Ask the Experts: Interviewing Beyond the Immediate

Question:

I’ve been successful in getting interviews for jobs that seem to match my skills and interests, but the interviewers keep asking me questions about areas which are not listed as part of the posted job description. I have some experience in many areas so try to answer the questions as best as I can, but inevitably that means that I’ll sometimes have to provide them with a vague answer. For example, I interviewed for a job that included “managing a small group” as part of the description. That’s a skill that I have. Yet most of the questions the interviewer asked were about how I would handle a very large project, manage it, schedule it, assign tasks, etc. I have no experience managing very large projects, only small ones. I made some educated guesses but my answers were weak. I think that I should be interviewed for the position for which I am applying. I expect some questions might be about relevant areas but not the major part of the interview. Am I wrong?

First Answer:

I think that you need to re-adjust your presentation and adjust your attitude. Your resume isn’t the sum total of who you are! An interview is a chance for someone who might want to hire you to find out about your skills and your potential, any way she or he wishes. Interviewers may have interests or concerns that your resume do not reflect. They are perfectly justified in asking you any question that might reveal information they are seeking, assuming that they are not fishing for illegal information such as your age, marital status, etc.

Another thing you might do is adjust your resume for each job that you apply for so that it specifically uses many of the same words that are in the job description. You are less likely to be grilled about how to handle a large project, for example, if you have already explained in your resume how you have done that. If you can’t answer a question or you don’t have the experience required to give a good answer, the odds are that you probably aren’t the best candidate for the job, either. Be gracious about answering questions. If you appear reticent or inept, you’re hurting your chances to move on to the next round. At a certain level of expertise, by the time you get to the final interview, chances are the no one will be referring to your resume, anyway. They will be asking about your hobbies, views, etc. They want to know, for example, what sports you like which might have nothing to do with your ability to do the job, but everything to do with whether you are a “team player” or a “loner.”

— Alison Blackman Dunham, life & career expert, columnist, personal public relations consultant, half of THE ADVICE SISTERS®, and the author of the ASK ALISON career advice column

Second Answer:

Of course you can expect to have to answer questions about the position you are applying for, and dissecting the job description is a great start. Ensuring that you have a specific example for each area of responsibility is key. That said, remember that candidates chosen to interview already have met many of the baseline skill criteria. That’s why those candidates were chosen for the interview. For this reason, the interview is going to go past what’s listed on the resume and aim to assess how a candidate will actually perform in the organization and fit in the organization’s culture. Specifically, you may be getting questions that seem to be beyond the job description because the employer is trying to:

2. Assess future potential: Sure the job is focused on managing small groups now, but hiring managers are trained to find candidates with long-term potential. If your resume gives a clear example of your small group management experience, the interviewer may try to determine your potential for eventually moving up in the organization and taking on more responsibility. If you’re able to give an example of this, great. If not, talk about your desire to develop your management skills and earn the opportunity to manage larger groups of people.

3. Assess your “moveability”: As the economy changes, so do organizations’ needs. And while the job description may be on down on paper, it’s written in pen and not in stone. Many organizations are looking for candidates who can be flexible and take on additional or varied responsibilities as an organization grows and priorities shift. Unexpected questions may also test how you’ll fit into an already established team, or specific organizational culture outside of the specific job itself. Review what stage of growth the organization is in (start-up, high-growth, mature/maintaining) and you can be better prepared for such questions.

Overall, the best way to prepare for unexpected questions in interviews is to prepare an inventory of stories, or very specific examples of your past performance. Make a list of behaviors that are your strengths (things like organization, detail-orientation, extroversion, flexibility, commitment etc.) and script out those stories using a structure like SOAR (situation, opportunity, action, result.) Then you can describe what the situation was (proposal team with no clear leader because of other work demands on team members), what the opportunity was (chance to step up to the plate and be a leader), what action you took (spent one evening breaking out the responsibilities to finish the proposal) and the final result (able to bring team together and not only contribute my assigned writing role, but also to serve as the leader and ensure the deadlines were met and the proposal was submitted on time.) In situations where you haven’t had the experience, don’t worry! Anticipate what some of those may be (like managing a large group) and share with the interviewer how you would manage the situation if given the chance.

— Susan Strayer, Assistant Director, Career Services, School of Professional Studies in Business and Education at the Johns Hopkins University and founder and President of University and Career Decisions

Third Answer:

Don’t despair – job descriptions tend to morph quite a bit as different candidates bring different skills and questions to the interview process. The fact that jobs are complex and ever-changing is a good thing – it means you can bring your own unique way of getting things done to the table. So don’t walk in with a huge set of expectations about the way the interview should go.

