by Tony Beshara
If, in growing up, you had to overcome personal or family challenges, and they communicate a positive attitude or strong work ethic, certainly you can describe the experience. But be careful what you say!
Q. Have you ever had to overcome any personal hardships? (Whatever you’d do, do not describe your terrible, acrimonious divorces; your run-ins with the law; your DWIs; your being thrown out of your house by your spouse; your three bankruptcies; or anything that communicates poor judgment.)
We didn’t grow up with a lot of money. Since I was 18, I have been pretty much on my own. I put myself through college and graduate school. Looking back, what seemed to be hardships at the time were really blessings. I learned from every one of them.
Q. If you were to invite three famous people to dinner, whom would you invite? (This is a dumb question, but if you are asked it, you pretty much have to answer it. Avoid politicians, religious figures, entertainers, or anybody else who could be considered remotely controversial. Sticking to business-oriented individuals, alive or dead, is safe.)
Jack Welch, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates.
You could also pick people known for their business writing, such as:
Malcom Gladwell, Tom Peters, and Peter Drucker.
Q. If you were me, what question should I ask that you really don’t want to answer? (This is also a dumb question, but it gets asked more than most people might think. The idea is to take you off your guard. Be ready! Keep your answer very light and almost funny.)
My golf handicap.
Q. Do you like me as a person?
Well, I don’t know you very well at all. I think we have good chemistry. You are a very good interviewer.
Q. Describe a situation where you personally or professionally failed? (Watch out for this trap. Be ready for this question and answer it with a “safe” story—something like not making your high-school or college basketball team, getting a B in a very difficult class, or not getting a promotion that you felt you deserved will work.)
I failed to get into any of the three Ivy League colleges I applied to. I put a tremendous amount of effort in getting accepted to those schools. It was disappointing. I ended up going to the state school and it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
If you describe a professional failure, make sure you don’t blame other people. Take responsibility in the right way. Say something like:
We misjudged the market.
or
We didn’t see the recession coming.
Never blame others for your mistakes, even if they were part of it. You don’t want to be perceived as a finger-pointer.
Q. How do you rank yourself personally and professionally among your peers? (You don’t want to be too boastful or too humble in answering this question.)
I have been fortunate to work with a very successful, hard-driving organization where the performance bar is set pretty high. It is a great challenge to work with such a high-caliber group. Sometimes I outperform most everyone, and sometimes I am outperformed.
The great thing is that regardless of my rank, I am pressed to perform my best every time. Whether I come in first, second, or third isn’t as important as the fact that I grow personally every day.
Q. Do you have personal and professional goals?
I have personal and professional goals. I write them at the beginning of every year, review them daily, and assess them quarterly. I believe everyone has to have goals.
Q. Who is your greatest personal mentor? (One has to be careful here. You need to be careful. Saying something like, “Jesus Christ, my Lord and savior,” might be the truth, but it is real risky to say. You’re on much safer ground with examples like those that follow.)
My mother . . . my father . . . my older brother or sister . . . my high school football coach . . . my first boss.
Then give a short story about how this person was your mentor.
Q. What is the biggest personal mistake you have ever made? (This is a loaded question. If you say something like, “I married the wrong person and it turned out to be a disaster,” you run a real risk. It is simply too emotionally charged and you never know how the hiring or interviewing authority is going to interpret the answer. So, it is best to play it safe and come up with something like making a personal investment that went badly, not finishing a degree, or taking a job that turned out to be a poor decision due to not doing enough due diligence.)
I invested in a company that went bust in the last recession. It cost me a lot of money.
Q. How did you get your last job?
I worked through a great recruiter who not only got me the interview, but helped me beat out nine other very qualified candidates.
Q. What do you do in your spare time? (Your answer to this minor question could wind up being a major mistake. If you say something like, “I work on my golf handicap every chance I get,” the hiring authority may fear that you are going to be playing golf when you are supposed to be making sales calls.)
Business is my avocation as well as my vocation. I read a lot of business books and attend lots of seminars on my own time.
Q. What you think about yourself is most important to us? (If this question comes in the beginning of the interviewing process, then you want to sell the simple but important aspects that a company would want you to have as an employee.)
My commitment, passion, and hard work.
If you’re deeper into the interviewing process and you have really done your homework, you should be aware of the most important attributes that the organization is looking for in any candidate.
I understand you all would like to get the company to $200 million. I have helped two organizations double their size in the last ten years. One went from $200 million to $400 million and another from $250 million to $500 million.
I know how to help get you where you want to go.
Q. Tell me about a business experience where you had to decide to either lead or to follow. What choice did you make and how did it turn out?
