Interviews Decoded

Before I begin, let me tell you that this post dovetails utterly with the kind of Interviews that take place at our well-known management campuses in India for the Internship or for the Full time recruitments. This might fit with Interview patterns at other prestigious non-management Institutes as well. Because it's not about the "programme" you're in; it is about the "program" in your head!

And yes, the post is also not about what you should wear or what you shouldn't; or how should you behave, or what postures should you sit in etc. (because that's a killer sin, if you're not yet aware about it!)

Then what is this thread all about? As it says - Interviews Decoded. How do you read the mind of the Interviewer? How do you ensure to win over an Interview irrespective of your grades, degree or even without any special achievements in your resume to some extent?

While being in the position of a recruitment coordinator at my own campus, i have handled the recruitment process of a gamut of companies visiting our campus and have interacted (and still interacting) with numerous Hiring Professionals for Internships or Final recruitments. And by spending time with them, while handling their recruitment process on campus, i realised that they are not on campus to hire someone with the best grades alone or someone with the best technical fit or someone with outstanding achievements. They are there to hire someone with a different approach to life, someone with a purpose to his actions, someone who believes in breaking the monotony, someone who can make the workplace a better place to work at and enjoys his work. Companies, today, are not looking for someone in a combination of great technical fit but mediocre culture/ team fit. They'd rather be happy with someone even with the vice-versa mix of fit. The fact remains: It's easy to teach someone how to write codes, design a marketing strategy, make an operation efficient or even engulf oneself in enormous amount of number crunching in corporate finance within the beautiful, multi coloured, air-conditioned corridors of an MNC. But it is remotely possible to change someone intrinsically or to change their personality as an individual. You can't change who they really are. You can't force fit your organisation's cultural values in them, unless they really have an iota of it in their own personality. And hence, in the absence of this "Gray" matter, you prefer to choose someone else who'll make more sense at your team lunches or dinners than at the white boards. And in such a case, companies are ready to excuse, and let go of your grades, and achievements to some extent, provided they find that fire in your attitude, your behaviour, your personality and they find a point of intersection between your own goals and the organisation's mission. So that was all about what the companies today are looking for, on our campuses. But then how does one prepare oneself for that and ensure that they project themselves in the best way possible. 

Before we move on to "how to really do that", question yourself the followings:

One thing is loud and clear, you never get all the 4P's of your campus recruitments in your kitty unless you are the only lucky chap on campus that everyone's jealous of (and I'm not talking about the 4P's of Marketing here!) - it's Package, Profile, Place of Posting and People! And in such a case, if the answer to at least 3 of the above questions is "Yes" - Bingo! This post is very much for you. Go on to read more below!

So from this point on i'll take you through some of the most repeated, yet most powerful, questions asked in an Interview and what the Interviewer really seeks to unravel by asking these questions. 

Cliché 1: Tell me something about yourself?
Overly used and the most clichéd kind of replies: I am xyz. I am basically from abc. I did my schooling from def. After that i did my graduation in ghi from jkl. After that i worked with mno for "x1" years. And then i did my post-grad in pqr from stu. (In extreme cases: My hobbies are dancing, singing, music, playing cricket/badminton/volley etc. internet surfing)  ... STOP it guys, you've had enough! 

The Real intention behind asking this question is (And the exact question is): Tell me something about yourself, which is not in your resume. Tell me something about your personality, tell me something about you as a person in your normal life with your friends, your peers and your family around. Tell me why are you in this Interview room today? And one striking thing that'd push me to ask my next questions! (And there's the trick for the Interviewee to leave his self-description at a point where the Interviewer can ask his next questions from and hence, one can be well prepared for that answer too)

Cliché 2: Why do you want to join our company?
"Because your company is the best" - You better don't say that! I know the movie you heard this reply in. Dont watch that scene again. Not during the placements season, at least!

The reason for asking this question is not that the company wants to hear something "out-of-the-world" about its own brand. It's also not about what it means for you to work with the company. It's also not about the fact that our company is a "Dream" company for you or just anyone. The ONLY reason to find a reply to this questions lies in understanding the point of intersection of your aspirations from your own career in future and of the potential you see in our organisation that can help you achieve that. Simply put, how do you see your career growing ahead, if at all, with our organisation. Why ONLY US and NOT ANYONE ELSE? Tell us what we have that can help you achieve your dreams in a more meaningful way in terms of building a career and not a job-profile.

Cliché 3: Where do you see yourself 5/ 10/ 15 years down the line?
You say "I want to be the ABC-Manager, DEF-Head, GHI-VP, A2Z CEO" and you're out of the room in no time. 

Reason: You're a brain-dead guy who focuses on neither the destination nor on the path to the destination.

Remember you never want to compartmentalise your life with mere positions for short-terms. You're not in the game to achieve a soft target or a short-lived one either. The purpose of asking this questions is to know your focus point. Are you a process driven person or a product driven? Are you looking merely for a position just to "govern" people under you OR do you even have an iota of the understanding of what comes along with that position? The best way to answer such questions is by keeping your answers focused around your intention to learn your ways up the ladder. You need to provide an assurance through your words that you're more of a person who believe in personal fulfillments in terms of learning and, at the same time, in adding value to the organisation, than merely adding "designations" to your name!

Cliché 4: Your strengths and Weaknesses?
I'm gonna laugh my heart out on this one! Some of the worst answers i have heard LIVE - "Strengths: I am hard working/ passionate/ smart/ assiduous, I can work 24x7, I have a purpose in life, I am sharp thinker/ good at finance/ good at Maths, and etc.
Weaknesses: I work too much, i am extra goal-oriented, i am too focused, i am perfectionist, I am bossy and etc."

Point is: Tell me something about a "Strength" of yours that will be in favour of our organisation and at our work place for both of us. Don't give me Globe/ Jargons. Show me a point in time of your life when your strength actually saved you from a crisis. Do you even know what builds you? Is there a strength of yours, no matter how immaterial that'd be, which is important to you as a person? Simply put, again, tell me why should i Hire you? What is it that you have and other don't? And that can change my decision of hiring you!

Weakness: Now this has to be a balanced platform. You don't need to tell something as severe as "I am not a team player" OR as stupid as "I am work-o-holic". You need to strike a balance somewhere between. Knowing your weakness is more important that knowing your strength because of the fact that it reflects how well you understand your own self and the gaps that you need to fill. Whereas the purpose of this questions is to know two things from an Interviewer's point of view:

And hence, you better strike a balance by saying something which sounds like a real weakness but doesn't affect your current job-profile in any way as such. We all have such weaknesses, but we fail to identify and try to FAKE such replies by reading some online "interview-preparation" articles. For your own better self, you must be aware of your "real" gaps. And you should work towards filling them up in your own way.

Cliché 5: Why should i hire you? (My Favourite)
Hire me because:
" I'm good, I'm hard-working, I'm Cool, I'm a fast learner, I've HIGH grades, I'm my teachers' favourite, I can work in odd hours, and extreme odd shifts, and even extremest condition" Phew!

And you're once again out of the game! Why? Because the intent behind asking this questions is not to understand who you are, or what you like, or what can you do? Man, it's doesn't have anything to do with your abilities at all. Yes, Nothing at all!

It is to fathom whether you're sitting for this particular company because of any specific reasons like: You don't have any other option(s), you're not allowed to sit anywhere else, you're enticed by the package alone, this is your dream company, your friends think you must give it a try, your sitting because you wanna do a trial test, and XYZ. Apart from looking for one of the reasons above, which are the eliminators, the recruiters here also want to understand your motivation behind applying for this particular profile. Are you really interested to work in this profile? Have you gone through the job-description? Is it really what you want to do? (Rem First question, with the answer "yes") What is the correlation between your "Ideal" work profile and the one on offer? Simply put, tell me what links your personal motivation for applying to our company (for this specific profile) TO working in this specific role.

Hint Ans: Link your professional interest of working in this kind of a role in future and building your career in the same field ahead. That, if you really want to! And be ready with the detailed understanding of the job/ profile requirements.

Well, that was the crux of the "Decoding"! By the way, these questions may be termed as Clichés today but hiring professional are smart enough to rephrase them as the following:

... And the list continues. These were just some of the many pointers that students must keep in mind while preparing for the interviews. Keep your basics brushed up and more than that, know your own self first. There are various other kinds of behavioural/ cognitive questions that are in-trend today and must be worked through before really stepping into the Interview shoes. This post just tries to make a humble attempt at delineating some of the very basic facts and facets of campus interview room and the underlying preparation needed to really conquer that. In case of any questions or queries or to further understand and deep-dive in to the preparation mode, you may contact the author directly through the LinkedIn.

Hope you had a thoughtful reading. Happy times ahead and wish you luck for your preparation!

...till we meet again!