The Story of My First Job Interview. What a Nightmare!

The Story of My First Job Interview. What a Nightmare! 131 What can happen when you're not prepared. Inspired by the JobMob article 444 Most Popular Job Interviewer Questions To Prepare Yourself With, my friend and job search coach Lavie Margolin has just published “Winning Answers to 500 Interview Questions“. For this book, his 5th, Lavie invited me to write the foreword, and here it is now, all for you: I remember my first job interview. I was lucky, I didn’t even have to apply for the job.eval A friend of mine had a marketing position for a small web design company in downtown Montreal (Canada) and they were looking to add someone just like him to their team. I didn’t have any much marketing experience but this was a junior position and as a Computer Science major, I had spent more time online than pretty much anyone else I knew. My friend was able to get me the interview invite simply by mentioning to his boss that yes, he did actually know someone who might be a good fit. One phone call later and I was all set with a date and time bright and early in the morning a few days later.eval I did no homework for the interview. If I knew the name of the company, it was because my friend had mentioned it. I certainly didn’t visit their website or check for press mentions, and LinkedIn hadn’t been invented yet or I would have ignored that too. I vaguely remember forwarding my resume to my friend before the interview, but his boss probably didn’t read it before we started. Or even need to, because there wasn’t much there to read. I had no clue. On the day of the interview, I was a little early to the company offices and arrived with a paper copy of my resume in hand. I’d slept well, was well-dressed, feeling good and happy to see that my friend was already there too, as he opened the door to let me in. His boss invited both of us to sit down in their front office lounge, offered a drink (which I refused), and we got underway. The boss quickly scanned my resume and asked some quick questions to basically confirm what I’d listed there. Maybe he sensed that I was nervous and just wanted to break the ice, but I remember feeling confident. And then everything went downhill quickly. “It says here that you speak French fluently, is that correct?” “Yes, that’s right,” I replied. “What’s the French word for ‘browser’?” I had no clue. I frantically searched my mind, but if there was a French word for ‘browser’, I hadn’t heard it. I was supposedly bilingual and supposedly very familiar with Internet terminology, so if there was a French word for ‘browser’, I should have heard it. I really had no clue. “I… I don’t know,” I stammered, and my face said it all. It felt like I had been caught in a lie, which I had been, frankly. And just like that, it was over. There may have been another language-related question that I didn’t know, but the boss had heard what he needed to and was very curt about it. He said something like “I think we’ll stop here. Good luck with your job search.” He didn’t thank me for coming in, but he also didn’t thank me for wasting his time either. After the fact, I felt bad that perhaps my poor interview would lesson the boss’s esteem for my friend and cause him problems at work, but if it ever happened, my friend never said anything. What could I have done better? I could have recognized that I wasn’t qualified for the job and been clearer with my friend when he asked me about it. I could have researched what kinds of projects the company was working on, and what kinds of projects the company would need the hire â€" me â€" to work on. LinkedIn didn’t exist yet, but I did have a friend on the inside, after all. I could have been more honest on my resume about my language skills, or at least tried to get someone else’s assessment of them, to confirm or reject what I thought I knew before having it done in real-time, to my face, embarrassingly in the middle of the interview. I had no clue. But you will. With this book, Lavie Margolin has done a great job bringing you almost every general purpose question that you’re likely to hear in your next job interview, complete with advice on how to respond and a sample answer in every case. Read the book cover to cover, answering to yourself as you go. You can also use the book as a handy reference, to check the questions you’ve struggled with in the past and prepare better answers for the future. And of course, run interview simulations with a friend choosing questions at random. By the time you get through Winning Answers to 500 Interview Questions, you’ll either feel ready to conquer any job interview or you’ll have pinpointed exactly where you need to improve so that you can conquer any job interview. READ NEXT: How To Make a Big Impact in Your First Job Interview: “Become a memorable candidate by applying these 4 tips to your first interviews.”