In my last position I took on responsibility for leading the conversion project because I had a hands-on knowledge of the accounting system and had worked with the SAP software before. Although there were others that had been with the firm longer, it was clear I could be the most logical choice. The project was delivered three weeks earlier than we projected.
or
Every good leader knows when to follow. When it’s clear that a situation calls for me to listen to others, I go with the flow.
Q. Tell me about a time when you practiced diplomacy when communicating with another person or group. (Simply be ready for this question with a reasonable story.)
Last year, I had to disband one of the departments that I managed. We laid two people off and reassigned four others throughout the company. It was a purely economic decision, but politically very touchy.
We were so careful about the whole process, even with the people we laid off, that when we invited one of them to return to work after four weeks, he came back with no hard feelings.
Q. Tell me about the last time one of your subordinates made a big mistake. What did you do?
I understood exactly what the mistake was. When I reported it to my superiors, I explained that I was the one that was responsible. I didn’t tell my superior that I should have been checking my subordinate’s work, so he never knew who actually made the mistake. But it was my responsibility.
Q. What have you done to implement improvements in your work group organization? (Your answer to this question should be decisive and precise.)
I invited a productivity consultant into the organization and the whole department took his instructions. It required them to stay late an hour and a half one evening a week for eight weeks, but it was well worth it. Our productivity improved 15 percent.
Q. Sometimes we have to bring conflict out into the open and other times avoid it. Tell me about when you’ve had to make a choice like this.
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sp; Our customer service people were constantly angry at our outside salespeople because they claimed the salespeople were promising things we couldn’t do, like with pricing and delivery times. I brought them together for 45-minute meetings every week to review the accounts. It promoted a “we-are-all-in-this-together” attitude. After the first rather tense meeting, everyone resolved the conflict and things have become a lot better.
Q. We all have to deal with power struggles or resolve win/lose situations. Tell me about the last time you were involved in such a situation. (Depending on how the interview is going, you might laugh and say, “Well the last time was my spouse and I were deciding where to go to dinner. . . . I let him/her win.” Then follow up with a serious work-related answer.)
My experience has been to create a situation where no one feels like they lose. The environment has to be “we are all in this together.” When one loses, we all lose; when one wins, we all win.
Follow with an appropriate story.
Q. Describe to me how you make decisions. (If this question catches you off guard, you’ll be dead in the water. Saying things like, “Well I just follow my gut” won’t be a good answer.)
I sort out all the facts and write them out so I can see the pros and cons. I ask advice from people with experience and knowledge. Then I decide. It’s important to make the right decision, of course, but I’ve learned that if I ever come to the conclusion that my decision was wrong, I need to admit it and change it quickly.
Q. Describe a time when an external customer tried to get something from you or your company that they didn’t deserve, maybe not outright cheating, but close to it. How did you handle it and what did you do?
I had a situation where I knew the customer was being totally unreasonable. The customer’s CEO was fond of yelling and screaming at people, getting them emotionally upset, and eventually getting his way. I didn’t give in to that. I sent him an e-mail and made a reasonable offer to compromise. He kept trying to call me. He even called my boss and yelled at him. After a number of weeks, we agreed to settle.
Q. Describe a time when an internal customer tried your patience.
Our accounting department was consistently getting reports to us so late that our reports to the board were being thrown together at the last minute. Accounting people, in situations like this, aren’t very flexible. So, I simply went to the departments that were giving the accounting department the information they needed and moved their deadline dates back one week. The accounting department was happy and so was everyone else.
Q. Priorities constantly change in our firm. Recurring challenges and limitations to resources push us really hard. Often it is hard to maintain a positive attitude, and the department gets emotionally down. Has this ever happened to you and how did you deal with it?
I try to look for the positive in every situation. That doesn’t mean that I ignore reality, it just means I say to myself and the folks I work with, “There’s a positive solution to this . . . what is it?” and say things like, “Two years from now we’ll look upon this and laugh about how we solved the problem.” This kind of positive attitude is very infectious and people buy into it.
Q. We all have times when we are very proud of what we’ve accomplished, and sometimes we don’t receive the recognition we think we should. Tell me about a time that this has happened to you and how did you deal with it?
Getting external recognition isn’t as important to me as my knowing that I have done a good job. I’m intrinsically motivated. I care more about living up to my own expectations than hearing praise from others.
Q. Describe a situation where you demonstrated a high level of commitment to an organization where you worked. (Be ready for a question like this. If you say something like, “I stayed late when I needed to . . . worked overtime when necessary . . . came in on the weekends when I had to,” or something weak like that, you will lose points for a poor answer.)
