a resume, get it to the personnel department so that it can be placed in your file before the interview. Don`t fax it. Make the appropriate number of copies and hand-deliver them or send them overnight mail.
On a promotional or chief`s oral, you can add more information to your resume pertaining to education and letters of recommendation. But put the most important information on the first page, because that`s where the raters will be looking.
Many people start the first page of their resume with the education history. I like to have the candidate`s experience jump right off the page. Hit me with experience, bam! Firefighting, bam! Some type of training–apparatus operator training, fire school, whatever it is. This information doesn`t have to be in chronological order. So many of the resumes I see have the important information way down at the bottom of the first page. I find the important stuff, because that`s how it falls in chronological order–but it may not be found by all raters.
While reviewing a candidate`s resume, which was in chronological order, I noted that his paramedic certifications were at the bottom of the page. The most important items on his resume, firefighter I and paramedic certifications, were at the bottom of the page. We moved them to the top, where they would come to the reader`s attention. We put the dates on the right side of the page where they could be referenced.
–Stage fright. The biggest problem candidates have when on a job interview is stage fright while auditioning for this part in the play. When we open the door to the interview room and call a candidate`s name, it is not uncommon to see the candidate stand up, go “rrrkkkk,” and turn to stone. That`s stage fright–nervousness. It comes from a lack of planning, a lack of being prepared. Everyone`s going to have the butterflies. The trick is to get all the butterflies to fly in the same formation. By having a script to practice, rehearse, and overlearn, you`re going to reduce the butterflies by up to 75 percent. You`re going to need the other 25 percent to carry you through. Again, if you give as many performances as you can before the interview, you`re going to be just like the actor and look like you`re in the part.
WITH TREMENDOUS ENTHUSIASM, USE YOUR NEW ROLE TO CAPTURE THE FIRST 32 SECONDS OF YOUR AUDITION. THIS CREATES ITS OWN ENERGY. USE THE SIX STEPS IN ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS.
You have 32 seconds from the time you enter the room to maintain what is called the “halo effect.” After that time, you may not get a second chance–even though there are up to six other times in an interview when you can recover. But, don`t plan on it. In that first 32 seconds, the raters already have formed opinions about your clothing (the strongest nonverbal statement you make is with what you are wearing), eye contact, body language, selection of words, and voice. According to the researcher/psychologist Albert Mehrabian, only seven percent of attitudes and feelings generated by an individual are the result of the choice of words, 38 percent of voice, and 55 percent of body language and facial expressions. Your body language had better match what comes out of your mouth, or the raters will know it.
–Acquaintance of the interviewers. One question I`m frequently asked is, If you`re going to a promotional interview and already know the panel members, do you have to go through all this preparation and auditioning? The biggest mistake job candidates make in this regard is thinking that they do not have to do all the work. They figure everybody already knows about them and that they don`t have to say anything. Or, entry-level candidates may believe they can get by with an attitude such as, It`s on my resume; it`s on my application; therefore, I don`t have to say everything. If it doesn`t come out of your mouth, you don`t get credit. You might as well never have shown up. It is important that you audition for the part. You must play your part regardless of who`s sitting on the job panel.
I can`t tell you how many times I`ve talked to volunteers from departments who have waited years for that golden opportunity to get hired in a community as a fully paid firefighter. Then they blew it, because they went in and saw that Paul was on the board and assumed they didn`t have to go through the process because they and Paul bowled together or because Randy on the panel “is married to my cousin and knows everything about me.” When these candidates learn that somebody else has gotten their badges, they are devastated. They failed because they didn`t present the package. The victorious candidates did. It`s show time, ta dah! You have to bring out the top hat and the cane, step out, and give the board the complete show. It`s you! It`s the bright lights. It`s Broadway! You have to make it happen. You have to make the magic.
When I said this at a recent firefighters` convention, Dan shared the following: “… I went through exactly what he`s talking about, at a promotion process in my department for the position of lieutenant. I knew all the people on the board, including a division chief. I was thinking, `Geez, I`ve known these guys for 16 years. And, I don`t have to say anything; they know me.` During my critique afterwards, the division chief said, `You know, Dan, you`ve got so much going for you, but you didn`t blow your own horn. If you would have blown your own horn, you would have said all the things that you have going for you. You`d have had it. Since you didn`t say a word, I can`t give you the badge.`”
If you don`t say it, you don`t get credit for it, period. The defense rests.
–It`s all presentation. Let me tell you about presentation. When I was publishing my book Fire Up Your Communication Skills (Subtitle: “Get people to listen, understand, and give you what you want!”), I was trying to get a distributor. I was down to two distributors that could include my book in their fall catalogs; otherwise, I would have had to wait almost a year before the book could be listed in a catalog. A distributor in Florida called to tell me that the last review for its fall catalog would take place the next day and that “you can`t make that.” I said, “Try me. What do you need?” I took the cover from the book, put it in a two-pocket folder with a letter that included all the information requested. It was show time. It was the bright lights of Broadway. I had 24 hours to perform. The information was in the committee meeting that took place at 10:30 a.m. the next day!
