5 Often Forgotten Job Interview Tips

There are a lot of important job interview tips and strategies that you need to implement to be successful. You need to research the company thoroughly. You need to remain positive throughout your interview. You need to come to the interview dressed appropriately, etc.

Yet there are also several smaller tips that are important to keep in mind, because these smaller tips may be the difference between making a good and bad impression. Below are five less common interview tips for improving your chances of winning the job.

Five Less Common Interview Tips

• Plan Your Transportation

Obviously you need to know what route to use to get there on time. That’s not the issue. The issue is with the little things. Did you pay the meter enough? Do you have change for the bus?  You cannot ask the interviewer to make change for you or run out to your car after two hours because you forgot to feed the meter. These are the types of things you need to plan and remember beforehand. Check your car to make sure that the lights are off as well.

• Finish Your Coffee

It’s considered rude to be holding a cup of coffee when your interviewer arrives. Coffee may help you feel comfortable, and the interviewer may even offer you a cup of coffee when you sit down, but don’t be holding a Starbucks cup in your hand when the interview begins. Throw it away before you get in the door.

• Go to the Bathroom

Seriously, make sure you pee before you arrive. Not only because you don’t want to ask to go in the middle of your interview – also because it is extremely difficult to sit professionally when you are squeezing your groin shut and trying your best not to pass gas.

• Clean Your Face/Teeth

You don’t want to have a piece of salad stuck in your teeth at the start of the interview. Interviewers try hard not to judge you based on your appearance, but a gross piece of spinach in your front teeth is a bad way to make a first impression.

• Check Your Fly

The interviewer may not be looking at your crotch, but they are going to notice when you are sitting a the other end of the table, fidgeting with your hands, and suddenly they hear a loud zip.

Little Things Make a Big Difference

Everything at the job interview matters. From the firmness of your handshake to the aged cheese smell of your breath, little things make a big difference in terms of getting the job. Make sure you are 100% ready for the interview, so that the focus can be on your answers, and not on the color underwear you have peeking through your open zipper.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Pay attention to the little things.
• Go to the bathroom and finish your coffee before you get to the interview.

5 Bad Questions You Should Never Ask at Job Interviews

Asking questions is important. It shows you have interest in the company. It shows that you have intelligent thoughts. It shows that you are not simply looking for “any” job, but rather the right job for you.

Yet not all questions are beneficial questions. There are a variety of questions that will make you look like a bad candidate, and will make it difficult for you to get the job. Below are five examples of questions you should not ask at your job interview.

Bad Questions to Ask

• What are the hours for the position?

With the exception of retail jobs, this is a terrible question. Your job is not going to be based on hours, even if you are an hourly employee. Your job is going to be based on getting your work completed. Salary employees don’t work on “hours.” They work on projects. Sometimes you will need to stay late and sometimes you will need to come in early. You should be available for any of those, and not ask it at the interview.

• How does your company feel about changing departments/roles?

Companies like to see that you are committed to sticking with the company and moving up in its ranks. They do not want to hear that you either want to do it soon or that you are already tired of working in a position you do not have. Asking about “growth opportunities” is a plus. Asking about leaving your current role to do a completely different one is not.

• Does your company offer maternity leave?

“Dear interviewer: There is a pretty good chance that within a year of hiring me I will need to take paid time off for about 6 months or more, and afterward I am probably going to come into work extremely tired and grumpy. Hope that’s okay. Hire me soon!” Yeah, don’t ask about any benefits, let alone maternity leave.

• Is there a designated smoking area?

No interviewer wants to hear that you may need to go outside for a smoke every five minutes. There are numerous stats that show that heavy smokers often do less work than their non-smoking counterparts. While this may not be true of you, or perhaps you are not a heavy smoker, this question will cause the interviewer to worry.

• Does your company drug test its employees?

There is literally no way that the employer can answer this that you will like, and there is no way they are going to take a risk on you once you ask this question. If you do drugs, you should probably avoid this question. If you don’t, then it’s weird of you to ask it.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Don’t ask questions that have negative implications.

How to Address a Bad GPA At Your Job Interview

In the last post, we looked at how (and when) to place your GPA in your resume. In some cases you will want to avoid placing your GPA because it is not up to the standards you expect the company will appreciate. Anything below a 3.0 is troublesome for some of the better jobs, and even a 3.3 (a perfectly respectable GPA) can cause problems at some of the more competitive positions.

