The Review

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Understanding Behavioral questions in Job Interviews ( T & P Series on Wednesdays: 13)

Behavioral questioning as a topic is rarely discussed. Only a few people know about it. Less limelight does not mean anything less important in any way. These are frequently asked in personal interviews. The questions assist recruiters in assessing a candidate's experience and abilities in the simplest way possible. If you're not used to answering these kinds of questions, you could hit a stumbling block. These types of problems necessitate proper planning ahead of time. Otherwise, one can begin rambling because they are unsure how to proceed. This means that a prospect is no longer a possibility.

Recognizing the questions

When a vacancy or opportunity becomes available in an organization, the recruiting manager's job is to find the ideal candidate for the advertised position or opening. As a consequence, his job is to assess the candidates' desired abilities and expertise. Managers are trained to ask behavioral questions to candidates to observe their responses.

These questions can be differentiated by their type.

These are depicted below.

(1) Tell me about a time when….”

(2) Describe a situation when…..”

If you observe these questions, you will note that the best way to answer them is to rely on previous experiences. To present your case, you must tell them a suitable tale about a similar scenario. If you are not well-prepared with ready stories, you would be unable to draw them on the spot for fast comparison. Often you want to skirt the topic or cut corners. But it's all for naught.

Preparing the questions

It is said that knowledge is power. You may also achieve such knowledge by going through the job description over and over again minutely. It holds the secret to all of the puzzles. For eg, a company is looking for a graduate trainee in marketing and sales. Then, one should be ready to handle behavioral questions dealing with sales & marketing in the past. Similarly, you should draw your stories from your graduation days. You would be able to discover out if you did some volunteer work in college with event marketing. Similarly, you can quickly draw anecdotes from your teamwork experiences when serving in different teams during your college days. The only thing that matters is that you were exposed to such a situation and that you learned from it. The lesson could be a huge success or a complete disaster. However, no story is a negative story. You should also present the points that you failed and possible changes that should be made.

I was asked similar questions when interviewing for the position of assistant professor at Dibrugarh University. The recruiters inquired about how I would approach drawing lessons (graphics) in the B.Tech program. I told them that I was taking a subject called Machine Drawing in 3^rd semester already at GIMT ( where I was working at that time) that was more or less similar to graphics and if I needed to teach the students, I could easily read the subject matter quickly and brush up on my skills. This seemed to convince them. People generally dislike teaching graphics because it is very exhausting. However, in interviews, you cannot express your displeasure with handling anything that would be seen as a fault. You have to send a positive vibe at any cost.

Better research means better preparation. In the olden days, kings used to dispatch spies to every nook and corner of their country and kept tabs on the goings-on so that there were no surprises. This was an excellent preventative measure for dealing with any eventuality. That was good research in those days. Currently, in a job-hunting setting, we may say that one would do extensive research on the business profile and its potential ventures. You will do adequate research on the firm by simply looking for it online. There will be company-related information and news that you will use during the interview. You should also request assistance from alumni in this respect. To obtain more detailed details, you can contact them online or by phone. One more useful technique could be reaching out to the people in the company through various social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook (Social Networking). The key goal is to collect as much information as possible to shape an opinion about the questions. One should not shy away from asking. I recall the story of Dorothy Parker, a well-known New York writer. During her younger years, she used to compose poetry and send them to magazines. She was regularly turned down by publishers. Fortunately, she landed an interview with Vanity Fair magazine. She went straight to the publisher and showed him her poem. She inquired about jobs. Even though she was turned down, the publisher kept her name in view. When the editor of Vanity Fair launched another publication named Vogue, he sought her out. She would not have had the job if she had not asked for it. The moral of the story is that we must continue to strive and engage with people and solicit advice and feedback. However, one should avoid being annoying or distracting.

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Saturday, February 20, 2021

Telling Your Story in LinkedIn for Job Interview ( T & P Series on Wednesday: 12)

(Photo credits: www.pexels.com)

Networking Importance

The job market is getting tougher with each passing day. Having a conventional approach to a job search may not yield great results. Changing time demands changes in tactics. Every job seeker needs to have a well-defined strategy right from the beginning of the college days. The right strategy should include three-pronged approaches such as establishing a network, developing soft skills & honing hard skills. As the old saying goes “the early bird takes the worm”, this is true in the sense that those who understand the necessity of a well-focused strategy get placed early. On the other hand, those who are late in embracing that face rejection and disappointment quite often.

Networking is very much essential in the job search. In simple words, networking means connecting relevant people from the field. People underestimate or overlook the power of networking. But, successful people often use networking effectively in every respect. The importance can be understood through a story that I heard somewhere but it sums up everything. There was a person named Mr. John. He was from an Electronics background and wanted a job in that field in a specific firm. That was his dream firm. He started following the top boss of the firm. He used to study company operations, dealings and expansions very carefully. Often, he would go to various seminars & workshops presided over by the top boss of the company. He tried to communicate to the boss by various means such as taking part in discussions during those conferences & workshops. In a way, he was trying to set up a network. After some time, he succeeded to strike a conversation with the boss who had almost become accustomed to him. Later on, he was able to get a reference from the top boss in a local branch. If we carefully analyze this story, we can see the effectiveness of networking. However, this is also the case of targeted networking which can be termed in a lament sense as ‘eye in the pie’ approach. But, it should be always kept in mind that only networking will not fetch anything unless and until you have a solid knowledge base to present yourself as an intelligent individual. For that, you have to invest some serious time in your studies. Otherwise, it looks manipulative and unauthentic.

