Interview Bliss From An HR Manager’s Perspective – Part 2

• “Positivity” – at all times. Interviewers love discussing issues with people who are enthusiastic and positive during the interview. There is nothing worse from my perspective, than someone sitting in front of you constantly moaning about their current/old employers or about personal problems they are having with their partners/children etc. Obviously, it is sometimes necessary and appropriate for this information to be discussed, however, candidates need to recognise that they are trying to sell themselves and need to think hard about how they portray their personality. Employers are sympathetic in the main to the fact that everyone tends to have some degree of problems in their life but candidates who fail to keep this to a reasonable level risk putting the interviewer off.
• “Propriety” – It’s very hard in this day and age to be untruthful on job applications, however, it never ceases to surprise me how many candidates will put experience on their CVs and are unable to back it up with reality. A classic example that I keep coming across is individual’s use of Excel. When asked for examples, they might suggest they use “Pivot Tables” and “Macros”. Maybe rather cruelly and unexpectedly for the candidate, I am a MOUS Excel expert and therefore always make a point of asking them what these functions do. Imagine my delight when candidates actually can respond to further probing accurately and how embarrassing it is for those who are forced to admit they don’t know. Lying about experience is more difficult now, particularly because we use Verifile to do thorough background checks.
• “Personality” - it is so obvious when someone is trying to portray a personality that is not really theirs in an aim to provide what the candidate thinks I will want to see. Don’t be afraid to be yourself as this will make it easier for you to sell yourself. We use personality profiling to assess candidates’ profiles now and this has proven to be very useful in determining whether or not someone is portraying the person they are.

Part 3 soon – The icing on the cake