At 4 p.m. the day of the meeting, there was a message on my answering machine: “The contract`s on the way.” When I finally talked to these folks, I asked them what made the difference in their selecting my book. They answered, “It was the presentation. You can`t believe the junk we get through here. Yours was professional. It showed that you`ve done the necessary work. You put in just exactly what we were looking for, exactly what we asked for.”
–Answers that doom. What kind of answers are certain to doom your interview? One candidate responded, ” `Yes` or `no.` “
Wait a minute. “Yes” and “no” are great answers. I would rather hear “yes” or “no” than somebody trying to B.S. me. You have 20 minutes to make your case for a 25-year career position. Understand one thing: We on the other side of the panel invented the B.S. If you want to crank it up, we`ll crank up the music, and you can dance your fool self right out the door. If you don`t know, say so. Take the poison early. Say “no.”
Clone answers will doom your oral board. A “clone” candidate is one who is just like all the other candidates. One of our officers was on a large city job interview last summer. There were 900 candidates. His board interviewed 365 people in 10 days. He heard the same answers over and over again. Example: Why do you want to be a firefighter? The response: “… thinking about public service, giving back to the community,” and so on. The same answers over and over. Place yourself in this panel`s position. It`s 1:30 p.m. on the fifth day of interviewing. Members have just returned from being wined and dined at lunch by the city officials. They are tired and still have five more days to go. They call you in and ask, “Why do you want to be a firefighter?” and in those first 32 seconds, you give the same answer they have been hearing for five days. You have just scored yourself. You can watch the glaze go over the raters` eyes. They won`t come back unless you can turn that around by adding a personalized story that nobody else has told them. They will be awakened and listen to you. You have to give them sound bites.
One candidate I coached didn`t know what his personalized story could be. Finally, he remembered that his first job when he was six years old was going down the hill from his house on Saturday morning to fill the soda machine at the fire station. He became the department`s mascot and eventually a volunteer firefighter. He was a sleepover while he was going to paramedic school. Now he`s a seasoned paramedic. He took it all the way back to when he was six years old. Does that make a difference? Who else could tell that story but him? He was there. He can now connect this story with other information and some clone answers.
Your answers should reflect your personal experiences in your life. After a presentation I gave at Chabot College a year ago, I talked to a candidate who had just taken an entry-level test out of Denver, Colorado. He asked if I knew anything about cultural diversity questions. That`s one of the questions he was asked. It caught him flatfooted. He had achieved a score of 79 in Colorado. He attended one of my seminars and took some private coaching lessons. Six months later, he went to Las Vegas, Nevada, with 3,500 other candidates to take a test. He was among the 1,100 who went to the first orals. Many cities now are going through a 10- to 15-minute oral to work down the numbers. He was one of the 300 to go back for the chief`s oral. During that oral, he was asked what he knew about cultural diversity. He proceeded to tell the interviewers about working in a culturally diverse grocery store in San Jose and learning the many languages and cultural differences. He not only knew what cultural diversity was, he was able to demonstrate that he had lived it! At the end of the interview, he was told, `We just want to let you know that that`s the best answer we have heard on cultural diversity.”
I received an invitation to his badge presentation. He was one of the 35 they hired. He won the lottery. He went from a 79 to a 96 in his score–all because he personalized his presentation and had an outline and a script that he practiced and overlearned until it became second nature to him. He had made it to the bright lights of Broadway.
–Basic oral board questions. There are only about 30 basic oral board questions, which can be disguised in hundreds of ways. When an interview question is asked, boil down the question to its simplest form. Determine in one word what can best describe the root of the question (i.e.–stealing or drugs, for example).
One way to do this is to picture a piece of paper with a line drawn down the center. On the left of the line are issues dealing with ethics, such as stealing, drugs, and drinking. When the subject pertains to ethical issues, your approach should be to ask the appropriate questions for determining if what you suspect is true. In such instances, you don`t deviate. You go straight up to a supervisor.
On the right side of the line would be anything to do with getting along with others. In these instances, you would go to great lengths to work the matter out before going to a supervisor. If you can decide on which side of the line the question belongs, you will have a better chance of knowing how to answer the question.
Attire guidelines: Men should avoid brown or brightly colored suits. Sport coats are too casual. The shirt should be new and of cotton or a high-quality cotton blend and should be white, off-white, or pale blue. Starch it, no matter what the instructions say. The tie should be a classic, traditional solid color such as navy, red, and maroon or have a traditionally colored striped or paisley pattern. Things to avoid include novelty or sport watches; too much jewelry; and pins or other objects that reveal religious, political, or other types of affiliations. Beards are out. Mustaches are questionable.
Women should wear a tailored suit or dress (with a jacket) in traditional colors such as gray, navy blue, black, beige, or camel. Avoid wearing casual, short, tight, low-cut, or brightly colored skirts and dresses; slacks or pantsuits; heavy perfume; or too many accessories.
