Tough Interview Questions

Managers More Sophisticated

In a previous Blog post, we spoke about various preparation techniques which can help a candidate with nerves and apprehension relating to tough job interview questions. Recently, a survey published by Business Insider UK revealed that leading hiring managers are becoming even more sophisticated regarding gleaning information from candidates without candidates truly understanding the effect their answers can have. The reason for this, according to Tina Nicolai, founder of Resume Writers Ink, is to break through traditional interview “noise and clutter”. In other words, managers are aware that with so many free online interview tutorials available to candidates, answers to traditionally tough job interview questions can be rehearsed beforehand. This makes hiring decisions more difficult to negotiate.

First Five Minutes Crucial

A recent Harris Poll Survey is a telling dissection of employer’s attitudes to interviews, with 50% saying that they have decided upon a candidate’s suitability within the first five minutes.

Is this down to a flaw within a candidate’s interview strategy or attitude? Tellingly, it may connect to the topic of tough job interview questions. Richard Branson, writing in The Virgin Way: Everything I know About Leadership, has concluded that a manager cannot always believe what is written on a CV and suggests beginning an interview with a question like, “What didn’t you get a chance to write on your resume?” 

If this sounds like a question that might catch a candidate off-guard, then spare a thought for those interviewed by Elon Musk, the South African-born business magnate. Musk has used this geography riddle as one of his tough job interview questions, “You’re standing on the surface of the earth. You walk one mile south, one mile west, and one mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?”

The answer, by the way, is either the North or the South Pole.

The Best Advantage

Here at Elk Recruitment, our knowledge of the fast-moving recruitment environment differentiates us from our competitors. We strive to give all of our candidates the best advantage relating to industry knowledge, career advice and the best preparation for all of those tough job interview questions.

How Good Communication Can Benefit Staff Retention

Employee retention can be a problem for businesses in every sector. Perhaps one of the most overlooked factors relating to this issue is the non-communication of a clear lack of vision on behalf of the employer. 

This absence of clarity can affect employees in a surprising number of ways. For example, foresight and job security are intimately intertwined and demonstrate a thorough commitment to a goal, creating a shared vision between both employer and employee alike.

In the words of renowned motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.” 

Without clear and consistent communication, however, an employee can become disconnected to a company ethos and may end up feeling isolated within an unnecessarily fractured environment. In many cases the employer may be unaware of the employee’s feelings in the first place resulting in surprise when notice is given. Time is then spent trying to stem the loss of productivity and the further complication of having to source and appoint new staff who will need to receive induction and training.

This issue can be avoided by improving work-place communication which can be instigated and amended using a variety of tried and tested methods. Assigning a time for regular meetings, for example, is a logical and progressive tactic which can maintain contact on a formal level to begin with. However, personal check-ins and memos which encourage employee questions, as well as imparting information relating to what is expected of them, is a less used but equally valuable way to encourage ongoing communication outside of structured timetables.

An employee will remember when their employer refers to suggestions that they have made and will feel that they are being listened to when contributed input they have offered in the past is acknowledged and acted upon. In turn, a reciprocal relationship develops trust and security, factors which cement the bond between employer and employee. An employer who has demonstrated the ability to be open and available to discuss the ideas and experiences of employees is much less likely to lose staff in the medium term.

The Night Before The Interview

The night before a job interview can bring as much apprehension as it does excitement but if you have prepared properly there is no need to fall victim to nerves or a last minute attack of self-doubt. Remember, this is the position you wished to find yourself in: to have been selected from the many applicants and CV’sand now you will have the opportunity to speak further for yourself and to expand upon the experience and skills that your prospective employer has already noticed.

Presuming all of the preparatory work has been done, such as researching the organisation and possible questions and responses, there are practical and potentially calming tasks you can carry out in order to compliment your mental preparedness.

For example, deciding what to wear and having your selection ready the night before will create confidence and extra time on the morning of the interview. This will also allow you to begin the day with a sense of control. Such a seemingly small detail is often overlooked but it can help calibrate your mindset for the interview ahead.

Another practical tip which can eliminate unexpected hitches is planning your route to the location of the interview itself. Being aware of a second alternative route in case of bad traffic will allow you the certainty of knowing you will be on time.

Practical tips

Perhaps one of the most important practical tips for the night before the interview is to make sure you allow yourself a proper night’s sleep. There are some practical steps you can take to maximise the chances of being well rested and clear headed when the morning arrives. A walk or exercise the night before can help the body rest. If you find relaxing music helpful then perhaps listening to a favourite album before bed can assist this process. Try to eliminate or reduce any kind of screen-time in the hours before you sleep as this can often excite the brain and delay the instigation of the sleep process.  Go to bed at your usual time and feel confident that you have everything under control.  And good luck!

Degree or no Degree, that is the question!

