An interviewer's letter to aspiring candidates

Let me introduce you to the two principal characters of this series. The first person is the Interviewer who is responsible for getting the right person for his organisation. The other character in this series is actually not just one person. This character is a job seeker who holds a professional degree and wants to get a job as soon as possible. Let's just call this person the Candidate.

In this series, I am going to share the experiences of the Interviewer with various Candidates. All these Candidates are freshers with zero to one year of work-experience. This series is aimed at giving you the Interviewer's perspective on the interview process. I will be taking out excerpts from actual interviews and then share the viewpoint of the Interviewer.

Let's start with a simple interview.

Interview 1:

The Candidate walks into the room. The Interviewer watches the Candidate walk into the Interview room. The Candidate is wearing a striped blue shirt, black trousers and black shoes.

The Interviewer is happy to see the student dressed appropriately for the interview. The Candidate shakes hands and sits down. He hands over his resume. While the Interviewer is reading the resume, the Candidate is looking at his shoes.

It seems as if there is a mirror at the bottom and he is not able to take his eyes off that.

The resume contains details on the following: contact information, goal statement, academics (class X, XII and engineering), and extra-curricular interests.

Amit Bansal is the CEO of PurpleLeap (http://www.purpleleap.com/) an employability skill enhancement initiative of Educomp Solutions Pvt Ltd.

Interviewer: Can you please tell me something about yourself?

Candidate: Sir, my name is Satish. My father's name is Harish Varma. My father is a businessman and my mother is a housewife.

I have one younger brother and one younger sister. My brother is studying engineering and my sister is in her class X. Now coming to my education, I am in the final year studying computer science engineering.

I scored 68 per cent in my last exam. I am a first class student. I did my Class XII in Hyderabad with 91 per cent marks and I passed out of class X with 86 per cent marks. I like listening to music and surfing the Internet. My goal statement is to work for a global company where I can utilise my potential.

Interviewer: Satish, what kind of music do you listen to?

Candidate: Sir, melody.

Interviewer: Satish, tell me something about your strengths?

Candidate: Sir, I am very hard working and honest person.

Interviewer: Ok. Any example when you worked very hard?

Candidate: Sir, I am generally hard working.

Interviewer: That's fine, but tell me one specific incident when you worked very hard.

Candidate: Sir, I got a re-appear in Microprocessors. I worked very hard to clear that later. I used to study for my regular subjects and at the same time also study for clearing the reappear.

Interviewer: Ok. Tell me your biggest achievement in life.

Candidate: When I was in class VIII, I got first prize in the Skit competition.

Interviewer: Anything in college?

Candidate: Sir, I won the 2nd prize in a dance competition during college festival.

Interviewer: How do you think your prizes in skit competition and JAM help you do well in your professional life.

Candidate: Sir, these are just my hobbies. I can also participate in such events in your company.

Interviewer: Ok, give me one reason why we should hire you?

Candidate: Sir, I want to work in a software company. Your company offers a very good work culture and provides opportunities for growth. Your company has lot of clients in the financial sector and offers exciting roles I will like to work with your company.

Interviewer: You want to work with our company, but why should we hire you?

Candidate: Sir, I will work very hard when I join your company.

Interviewer: Thank you. We will intimate the results to you later.

Dear Candidate,

When you first walked into the room, I was pleased to see you dressed appropriately for the interview. However, this feeling was short lived. You were extremely nervous. I understand that Candidates are nervous but you could have surely looked at me instead of constantly looking down.

A little smile and an eye contact would have surely made both of us more comfortable.

I started with a standard question: tell me something about yourself. I start with this question so that the Candidate gets comfortable answering this easy question. Also, I want the Candidate to highlight the key areas around which I can ask further questions. However, you just started telling me about your brothers and sisters and mother and father.

For god's sake, I am here to hire you and am not really interested in knowing about your family, unless there is something unique about it.

Then you talked about your educational background, which I can read from your resume itself. Unless you want to highlight some aspect of your education, please spare me the agony of hearing what I have already read!

Now, your interests: listening to music and surfing the Internet! Tell me, is there one student in your class who does not listen to music and surf the Internet. I am interested in knowing something about you that gives me data points on how you will behave at the workplace. Something about your personality that gives me pointers on how you will go about handling pressure, managing different tasks, interacting with different people etc.

But all you are telling me is that you listen to music and surf the Internet.

Then I ask you a direct question: tell me about your strengths. I am hoping that now you will tell me what you are good at.

You tell me that you are hard working person. "Hard work" is not a bad personality trait at all. The problem is that 19 candidates before you who I interviewed also told me their strength is 'hard work'. I am not sure whether you are really hard working or you are just saying that because everyone else is also saying it.

When I ask you for proving that what you are saying is actually true, all you give me is a lame example about clearing an ATKT. This incident actually puts more doubt in my mind than convincing me about your hard working nature.

So far, there is nothing special about your candidature that gives me the confidence to hire you. So I ask you about your achievements in life. And you tell me that you won a prize in some skit competition in your school. Did you ever think your prize in skit competition would help me decide whether you will be the right candidate for this job or not.

So I give you another opportunity. I ask you about some recent achievements. The answer is: some JAM competition. If a prize in skit competition in school and a JAM event is what you have achieved in life so far, I am scared to hire you.

I give you a last opportunity by asking a desperate question: why should we hire you. Your answer tells me that you are keen on this job and you had done some homework on the background of my company. I feel happy because I like candidates who are keen to work with us and give the right reasons for that. However, I need to also know whether you are a suitable candidate for this role or not.

You again talk about your hard work which is something that I am not convinced about.

Overall, I liked your enthusiasm, your appropriate dress and your preparedness about our company's background. However, I am not at all sure about what kind of a person you are and what I can expect once you start working with our organisation.

Whenever I am in doubt, I take the safer option of NOT HIRING a candidate. So please go back and prepare more on what you are good at and how your skills make you a suitable Candidate for this job.

Regards,

The Interviewer