Recent graduates will likely have to address a “bad” GPA at the job interview. If you are asked your GPA, you cannot give them a fake answer, since they will find out. What you can give them are one of the answers below, based on what is most applicable to you.

Great GPA in Within-Major Classes

Most businesses are willing to overlook your bad GPA if your GPA was much better within your major. When that is the case, you can both put it on the resume and address it easily in your interview, with an answer like the following:

“While I struggled at the start of college during some of my core classes, once I was accepted into my major I maintained a 3.7 GPA in all of my Business Administration classes.”

Bad GPA – Good Excuse

If you have any excuse for why your GPA is bad, use it. It’s understandable. Don’t milk the excuse, but mentioning it is fine. If possible, it is also a good idea to qualify your answer with what you have to prove that it is not that big a deal.

“My GPA was affected by my sister getting ill. I spent a long time in the hospital taking care of her, dropping my GPA from 3.5 down to 2.7. As you can see from my portfolio, though, I have learned how to do X, Y, Z…”

Bad GPA – Good Finish

If you have a bad GPA but you ended your college life well because you decided to finally focus on school, you can use that too. Again, you don’t want to sound like the victim of your own misdeeds, but a brief mention is a good way to improve the answer.

“Overall my GPA ended lower than I would have liked at 2.9. Within the last year I realized how important my education was to me and since then I put all my effort into studying. My senior year I received a 3.7 in all of my classes.”

Bad GPA – Bad Finish, Bad Major Grades, No Excuse

Bad GPAs are bad GPAs. You can’t mask it and pretend it is a good grade when it isn’t. So instead, mention it quickly and discuss something that takes the focus away from the bad grade, like work experience, experience with specific programs relevant to the job, etc.

“Overall my GPA was a disappointing 2.6. Rest assured that number does not imply any inability to do the job. I am skilled at working with program X, and have two years of experience with program Y…”

Some Things Are Hard to Salvage

There are occasionally questions that come up during the interview where the real answer is going to harm your employment. For example, if your interviewer asks you if you have had experience with a task that you have had no experience with, and it is vital to the job, you still have to say “no,” and that may harm your chances.

GPA is similar. If you spent your 4 years of college struggling to maintain a high GPA (either because you slacked off or had trouble with your classes), that may affect your chances of getting a job. There isn’t much you can do about it. The best you can do is try to minimize its impact and hope that the rest of your answers make up for any doubt in the interviewer’s mind.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Do your best to minimize the GPA’s importance.
• Qualify your answer where applicable.
• Use a within-major GPA or senior year GPA if it is more impressive.
• Do your best during the rest of the interview.

How to Discuss Your GPA on a Resume

College. It’s a great place to get drunk, fall in love, smoke pot, and occasionally go to class. Your GPA may be great, or it may be awful, or it may be somewhere in between. GPAs don’t really matter in the grand scheme of life. Unless you are going to graduate school, your GPA doesn’t necessarily mean that you are more or less capable of doing a job. All it means is that you studied really well… or didn’t.

Yet for employers, the GPA is one of the only tools they have to use to figure out if you are worth hiring. You probably don’t have a great work history, and your resume is likely pretty slim. So the GPA is the only thing that can tell the employer:

• How hard a worker you are.
• How intelligent you are (probably).
• How much you paid attention in class.

It’s not the most accurate measure, but it is the only measure they have, so employers use it to assess your candidacy. There are arguably reasons to keep it off your resume, but many experts advise that you should list your GPA, so assuming you go that route, here is the best way to put it on the resume, based on GPA.

GPA of 3.8 to 4.0

Go ahead and list your GPA, up to 2 decimals for anything under 4.0 (eg. 3.92). 3.8+ is almost always a good enough resume for even the toughest of jobs. There may be a few elite careers that are unimpressed by anything under a 4.0, but most of those employers recruit directly out of college.

GPA of 3.5 to 3.8

This is still considered a good GPA, but try your best to back it up with the other work you did in college. 3.5 in an easy major isn’t as impressive as a 3.5 in organic chemistry, so make sure you prove that you are still worth hiring.