Nancy, a paramedic, had just missed the hiring cut in a big county test. She had been testing for five years. Now, she was preparing for a chief`s oral in Oakland, where she lived. She wanted it to be the bright lights of Broadway after taking it on the road for so long. She told me over the phone that she had worn a pantsuit to previous interviews, because she felt more comfortable in a pantsuit. I recommended that she invest in a good-quality, tailored suit if she wanted to be seriously considered for the job of her dreams. When she came to her coaching class two days later, she reported that she had purchased such an outfit. I pointed out in the class that her presentation and voice were flat. She hadn`t realized that. It was like throwing a switch. She stepped up and got into it. Some people just need to be dialed in to get unstuck.
Two weeks later, Nancy called to tell me she felt confident and “like a million dollars” during her interview and that she had gotten the job of her dreams. Nancy had stepped up for Broadway and had gotten the part!
–Answering questions. Having prepared yourself by rehearsing the script of the questions you anticipated would be asked during the interview, you are now ready to answer the questions the panel presents. Following the six steps below will help you to do this more effectively.
1. Actively listen to the entire question. Don`t stop listening when you think you have the answer. You don`t. Listen!
2. Make sure you understand the question. If not, have the question repeated or rephrased.
3. Pause to gather your thoughts. It might seem like an eternity, but pausing is an acceptable tactic; it shows interviewers that you are paying attention. During the pause, figure out the root of what they are asking.
4. Ask the question or make the statement that will clarify the question. A sample question might be, “You see your partner pick up something at an emergency scene. What are you going to do?”
The process: Take the question down to its basic form. What is the issue? Stealing. Then, formulate a simple answer. For example, you might ask, “Is that yours?” The board was going to tell you that your partner is stealing, but you will already have scored the points. After asking the question, you determine your partner is stealing, then what do you do?
Since stealing is an ethical issue (on the left side of the line on the paper) and your partner won`t put the item back, you might say, “Why don`t we go to our supervisor?” Why? Because stealing is against the law. But, more importantly, that person has violated public trust.
5. KISS. Keep it simple, sweetie. Don`t start a soap opera. Most candidates complicate the process. They intellectualize their answers, run past the question, decide on an answer before hearing the entire question, and fail to understand the process. My son, Rob, was interviewing in Contra Costa County, California, and was asked the question, “You have just finished your interview. You go outside and find a man down on the sidewalk. What would you do?” He answered, “I would go up and ask, `Buddy, are you all right?`”
Someone finally got the answer right. For three days, job candidates were giving answers such as, “Activate the 911 system” and “I know CPR.”
6. Deliver the Nugget answer with enthusiasm! Your personalized Nugget answer will set you apart from the clones.
The job interview is fantasyland. It is not the real world. Don`t try to intellectualize this process or try to bring in logic. Sometimes people who are not prepared will be pulled in to assist in your interview. One candidate had scored the highest (95) among candidates over a three-day period. As the raters were completing their scoring, the applicant said, “I`m sure glad that is over.” The raters agreed. Then the fellow said, “Because they`re coming.” The raters repeated, “They`re coming?” He said, “Yes, they`re coming. The Martians are coming.” The raters laughed a little. The applicant got angry. He had been serious. He was a genuine kook. He did so well in the interview because he lived in fantasyland. He knew the rules. Any questions?
DON`T REITERATE IN YOUR CLOSING. USE ONLY THE KEY POINTS NOT ALREADY COVERED IN YOUR SCRIPT. WITHOUT BEING BORING, TELL THE INTERVIEWERS THAT YOU REALLY WANT THE JOB AND THAT, ON THE BASIS OF YOUR QUALIFICATIONS, YOU HOPE TO BE CONSIDERED FOR IT.
Don`t forget that the closing part of an interview is where you play on the emotions of the interviewers to give you the job. Don`t reiterate or try to do repair work. Use only the key points not already covered in your script. After telling the interviewers why you really want the job and that you hope to be considered for it, say no more. Deliver a few cordial closing remarks and then say no more. Get up and leave the room. Get out of the building.
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Keep a vision of yourself in the job of your dreams. Be persistent. You must keep going, and going, and going if you want that job. You may have to fly, drive, beg, and borrow to make it happen.
My son Rob kept envisioning himself in a firefighter`s job. As he struggled to follow in his dad`s footsteps to become a firefighter, his vision was “seeing someone pin my badge on me.” He got that job, and on that magic day, I, his very emotional dad, had the honor of pinning that badge on my son. I felt as though he had received a degree and a career in one swoop. He had won the lottery and didn`t even buy a ticket! n
CAPTAIN BOB, a 27-year veteran of the fire service, is a captain in the Hayward (CA) Fire Department, a humorist, a coach, an author, and a recognized speaker and rater on job interviews. He has helped countless individuals in their pursuit of careers and promotions. He is the author of the audiocassette/video albums Conquer the Job Interview and his recently released book Fire Up Your Communications Skills (Code 3 Publishing, Pleasanton, California). He can be reached at (888) 238-3959 (toll free).