Making Sense of Metrics Marla Gottschalk

Making Sense of Metrics Marla Gottschalk Photo by Miguel A. Amutio on Unsplash Most of us utilize metrics in one form or another. For better or worse, they potentially become the focus of our day-to-day behavior. However, when metrics begin to conflict with our core values and long-term sustainability â€" it is time to rethink their power to drive your organization. In many cases, chosen metrics can develop a dark side that can spell trouble for your organization. As reflected in this post at HBR, the wrong performance metrics will undermine good intentions every time. In that regard, consider how your team utilizes them. Do the metrics you monitor offer the information your team requires to move forward? Are they pulling their weight? On a very basic level, metrics should reflect key facets of performance, while supporting both mission and vision. However, they can fail to help us identify developing issues. Let me offer an example. Recently, I spent time with an organization that was grappling with metrics that was not helping them to evolve and secure market share. While they kept a close on eye on sales data and leads funneling into their system â€" there were relevant performance criteria not captured in their set of monitored metrics. (Here, late project changes occurred months after the original contract.) When they pulled back the curtain on sales performance, it was clear that this information had not been actively acknowledged. As such, the team was not alerted to the pattern of costly fixes that would develop down the line. An oversight such as this develops when performance effectiveness is not fully considered as metrics are chosen. Identifying facets of successful performance must occur first â€" then the metrics to parlay that information are identified. We often become comfortable with aging or incomplete set of metrics, because they are available. However, these choices are critical, because ultimately what is measured â€" is valued organizationally. The simple act of choosing a metric can ignite a cascade of behavioral expectations, which may or may not contribute team success or the benefit customers. (For example consider the goal of closing sales quickly or monitoring the length of a customer center call, etc.) Furthermore, if metrics are chosen without considering the impact upon product or service delivery systems, serious ramifications can arise. (More on metrics and performance perversity at the VA, here.) Reviewing the usefulness of your metrics at regular intervals is key. Ask these questions: Are the metrics robust? Ideally, a set of metrics should represent the dynamic nature of the work that you complete. Ensure that all facets or your work are represented and that your collected numbers offer a broad view. Are they change worthy? As discussed here, data is often prevalent â€" but insights are rare. We might collect endless numbers (at a high cost in both time and resources), which actually offer few clues as to help us improve. Remember that data and metrics are two very different things. Do metrics direct behavior? Metrics are only as useful as the behavior they energize. When considering a metric, reflect on its power to truly impact behavior across functions. Be wary of Vanity Metrics, that can pack a powerful marketing message â€" yet do little to guide behavior. Are the metrics meaningful? While information needs to be readily available â€" it also must must capture something vital about your organization. For example, do metrics help your team connect with their work? Where are metrics focused? Lagging metrics report on states that have already occurred (lost customers, for example). Leading metrics, on the other hand, might help predict a developing problem and offer an opportunity to change a process mid-stream. Are the metrics dynamic? Metrics should evolve with the changing focus of your team. (You might utilize the 80-20 rule; where 80% of your metrics represent your current focus, 20% represent areas of needed future performance emphasis.) Outdated metrics can muddy the waters and cause a good deal of confusion concerning valued behaviors. Metrics can have an expiration date â€" when they lose their value to promote performance excellence. Other considerations: Avoid the single number emphasis. Any construct worth measuring (such as sales effectiveness or customer service), is likely multidimensional. Ensure that your metrics reflect this. Consider who utilizes the numbers. The heaviest, most demanding users must be carefully considered when developing metrics. Discuss the needed information required to monitor the health of a department or function, frequently. Measure what matters, yet ensure they are easily understood. Metrics can become complicated quickly â€" but ultimately must be easily grasped. Your metrics should be informative and allow you to explain the crux of your business easily. Refine them. No single metric is a perfect representation of performance. Attempt to factor out white noise, that might limit real-time use. You might also consider combining leading indicators to form a clearer picture of performance. Share them. Metrics can help motivate others within the organization â€" so share the numbers with those whom might benefit the most. This will help team members align with the larger goals of the organization. Add a qualitative component. You cannot measure something that is completely out of your purview. Keep abreast of developing areas that affect performance and ensure you have a handle on the leading edge. Dr. Marla Gottschalk is an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist. She is the Director of Organizational Development at Allied Talent.