GPA of 3.0 to 3.5

Here we get into something more complicated. This GPA is not bad per se, but it’s not impressive either. It is simply a GPA like any other GPA. Check to see if your within-major GPA is better than your overall GPA. If so, only list your major GPA, and ignore the overall GPA. If it’s worse, consider doing the opposite (for example, “3.6 GPA in all core classes”) but only if the difference is considerable, since the GPA in your major is more impressive than the GPA you got in your basic classes. If they are about the same, list it regularly or don’t list it at all, preferably don’t list it at all unless necessary.

GPA less than 3.0

If your GPA is anything under 3.0, you need to look for a GPA within your grades that is more impressive. For example, if you had a 3.4 in your major but a 2.3 in your other classes, only list your within-major GPA. If you had a 3.5 overall during your junior and senior years, but you did extremely poorly during your freshman year, maybe you want to put that as well. Otherwise, consider leaving your GPA off the resume. Anything 2.9 or below is not selling yourself to the employer.

GPA Can Be Tough

Struggling only a little bit can cause your GPA to plummet. You may have worked hard for your 2.9 GPA or your 3.1 GPA and your hard work should be rewarded. But when it comes to resumes, the goal is not to share “good enough” achievements. The goal is to share your best achievements. 2.9 GPA may have taken a lot of work in a lot of hard classes, but it is not going to wow the hiring manager, so you should leave it off your resume. In the next post, we’ll look at how to address the GPA at the interview.

Take Away Tips

• Use your major GPA if it is higher than your regular GPA.
• Use your core class GPA as a last resort (overall and major GPA far better).
• Don’t list your GPA if it is under 3.0.
• Consider leaving off your GPA altogether if it is under 3.8 and you have other achievements.

The Job Interview is Not a Contract

Employers want to know that you have interest in the company. They want to see, based on your job interview answers, that you are planning on helping their company succeed in both the short and long term. To gauge this they will ask you a number of interview questions designed to see how important working for the company will be to you if they decide to hire you. Some of these questions include:

• Are you willing to put the interests of the company ahead of your own?
• Are you willing to commit to at least five years of employment?
• If you won the lottery, would you keep working?

Many applicants worry about these answers. Are they willing to truly put the interests of the company ahead of their own? What if the company asks them to do something illegal? What if their child is being born and they are asked to come in to work?

These questions cause applicants to give honest answers, such as “I am willing to put the interests of the company ahead of my own provided they do not impact my family” and “Well, I think if I win the lottery I would probably want to vacation across the world, but then maybe come back to work depending on how much money it is.”

Not a Contract

It is important to remember, though, that your job interview is not a contract. You do not have to do any of the things you say you are going to do during the interview. For example, if you are asked “how long do you plan on staying with the company?” and you plan on going to graduate school in 2 years, you do not need to say “for at least two years.” You can say “for as long as I am contributing.”

Unless you are signing a professional contract that requires you to stay for as long as the contract states, you are under no obligation to do any of the things you say you will do in the interview. You can quit your job if you win the lottery. You can stay home from work to care for a sick relative even if the company really needs you to come in.

You never need to do what you say you will do at the job interview. That is why it is important that when you are asked these types of questions, you should give the best answer – not the truest answer. The company does not need to know the truth about your long term plans, and you should not feel obligated to tell them.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Job interviews are not contracts.
• You are under no obligation to stick to what you say at the job interview.
• Because of that, you do not need to be 100% honest when you answer these questions.

Guess What! You Are Not the Worst Candidate

“Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize that half of all people are stupider.” ~George Carlin

There is a temptation to believe that your competition is filled with high quality, intelligent candidates that are ready to break out their rapier wit and Einstein-like intelligence at the interview and blow your chances of landing the job out of the water. You would be surprised how often candidates doubt their own chances, due primarily to the idea that other people are more professional, more qualified, or more intelligent.

Have Hope!

Don’t let these thoughts get in the way of doing your best at the job interview, or worrying about a small mistake. As an article from AOL Jobs (http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2010/09/09/interview-answers/) is quick to remind us, many candidates are dumber than you think:

-          “He looked perfect on paper, so we scheduled a phone interview for 3 p.m. He answered the phone and when I introduced myself he said, ‘Hold on, I’m at a bar. Let me finish this shot and go outside.’”