I spoke to a candidate earlier this week who was enquiring about a position we had in Dublin, the requirement for the role was a Degree qualified candidate with four years’ experience. The candidate had 5 years’ experience with no Degree and unfortunately was not considered, this is the reality of today’s market.

Although there is a very true saying “you can read volumes on swimming and jump into a pool and drown” I would always advise candidates to read the volumes none the less and to finish a degree if they have the opportunity to do so.  Understood it is a long commitment and can involve considerable cost, but in today’s employment market it is nearly a prerequisite and expectation from employers to see candidates with a degree even for entry level positions. 

Is it worth it?

What does a degree mean for you and more importantly tell your employer?  It explains to the employer that you obviously have a certain level of education, it suggests to the employer that you can think in a certain way, solve problems analytically and you have the ability to follow things through.  Completing a degree is not easy and it shows you have commitment and resilience.  Even when your job applications are unsuccessful or they go unanswered, don’t question the point in having your degree, rest assured that having the degree ensures your application a first consideration.

You are a brand.

Choose a reputable college and ensure that the accreditation of the degree is applicable to the National Framework of Qualifications in Ireland. Having a degree does make your job hunt easier but the process of finding that perfect job with the financial rewards you desire will take patience and time. Remember your degree in most professions is only 33% of your personal brand, the other 66.6% is made up of practical experience, life experience and your portfolio (CV) itself. If you are finding that your job hunt is disastrous and not landing you the job you want or none at all, then take time to review your personal brand and don’t be afraid to seek help if required.

Changing Career

Our working career usually spans 40+ years including part time to full time positions. During the early stages of our career we start to make inroads into the industry/position that we will ultimately spend most of our working lives in which is determined by our gained practical and academic experience guiding us there. If you want to change direction here are a few important points to consider.

Career Identification

Have a general if not specific idea of what it is you would like to do. Take the time to sit down and mull over ideas and identify what career paths/occupations are of interest to you and why. If you cannot make the decision on your own, organise a visit to a reputable career guidance and seek clarity this way.

Up skilling Needs Patience

When you have identified what occupation you would like to do, it is then time to assess your current ability and skill set versus the skill set required to enable you work in this profession. You may need to up skill or re-skill, you may need to do voluntary work, a part time course or go to college full time. This may take a considerable amount of time to achieve so be patient and expect a time period anywhere from two years to five years for this change to happen.

It will take Resources

This will be an expensive and difficult time if you have to go back to college as fees as a mature student are not cheap. Even if your career change does not involve a monitory investment it may involve a time investment which can impact your personal life. During this period, you should have a financial cushion to fall back on and a supportive team.

Support

Communicate to your family and close friends that you are changing career, this is really important as your transition will be demanding and their support will be required at some point.

The one thing to remember in changing career is, it’s worth it.  If you are in a profession that you don’t like or find the demand for your current skill set in today’s employment market is falling, then it is both necessary and rewarding to do something about it and it is within you to make this happen. If you don’t then what’s the alternative?

Exploring Career Options With Your Teen

This question is a very relevant question to my own family and a subject I have pondered over quite recently. We know that children are meant to be children for as long as possible but I do think it healthy for early teens to start considering their career options or at least researching career possibilities as soon as possible.

There are of course the lucky ones among us who are born with a talent, spot that talent early on in years, enjoy the talent given to them and end up in a career involving that talent.  For most of us, this is not the case and having someone by our side and helping us to explore and identify possible career options is extremely important.  I would suggest having the initial conversation with them, they might not have the vocabulary to be able to quantify what they would like to do and they probably don’t know what they want to do as yet, but it’s certainly advantages to get them thinking about it and get the cogs turning.  However, before you do and to make the conversation engaging, familiarise yourself with career options, take an interest and become somewhat of an informal career guidance resource when your child asks the question.  If they are really unsure, why not suggest careers to them based on the skill set that you know they possess, this could be I.T., game development, teaching, medicine, trades, sport or people orientated careers.  At this stage its not to pick the career but more to get the mind ready to choose. 

I would much rather my son or daughter take a compulsory 10min out of their day and instead of constantly looking at You Tube, playing XBOX or PlayStation to take this small amount of time and start researching what they would like to do when they leave school.  Reward them for taking an interest, listen attentively to their ideas and let them explain why they are interested in this specific career and remember this will change many many many times, so be patient.

Dropping out of College

Dropping out of college has pros and cons. There are many different paths one can follow to succeed in this world and they all don’t follow the conventional routes of school, college then work.  For instance, I left school, repeated my leaving cert and did not get the points I needed, so I did a PLC course and then started working.  During the first 10 years of my working career I performed well, but found that lack of qualifications and academic knowledge was holding me back from taking the next step which I so deeply wanted to do.  I then went back to college and 17 years later completed a Master’s Degree.  My brother on the other hand did his leaving cert, got the points, went straight to college only to drop out 6 months later deciding to do an apprenticeship, again he also returned to college and 11 years after leaving school, he has an extremely successful career and has just finished his Higher Degree.

