The art of interviewing

We have seen so many articles on tips and tricks we need to follow while appearing for an interview. But I have hardly seen any such thing for the interviewer. I guess, being on the other side of the table, the interviewer does enjoy certain privileges – so he doesn’t really need to know the Dos and Donts. And since I have been there at both sides of the tables, I can relate with the  psyche of both.

Every interviewer has his/her own criterion for judging someone, and I am no exception to it. So you tend to have certain favorite topics when it came down to an interview. To be very frank, I had (and still have!) my own idiosyncrasies. I would look out for that common-sense - which is rarely common, for that street-smartness which I sadly find missing in most people, for that someone who can think out-of-box. Most of the times, I would try to keep things simple. And yet there have been instances where I felt I was a bit harsh on people.

And coming to the “favorite” questions – Oh I have quite a few. There’s one particular question which I would ask, at times just to rattle people and at times just to gauge the smartness quotient -

“Q: Give me reasons why you are NOT suitable for this position. If you can convince me, you are in.”

It’s a kind of catch 22 situation. You can’t just blurt about your drawbacks and you can’t evade this question either. But this is one question for me which can differentiate smart candidates from good candidates. And it may appear to be pretty out-of-context question, but for me it tells me lot of things about candidate – understanding of the expected role and responsibilities, confidence level, political correctness and that elusive out-of-box-thinking trait. And to be very frank, there can be no perfect answer to this question.  And there can be n number of questions like this which provide challenges and opportunities to a candidate, instead of acting as a means to elicit some information.

All said and done,  an interviewer also doesn’t expect 100% correct answers to all his questions - and there is absolutely no harm in accepting if one doesn’t know it. In the end, it’s not all about what you have got already- but also about what you “can” achieve and how effectively you can utilize it.