-          ‘What is it that attracts you to this job the most?’ Without hesitation, she replied, ‘My mother thinks this will be the right job for me.’”

-          “One job candidate arrived late for the interview, in a not-so-gracious mood. ‘The commute is terrible,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad I don’t have to do this every day.’”

Yeah, it’s that bad.

You should go to your interview assuming that every candidate they are interviewing is going to do a great job, so that you are motivated to do even better. All it takes is one great candidate to beat you out of a job. Yet once you are done with your interview there is no reason to assume you blew it simply because of one bad question. You’d be surprised who is up against you.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Go to the interview and try your best to be the perfect candidate.
• Leave the interview and don’t let one mistake get you down.

Why to Keep Your Personal Thoughts Out of Professional Job Interview Questions

During your job interview, you will be asked a lot of questions that about your qualifications, abilities, work history, education, etc., that are asking you to provide what you believe to be your “greatest” or “best” achievement or experience. For example:

• What is your greatest achievement?
• What was your best job that you held before now?
• What was your favorite class in college?

It may seem at first glance like you should answer these accurately. For example, maybe your favorite class in college was Dance 101, because it helped you get closer to your creative side which, in turn, helped you with your career. Or perhaps your favorite job was when you worked at McDonalds in high school because you met your future husband. Or maybe your greatest achievement was when you made managed to bowl a 300 in a tournament game.

No One Cares

These may all have meaning for you, but what is meaningful for you is not necessarily meaningful for the company. Remember, your goal is to take advantage of every job interview question in order to sell yourself to the employer. Does “I met my husband working at McDonalds” sell yourself to the employer? Not at all. The employer doesn’t care that McDonalds has meaning to you, because it has no meaning to the employer.

Every answer to a job interview question should be designed to put yourself in a better position to get the job. The best way to do that is for your answers to show:

• Experience/Abilities
• Intelligence
• Relevance

Every answer should, ideally, show the interviewer that you have experience with something the interviewer values, that you are an intelligent person capable of putting thought into your actions or answers, and that what you say is relevant to the position you are applying for.

This may not always be possible, and that’s fine, but with questions like “greatest achievement,” you have a choice between talking about your greatest personal achievement or talking about your greatest professional achievement. You should choose professional every time, and ideally pick an achievement that truly impresses the interviewer.

That is how you should approach all of these questions. Make sure your answer shows that you have experience with skills related to the job, make sure the answers are intelligent, and make sure the answers are relevant to the interviewer and the job you are applying for. That is the best way to take advantage of every interview question and put yourself in the best position to get the job.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Every job interview answer should try to show your experiences/abilities, intelligence, and relevance to the position.

Why Do Companies Ask Questions About Deadlines?

Interview questions can have hundreds of different purposes. Some interview questions are designed to trick you. Others are designed to learn more about your past. Others are designed to see if you will say something negative, and so on. All of these questions tell the interviewer something about who you are as a candidate that they can use to help make a decision.

At first glance, the same cannot be said about questions that appear to be “gimmes.” One of the most egregious examples is “How well do you handle deadlines?”

“I handle them very well”

It seems like a fairly obvious answer, and it is. The answer to how well you handle deadlines is “very well.” If you answer with something along the lines of “Pressure makes me cry” you are probably not going to be hired. So why do companies even bother asking it?

Why Companies Ask Deadline Interview Questions

Companies ask questions about deadlines for two reasons:

1. To warn you that the company has strict, pressure filled deadlines.
2. To see if you can naturally inspire confidence in the employer about your ability to handle deadlines.

Warning – Deadlines Occur

Remember, when an applicant goes to an interview, they are interviewing the employer as much as the employer is interviewing them. They need to see if this is a place they want to work. If someone left their last job because they felt too much pressure, then perhaps they don’t want a job that is going to be filled with an equal amount of pressure. Simply asking this question will get rid of some of the pressure-averse candidates.

Inspiring Confidence

In addition, though the meaning of the answer is still the same, you can answer it in a different way.

“Yes, I handle deadlines well” is not as impressive as “With my previous job, we were under strict deadlines every day. If we failed to meet these deadlines, we would not be receiving any revenue from the project. Though the pressure started out somewhat difficult, over time these deadlines became a motivator, rather than a detractor, from quality, error free work.”

