Interview Prep

Over the last week I've been reading about and talking with friends and colleagues about how to do a job interview. Here's some tidbits I think are important (and don't want to forget!). I'm sure these are blatantly obvious to most folks, but cut me some slack, I've been in academia for a long time...

Best advice so far come from a friend:

Answer every question with the group/organization/employer in mind. The standard "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" question really means--what will you be doing in 5 years, how will it benefit us, and what steps will you take to get there, and where do we fit in all of this. The "what is your greatest strength" question--same thing. Translation: what do you do best that we would want to use.

I totally did not realize that interview questions were to be explicitly answered with the organization in mind. Now I'm not so puzzled by the "five year" question (my original answer was "owning a pony"). It was probably self-evident to most of you that all questions are suppose to reflect back to the potential employer. I'm just denser than most.

"The goal of the interview is to prove that you can do the job" (Bible, 127). Don't be passive, be confident (Leadfoot says to self as she breaks out into a cold sweat). What to do ahead of time to boost self-assurance: learn everything about the organization, know how my background fits into the organization's needs. Use specific examples from our experience or specific examples from the organization whenever possible.

Use specific examples in our answers and comments is also directly related to using our resumes in the interview. Refer to items on it. If the interviewer(s) ask about my time management skills, I'll refer to the speakers' series I have listed under my "professional activities" and explain what it was (10 speakers over two semester), why it made competing demands on my time (lots of emailing and scheduling problems) and how I successfully organized it (planned ahead) so that I was never cramped for time (asked for help). All those details are assumed, but not explicit in my resume line. The resume will hopefully remind the interviewer of that conversation, post-interview.

When we talk about specific examples or refer to our resumes, use the STAR method (this shows up in multiple job books, I found it in this awesome interview survival kit). STAR refers to: Situation or Task (i.e. brief background), Action (what I did to solve problem), Results (how I competently accomplished the task--what are the "long term effects of my leadership"). I personally find this extremely difficult to do in regular conversation--can I just take a written interview? Must work on my STAR method to stay on message.

In thinking about why I'm an awesome candidate for any alt-academic job, I have had to really rethink my work and research experiences. Instead of seeing these experiences in the light of "when I was doing research, this is the data that emerged," I've been thinking about "when I was doing research, this was the process. This process is transferable/applicable/analogous to an employer's needs." The particular details or specific results are less important than the skills that developed as a result of these experiences.

"Show that [we] can produce results rather than simply discuss a problem" (Bible, 137). This advice is for all us post-academics. I can analyze a problem or situation to death. I'm not getting hired to do that. I'm getting hired to fix the problem and fix it quickly. Must remember that I don't have 8 years to figure a situation (ahem, dissertation).

"Practice your two-minute introduction" (Bible, 132). I'm going to revise that to more like 30-60 second introduction. Based on my informational interviews and attempts to tell my parents/family/nonacad friends what I do, I usually only get about 45 seconds before they glaze over. So 30 seconds of who I am then another 60 seconds on why I'm awesome for the job. Bolle of the Parachute book claims that we should only use 20 seconds to 2 minutes to answer a question (2010 ed, p. 75). This goal of brevity should be applied to self-introductions as well.

As they say with the academic job market--we are on the job interview the entire time. From initial email to closing deal, we are being evaluated.

These are just some basic tenets I want to keep in mind for the lucky day that I interview. There's tons more--books are helpful, but talking to people familiar with the field is more helpful. But as general guides, these are a start.