Research scholars in prestigious institutes such as IITs understand the potential of networking. They frequently organize seminars, workshops, and conferences and lure the best minds to take part in those events. The goal is to network with like-minded people to share ideas. Of late, most of the scientific studies have gone multidisciplinary like mechanical engineers taking the help of electrical, electronics & computer people and computer engineers taking the help of social sciences & mathematics to gauge the challenges of the modern world. Networking helps forge relationships based on mutual interests. People collaborate through networking and reach the zenith. This is worth mentioning that the research scholars don’t think this in the terms of strategy, it is ingrained in them by the institutes as the muscle memory. Anyhow, it does the job. We can draw an important lesson from these examples that it is very useful.

In my case, I got many benefits by networking with like-minded people. As a teacher, we often need to participate in various events related to the research interests. I get updates continuously through my networks because people like to share these things whenever there is one. Similarly, I too contribute. The same is true in the case of job vacancies also.

Ways of Networking

Networking could be online and offline mode. Offline is a good old technique used by humans from time immemorial. On the other hand, online networking is relatively new compared to the former. Presently, people prefer the online method because it is convenient. Apart from that, one can connect and engage many people at a time which is not at all possible in the other method.

Back in old days, we used to meet people to build friendships. I maintained the network by calling people frequently. These were normal calls inquiring about their well being. It is worth mentioning that I landed the second job by the following networking religiously. In those days, I was working in an engineering college in Rhi Bhoi, Meghalaya. One day, one of my friends from M.Tech days called me and asked me that if I could come for an interview in his college at Guwahati, Assam. I went there and appeared the interview. During the interview, I could see that they were facing a shortage of faculty. They offered me the post. I assured them to join as early as possible because I had to wrap up things in Meghalaya. Had I not maintained the relationships with those guys, they would not have remembered me and let alone called me. The most important thing is the information regarding any such vacancy and a small reference to push your case. When you have a reference, the employers become relaxed because they know that the person will get along well with the flock without much of a fuss.

Though online networking by various social media platforms looks artificial & devoid of any emotions, it peculiarly does the job. It has become the new normal of modern time. That is why we see a lot of people going for personal branding these days in social media. For professionals, the best networking site is LinkedIn. This is where you will find the right professionals in your field. Even, hiring managers hang around and check profiles of job seekers before the interviews. Therefore, one should be very serious about his profile image online.

Telling Your Story on LinkedIn

Now, we come to the main point of the article. Since the dawn of civilization, humans have been using stories as a medium of communication. It helps to transfer the age-old knowledge from one generation to another in an easy way. The stories stay in the minds of the listeners for the whole lives. People draw important lessons from the stories in the time of need.

As the stories are so powerful, one can utilize the power of storytelling to set up a digital image through various social media platforms according to their needs. These stories will be easy to remember and many people may associate with you on emotional grounds also. For example, if you watch television ads, you can see that every ad tells a story. The ads try to stoke your emotions for better delivery of their contents.

For professional seeking jobs, one should consider LinkedIn profile seriously. These profiles are like personal marketing ads. In the case of LinkedIn, you have these various sections while setting up the profile such as intro, about, featured posts, background, work experience, education, license & certification, volunteer experience, skills, accomplishment, additional information, and supported language. If you observe, the sections look similar to that of a resume.

Introduction or intro

In this section, you get to fill up your name, a headline, or tagline about you, current position, location, and industry. Out of these, one should put tag line or headline carefully because it will be highlighted all the time in your profile. For example, you are a financial intern fresh out of Commerce College, and if someone searches in LinkedIn for financial interns, your tag line should be such that it should be discoverable. Therefore, before putting something in the tagline, you verify your tag line has certain keywords which are searchable by the LinkedIn algorithm. In the rest of the things, there is nothing much to do.

About

This section can be used for the personal branding in 2000 words which is more than enough. The section should answer these questions to set up the story.

(1) Who you are?

(2) What is your background?

(3) What do you enjoy?

(4) What does stimulate you?

If you are answering these questions, you have successfully set up a story about yourself. Other important things to be considered in the narrative are searchable keywords, less usage of filler words, and small paragraphs. This narrative should be sharp to the point and should be able to hook up the readers like you are talking to them.

Featured Posts

Here, you can show some profile posts that help to push your story. These posts should be well crafted with the questions (discussed in the previous section) with answers in the post. For example, you are an engineering graduate, you can show the world that how passionate you are about a particular engineering problem. You can have your video or image post while engaging with such a problem during your college days.

Background

Background includes sections like work experience, education, license & certification, and volunteer experience. For that matter, you have to keep updating throughout your educational career to fill up these sections because work experience, education, license & certification, and volunteer experience cannot be earned in a day. You have to devote time in this regard. The information should be authentic. Read More:

Skills

In the skills section, you are to include hard skills or transferable skills which are measurable. Many people write about soft skills like a team player, good communicator, motivator, etc. in the section which are not at all measurable. However, soft skills will be helpful while appearing in an interview. It can be a deciding factor in interviews with the same caliber of people having the same hard skill sets. Read More: Soft skills & hard skills.

Accomplishments

In this section, one can include his or her accomplishment which is relevant to the field.

Additional Information

Many people do not know that one can get recommendations via LinkedIn. This feature helps one to get a recommendation. Recommendation from relevant people does help to get noticed.

Supported Language

If you read and write multiple languages, this is a positive thing. I have seen some people got recruited only for knowing a language. Sometimes, companies have local area-wise expansion plans & targets.