They say the same thing, but one says it better. That inspires confidence in the employer that you are not simply giving them a BS answer.

Approach All Easy Questions

Whenever you receive questions that appear to have very obvious answers, consider those two reasons behind the question. Sometimes they are warning you about their company. Other times they may be looking for an answer that inspires them. Either way, there may be other factors in the question besides just the answer.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Sometimes easy questions are letting you know more about the company.
• Sometimes easy questions want you to give them a more confidence inspiring answer.
• Sometimes both.

Job Interview Logic Puzzles: Don’t Be Fooled By the Sleight of Hand

In an earlier post, we discussed how the key to answering logic puzzles correctly is to take the question seriously, put thought into your answer, and show that you used logic to formulate that answer. Demonstrating that you use that level of thought is all you need to at least get partial credit from the interviewer for your answer.

Today, we are going to look at an additional trick to answering these questions – paying attention to the wording in the question. Let’s look at a logic puzzle that perfectly exemplifies this:

Sample Logic Puzzle

“Your favorite ring falls off your finger and lands in a hole that is a foot deep. You have only a packet of sugar, a video game controller, and a ball of string. How do you get the ring out?”

The natural response is to come up with something fairly complicated. Maybe you rip open the sugar packet and pour out the contents. Stick a hole in the packet and tie the string to it, then hang the string on the video game controller, hoping to fish the ring out using the empty packet.  Or maybe you break open the controller and use the parts inside like a magnet. Then you tie the magnet to the string and lower it down.

Or maybe… just maybe… you can simply bend over and pick up the ring. It’s only in a one foot hole.

Questions are Often Misleading

Logic puzzles like this are designed to make the applicant focus on the wrong aspect of the question. By listing off all of the things you can use, the interviewer easily focuses your attention on that aspect of problem solving, making it appear as though you need to come up with something complicated and difficult. Many logic puzzles are designed to supply you with irrelevant information so that you struggle to come up with an answer. When you hear the interviewer ask you a question that seems off the wall and complicated, stop and think about the question again. Perhaps you will find that within the question is a simple answer.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Always think about the entirety of the question.
• Don’t assume that the interviewer is testing some sort of genius level technical knowledge.

The Trick to Logic Puzzle Tricks

Companies like Microsoft have started to change how interviews are conducted. Rather than ask basic informational questions, these companies focus instead on a more unique method of filtering out candidates – logic puzzles. It is believed that candidates that can answer these types of questions are far more likely to be intelligent, problem solving employees than those that cannot, and there is a great deal of evidence to back up those assertions.

How to Solve Logic Puzzles

There is no surefire way to prepare you for all logic puzzles. These companies can ask you a well known logic puzzle, or invent a puzzle themselves for you to solve. However, though we may not be able to supply you with the logic puzzle answer, we can prepare you for what the interviewers are looking for.

What they are looking for is thought. They want to see logic. They want to know that you put effort into your answer. The main thing to remember is that it doesn’t matter if your answer is right. Yes, it would be good if your answer is right. You certainly will get a lot of credit for having a right answer. But what you are trying to do is show the interviewer that you have problem solving skills, and you can do so by demonstrating that you put thought and logic into your answer.

For example:

Q: Why Are Manhole Covers Round?

Bad answers include:

• “They just are?”
• “Because the holes are round?”
• “Because people come in all shapes and sizes?

None of these have very much thought. They are all answers that show you are confused. On the other hand:

Good answers include:

• “Because manhole covers must be heavy to stay in place, and in order to maneuver them safely and easily, you must be able to roll them on their side.”
• “Because when someone lifts a manhole cover, they must be able to place it back in the hole without worrying about how much the cover has been rotated.“
• “Because round covers cannot fall into a hole when placed on their side. It will always stay above it.”

These answers show thought and effort. The truth is that no one knows why manhole covers are round, but let’s say that there is a correct answer. Let’s say that it is because of the second answer (so they can be rotated). If you provide answers 1 or 3, you will still get credit from the interviewer, because they show genuine thought and logic. That is why you should always put thought into the logic puzzles, and as long as you supply those thoughts, you will get credit for your answer.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Logic puzzles are designed to see if you can understand logic.

Put thought into your answer and don’t answer the question haphazardly.