Another department manager had a heart attack in the middle of chairing a major committee. I happened to be on the committee. Most everyone was at a loss as to what to do and how long it would take him to get back and so on. I volunteered to chair the group. Unfortunately, he never came back and took early retirement. But our committee accomplished its task.
Q. What have you done in the past that has demonstrated a high level of personal integrity?
My department miscalculated the costs on one of the proposals we made to a client. After we won the contract, we realized our mistake. I went to our CEO and explained the situation. He wasn’t a happy camper! We decided that I would call the customer and explain what happened. The customer realized that we needed to make a profit in order to fulfill service after the project was completed. We compromised and wound up getting two more jobs from that organization.
Q. What was the last creative idea that you came up with that affected the group or company that you now work for? How did you come up with the idea? (You’d better have a good answer for this question. If you have to think about the answer for more than just a moment, you won’t appear like you’re telling the truth.)
When one of our major customers signed a multiyear contract with us, I came up with the idea to station one of our employees on-site with the client. This facilitated communications with the customer as well as made the customer feel important. The idea just seemed like a logical thing to do.
Q. What will your boss say when you resign? Will he or she be upset?
I’m sure my boss will be somewhat disappointed, but he (or she) has always been the kind of person who wants what’s best for everyone in their organization. If finding a new job is best for my family and me, my boss might be unhappy about the situation for his and our company’s sake, but he (or she) will be pleased for me.
Q. What will you miss most about your present job?
The people. It seems like every place I’ve ever worked, I’ve had the good fortune to work with wonderful people. But I’ll bet there are wonderful people here in your organization also.
HOW THIS AFFECTS YOU
Most people think it’s terribly unfair that being liked has as much to do with getting hired as it does. Hardly any hiring authority is going to admit how much it affects the hiring decision. While the first 20 percent of the hiring decision is based on your ability to do the job, being liked or considered a good fit with the rest of the company and the individuals in it is a major factor in getting hired.
In addition to the people who make judgments based on the interview, there’s still going to be a personal compatibility assessment on the part of the hiring authority. People simply will not hire someone they don’t like. (And you probably wouldn’t go to work for someone you don’t like. It works both ways.)
Now there will always be people who may not like you as much as they like others. That can’t be helped, but, as a candidate, you need to be prepared for a personal evaluation. You have to be ready to be judged by your social skills as well as your professional skills.
I know it’s hard to practice being liked. What’s important is to be aware that being liked is a big part of getting hired. Once you realize that, you are better prepared to succeed in the process.
CHAPTER 6
Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Problems in Your Background
These are going to be the most difficult questions you will be asked. They’re going to encroach on your character, your judgment, and the quality of your decisions, both personally and professionally. Now, the truth is that everyone who has ever been hired is a risk. The real question embedded in this subject is, “What kind of risk are you?” And along with that, “Am I, as a hiring authority, willing to run the risk and put my reputation on the line with this person?”
A hiring authority is trying to minimize risk and maximize a return on investment. It’s a trade-off. Hiring authorities want to minimize their risks, but get as many benefits as possible from hiring someone. The greater the risks you might present, the more they have to be offs
et by a greater reward. With every risk you present, you have to offset those risks with the benefits you can provide. The greater the benefits you can demonstrate, and the more risks you can mitigate, the better chance you have to be hired.
Candidates often don’t recognize the risks that they present to a prospective employer. In fact, things you think are a positive might very well be a big liability. For instance, most people who have been the president of a company or owned their own firm think that these facts are great assets. I hear it all the time: “Wouldn’t they want a candidate who knows how to run his own business?” The truth is they don’t! These perceived assets are really liabilities. Most employers don’t want to hire someone who may come in and try to run the show. So, being the president of a company or owning your own company is not an asset at all. They are risk factors.
Most candidates don’t realize that hiring authorities are looking at as many reasons not to hire as they are to hire you. They perceive the glass to be half-empty more than they see the glass to be half-full. If you have had three jobs in three years, they are going to think that you are only going to be on their job for a year. If you were fired in your last position, they are going to think this means they may have to end up firing you. If you’ve been out of work for more than six months, they are going to wonder what’s wrong with you.
You’re going to have to meet these challenges head-on. Keep in mind that you cannot justify them. Saying to a prospective employer, “I know I’ve been out of work for two years, but so have a lot of other people. Don’t you know that this is a lousy economy?” will not—I repeat, will not—help you as a candidate.
You will notice that one of the techniques I’m going to recommend using in some of the situations is what psychologists call “changing the base.” It is turning a negative into a positive. It is using a powerful phrase to turn a risk into an asset. Many times it can be summed up with the phrase: