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KEY SITE PAGES► |
Behavioral Interviewing (cont'd.) |
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CAREER ARTICLES► Resumes Can Power Verbs Really Improve A Resume? A Volunteer Job Does A Resume Good "Resume," Just Easier To Work With Tricks To Help Extend Short Resumes
Job Letters Informational-Interview Request Letter
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_____________________ Interviewing Behavioral Interviews Requesting Feedback After A Failed Interview
Other Job Stuff CAREER TOOLS►
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How To Prepare To prepare for the possible assortment of questions on the previous page, jobseekers should use the S.T.A.R. or P.A.R. approach. For this writing, I'll refer to this approach as P.A.R. only. A good response to a behavior-based question should always explain the Problem that you were faced with, the Action that you took to resolve the problem, and the Results that came about as a result of your actions.
To illustrate how a practice P.A.R. drill would work, I used a personal problem that I was faced with during my busy recruiting years while working at a large ad agency. Problem: Interviewer feedback on job applicants were always miserably one sided. To explain this better, I mean I wasn't getting enough varied feedback/diverse perspectives on candidates interviewing for the different client service positions offered each year. It was always the same senior level account personnel interviewing the countless job applicants competing for the 50 to 60 C.S.A. annual job openings. Action: To help obtain broader perspectives on candidates interviewing for CSA spots, I decided to invite more junior level staff to participate in the hiring process at the company. I wrote memos encouraging junior personnel to get involved in recruitment while the unique opportunity existed for them. I organized interviewer training seminars, recruited several talented people to help lead the seminars, and to get more people to attend the seminars I always made sure the seminars took place during lunch hours where I ordered plenty of pizza (free pizza is always a great incentive to get folks to come to just about anything). Result: I successfully added 47 new interviewers to my interviewing rosters in just a matter of three weeks, 16 of those same interviewers also signed up for the company's rigorous recruitment duties on college campuses in both the Midwest and East Coast. Plus, I started getting broader perspectives on the Candidate Performance Feedback forms and I also increased the number of senior level personnel interviewing during that same time period because of the contagious interviewing spirit that was suddenly infecting the company by our newest junior-level interviewing squad. Okay, so now that I’ve explained how to apply the P.A.R. rule to help in responding to behavior-based questions and provided a short list of these types of questions, I’ll now share some other useful methods for increasing your chances of coming out unscathed from a behavioral interview. Analyze Position First, you should always thoroughly explore or examine the position for which you’re applying. If there is one available, you should always get a job description from the company you’re planning on interviewing with. You should carefully review the skills that are required for the position. Some popular skills/traits that employers normally look for when evaluating applicants for job openings are noted below. Adaptability Oral Communication Skills Analytical Thinker Passion for Business Applicable Skills Personality & Cultural Compatibility Creativity Problem Solving Abilities Critical Thinker Resourcefulness Fast Learner Professionalism/Maturity Initiative Risk Taker Integrity Self-Confidence Interpersonal Skills Smarts/Intelligence Leadership Team-Building Skills Motivator Written Communication Skills Assess Your Skills Next, you should thoroughly assess your background. Write down what skills you have that match with what’s on the company’s job description. If you’re coming up short in one or two critical areas, then you should pull out your resume. Review it closely. Look at each company that you’ve ever worked for. Think back hard and note closely which or what skills you've used in the past that are listed on the job description. Maybe there’s a talent that was forgotten or a skill that you didn’t think worth mentioning before. Don't overlook anything. Write it all down. You may definitely be able to tie in important traits with the requirements listed on the job description. Also, when trying to create examples that demonstrate your capabilities, keep in mind that you don’t have to just pull experiences from past employment situations but you can also include experiences related to hobbies, volunteer work situations, school projects, family events, even a party you planned for a friend. P.A.R. Recap Once you’ve nailed your skills down that match the company’s job description, you should write down examples of past situations where these skills were clearly demonstrated. Don’t forget that your examples must always tell a story, the P.A.R. story: the problem faced by you, the action taken by you and the result because of your action. Finally, make sure when developing your P.A.R. stories that your examples illustrate both good and bad cases. They should demonstrate when things turned out favorably for you as well as when they didn’t. In the unfavorable cases, always make sure to include what you’ve learned from each situation. For example, if you pushed for your department to get rid of its numerous paper files and urged your boss to convert everything to a computer disk-based storage system and this departmental changeover failed. Explain why it failed. Explain why you wouldn’t or would push for the same thing again. Explain what you would do next time around to ensure that such a similar changeover would be successful. Also, make sure to practice saying your examples out loud. Act as if a real, bona fide hiring person or veteran interviewer was sitting right in the same room with you. This way, you will recall these P.A.R. examples quicker during your actual interview and even deliver off-the-cuff, unrehearsed P.A.R. illustrations with more ease.
Page 1, Page 2 ________________________________________________ This article is © 2003-2005 by Tracy Miller and may not be reposted without written permission from the author and may not be reprinted for profit. |
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