Do you have what it takes to progress?

You see the most important ingredient in all of this is having the desire and motivation to progress, the willingness to be the best you can be, to see your weaknesses and improve. This moment of enlightenment happens at different times for all of us, some are born ready and some later in life as we mature or in my case directly as a result of a life experience.  So although the traditional route of school then college makes sense and is compulsory for some professions, remember it’s not the end of the world if things don’t pan out that way for you.  Follow your gut instinct as it will very rarely put you wrong.  Its also important to point out that even though college may not be right for you now, academic qualifications are vitally important to possess if even just for security.  You may wish to drop out of college today but at some point in the future when you are ready you will realise that you must return out of necessity or passion, as knowledge is power! 

Solving Work Related Problems Methodically!

There will always be times in work when despite best efforts things are just going completely wrong and not according to plan.  If you take the time out to study exactly what has happened, you will usually see a pattern to it and in that pattern is always a recipe for improvement or a signal to change direction and quick.

Root Cause Fault Analysis

9 times out of 10 what went wrong could have been avoided no matter how you dress it up.  In the manufacturing industry they use what’s caused Root Cause Analysis or Root Cause Fault Analysis (RCA or RCFA) which arose in the 1950’s out of a study by NASA to seek reasons as to why things went wrong at a fundamental level, at the root.  It’s a super tool and one that will benefit the whole organisation if used effectively.  You don’t just presume why things went wrong at face value, well you can but this is a sure way of ensuring they will keep happening. There is a technique to be followed that involves 12 steps from defining the problem, interviewing or data gathering, data mining, identification of a solution, implementation, effectiveness to standardising the solution. This is a powerful tool to master to close out issues permanently or at least to reduce the possibility of reoccurrence to a very minimum.

Helping you grow

Problems are put before us to enable us to grow.  No matter how difficult the lesson, there is always something to be learned from it.  Even if we don’t identify the root cause of a problem, just deciding to investigate the problem is a mammoth step in the right direction to mind-set improvement. Taking this step means that you are no longer saying it just happened, you are no longer saying what can I do about it, you are now saying that yes it happened but it bloody won’t happen again on my watch.  Conducting yourself with this mind-set is a key ingredient to success at work and certainly an important trait you must possess to lead.

You can not control every aspect of an Interview!

I am so disappointed, I felt I did a great interview and I still didn’t get the job, What? This is not an uncommon occurrence as there are so many factors at play during the interview itself and broader hiring process that you unfortunately have no control over. Although doing the pre interview prep work like Googling the interviewers, company website and knowing the job spec and your CV inside out are imperative, it does not necessarily mean you will get the job, so prepare yourself for this real possibility.

For the most part, the practical side and logistics of the interview is fairly generic across the board and most interviews will follow the same interviewing format and questioning.   The part of the interview we don’t have any real control over is the cultural & personality traits the employer has identified as important to making the position a success within their companies cultural setting. So although you may think you are a perfect fit for the role, you answered the questions extremely well and gave an excellent account of yourself, you may also have come across as too brash, too quiet, too meticulous, too prepared, too qualified, too polished, too cocky, too intrusive, too confrontational, too relaxed, too confident or indeed too funny to fit in with this employer. With another employer these traits could have been perfect.

Cultural & personality questions like 1. How do you deal with teams? 2. Tell me about an excellent day you had in work? or 3. How do you deal with conflict? will let you know that the company has a strong emphasis on culture within their organisation. The only way to answer these questions is as honestly as possible but do let the interviewers know that you have the ability to adapt well in different types of working environments and be prepared to give examples. So in summary if you are not chosen for a role, don’t panic, they might have inadvertently done you a favour. Try and get some feedback though, dust yourself off and go again, eventually the doors will open for you.

I Want to Resign

Most of us at some point in our careers have felt the desire to resign from our job due to a grievance we have had. Whether this grievance is due to a mean boss, limited career progression, difficult co-workers, broken promises, toxic work environment or poor terms and conditions, walking out in haste should be avoided at all costs for multiple reasons.

The majority of employee grievances can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion without confrontation. Your first port of call should be to resolve the issue yourself internally, then through management and if this is unsuccessful then through a third party.  When all of these options have failed and you have decided you have no option but to resign, you must have a plan B in place first before you leave, never just walk out with nowhere to go and avoid telling colleagues your desire to leave.  If you do walk out, although this rebellious act and sense of relief will feel fantastic initially, you will be leaving your family’s welfare exposed and potentially damaging your future employment prospects as you have created a difficult situation to explain in the career section of your CV and you have most definitely lost this employer as a reference.

Being emotionally involved in a job is a healthy situation as it can bring out the best in us but it can also cloud our judgement causing us to sometimes act irrationally.  Think through your situation wisely, plan and act accordingly.  Where possible find alternative employment first then try and leave an employer as professionally as possible and no matter what the reason, serve your agreed notice period.  Spend as much time as possible towards the end of your tenure preparing for your exit by closing as many outstanding items as possible, conducting a solid handover with your replacement, label your files and generally ensuring the upkeep of your good name.  This may seem a bitter pill to swallow at first but remember your focus must be on preserving your professionalism, character and future.

Self-doubt

Self-doubt is that little voice that screeches us to a halt just when we are about to make a decision. Are you sure? have you made the right decision here? what will people think? is your business idea good enough? what if you fail?  We have all heard them, this process is normal and healthy but this self-preserving mechanism should never become debilitating.

Of course It’s extremely important when embarking on any new idea to think things through, to try and plan for all eventualities, but remember all of your ducks will never be in a row and sometimes we need to take that leap of fate to truly grow

Go with what you have, right now, just go, take the leap and learn how to fly on the way down Les Brown

Life is extremely short and we owe it to ourselves to explore every part of life, ourselves and be the best we can be in the time we have been given.  Self-doubt is fine, listen to it, embrace it, feel it, take on board its questions, act upon them if need be but then move on.  There is no such thing as failure, getting something wrong just means that you have not perfected your art form yet, it’s a learning process not a full stop. Instead see this unforeseen setback as room for improvement & growth.  Life’s way of telling you to practice more, study what went wrong, identify the lesson and take from it. 

When you approach life with this learning view and start to accept that things may not always go your way, we are reducing our fear of failure and thus reducing the power of self-doubt over us.  Remember, self-doubt is only one part of you and it doesn’t like risk taking even though some of the best decisions ever made have been made with incredible risk.

she was unstoppable, not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite of them Unknown

How important is a Job Description?

A job description is an extremely important document for both the employee and the employer.  It should be an accompaniment to the contract of employment, a one-page overview that explains to both parties clearly what is expected from an individual working in a given position within an organisation. It often includes areas such as Roles and Responsibilities, desired skill-set/qualifications reporting structure and potential goals.

Job descriptions are such a beneficial necessity when it comes to transparency in organisations despite ludicrous trains of thought that they are restrictive, if they are restrictive then you have created them incorrectly.  We all know that positions within a company are fluid in nature and organically change over time dependent on business needs and employee development. The purpose of the Job description is to detail the foundations of a given role, the basics that must be done to allow this position to operate effectively at a fundamental level. When things get extremely busy in work we occasionally get lost in tasks and find ourselves operating outside of our allocated areas of responsibility or remit, sometimes by request from management sometimes not. Although this situation can be healthy as it promotes personal growth, we always need a reference point to return to, and the job description allows this.

It can be extremely frustrating & stressful for an employee not to understand fully what his/her job is, a job description prevents this. It is also important to point out that companies that don’t use Job descriptions are walking a rocky road, for instance, how can management review an employee on performance if they have not taken the time to explain to them what their job is in the first place? Custom and practice unless well documented can be extremely subjective. 

Clarity and transparency is measurable, it is healthy for both parties to know exactly what is expected, if the company pays x amount then in return a, b, c, & d is expected.

Let’s keep it simple

Time management

Time is precious and using your time wisely and productively for most of us usually requires an uncomfortable and radical shift in mind-set.  Jumping from one thing to another and finishing nothing is unfortunately the norm for some, a habit that results in inefficiency and time wasting.  You must have a systematic approach to time management which will result in a less stressful way of getting things done first time.  

Time management tips

1. Use to-do lists, they are so effective in time management.  You should start by getting yourself a good daily diary.  Every Sunday evening take five minutes out and make it your business to plan and write down the top 10/20 items that you wish to have completed next week, day by day.  First thing every morning review the list for that day and add the finer details. For instance, jot down who you need to call that day and the times things need to happen to meet your plan. Just make sure you write your to-dos down, it allows you to de-clutter your mind and to focus on completing tasks instead of trying to remember what they were.
2. Allocate time to do important tasks, stick to the times allocated and don’t be afraid to tell people you are busy during these periods, even if that means telling people Not now!  Initially when you adopt this approach other might think it too quite be rude that you have fobbed them off, but they will get used to it.  9 times out of 10 what they wanted to talk to you about, they will have managed to sort it out for themselves. Bonus!
3. During busy time slots, turn of all social media platforms and concentrate solely on the task at hand unless of course you use them for business.
4. Pencil in certain times during the day to reply to emails.
5. In your daily diary identify days that are productive and what it was about that day that made it more productive.  When you identify these productive factors try and introduce them into every day.