Interviewing well doesn’t mean having all the answers. It means showing up with a flexible, can-do attitude, connecting on an interpersonal level, being curious, and demonstrating that you like to solve problems.

— Tracy Laswell Williams, certified job and career transition coach, accredited resume writer and founder of CAREER-Magic.com

Fourth Answer:

You asked “Am I wrong?” The bottom line is that the employer is in the driver’s seat and he can ask whatever he wants to at an interview. Whether
we think we should be asked certain questions or not is really not the
issue. The issue is that an employer can ask any thing (within legal
boundaries) that he chooses and when you interview you have to answer those
questions. It would be OK to ask something like this: “I noticed that the
ad specifically asked for someone with small group management skills, how
much of this position would be managing this larger type of group.

To better prepare for an interview, think outside the scope of the job description. Using your experience in previous interviews, come up
with list of questions that an employer might ask (besides the obvious job
description related ones) and prepare answers for them. During an
interview of an employer asks you a question that you feel you did not
answer well come up with an answer that you feel comfortable with. Think
outside the box and be prepared for all possibilities.

— Linda Wyatt, Career Center Director, Kansas City Kansas Community College

Fifth Answer:

You are being interviewed for the position for which you applied, but nobody gets 100% of the tasks/responsibilities into the ad/posting. The advertised tasks may be the minimums the employer wants applicants to meet; the interviews are to take those qualified applicants and winnow them down to finalists who meet the unwritten criteria. “Managing a small group” might be a minimum qualification with a hidden agenda: the small group might be assigned to a large project, or the interviewer wants to see if you are capable of “scaling up” to handle a bigger project than previously. Unfortunately you cannot control for these unknowns, and the employer is reasonably going to interview for the job she or he has to fill, not the job description you write for yourself.

If your answers are weak not because you didn’t prepare but because you’re missing some of the competencies or experience required, you’re not right for the job.

There’s no joy or judgment in finding you “wrong;” take these experiences as guidance in preparing for future interviews. When you review an ad or job posting, think about not only the requirements and how you meet them, but how you would approach the next logical progression in growing your skill set. If you have good analytical, problem-solving, team management and time management skills, you can handle larger projects than you’ve previously done. Think how you will answer the sometimes still-asked question, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Not still running the small projects you’ve historically managed, right? Also, for jobs for which you don’t have exactly the “right” experience, prepare to answer the question “So what gives you the confidence to think you can handle this task when you haven’t done one like it?”

And if you come across a series of jobs where you’re continually falling short of requirements, think about how to fill the gap? How can you get the experience an employer deems critical? Sometimes it’s a two-step process to get to the job you want, by taking an interim job first to fill in the holes in your experience that prospective employers have identified; sometimes you need to beef up a learned skill such as a computer application, a foreign language, or a sales methodology; a refresher course may help.

If you take a pro-active stance on filling employers’ requirements, you’ll have more success.

— Carol Anderson, Career Development and Placement Office, Robert J. Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University in New York City

Sixth Answer:

No and yes.

Because there are things known as progress, innovation, growth, and change, a job does not remain a job. Rather, it becomes a career — especially when it comes to managing groups of people. No doubt your interviewers want to know more about not your current skills and how static they are but whether you envision change and growth. In addition to that vision, they want to know more about your ability to apply current skills in order to adapt to new situations that include some career challenge and growth into a larger, more responsible position. Employers are looking for people who will be with the company for at least a year and hope for a person who will be there for the long haul. Change and growth are inevitable and should be part of the package.

As you continue with your interviewing, please keep these factors in mind. As you research the companies at which you’ve applied and will interview, project where they are going and how you will and want to fit into the growth picture. Practice answering the growth questions. If you’ve taken management courses, review some of the principles that were learned and envision how those principles will apply to your new setting.

The next time you’re faced with this type of interview, please avoid apologizing. Instead, start out by saying something about how you’re glad to know that the position has growth potential. You may want to describe how you’ve handled small groups or situations and that in the situation at hand, you’d make thus and so modification. Remember that as you grow in responsibilities, it will be necessary to delegate. No one person can handle the world alone.

Congratulations on findng companies that have a long-term vision of commitment. May all of your Entrances be through the doors of success!

— Yvonne LaRose, career and professional development coach, Career and Executive Recruiting Advice

Seventh Answer:

If the interviewer asks you questions that are unrelated or only marginally related to the job description then you should be
candid and explain that your qualifications are limited in those
areas outside the job description. But also explain what a quick
learner you are and try to give an example of when you came up
to speed at another job very quickly.

However managing small groups or projects vs managing large groups or projects may be probes by the interviewer to
see if you are willing to accept more responsibility. If you are
interested in a job with the new company, it would improve
your prospects if you explain that your experience has been
managing smaller groups or projects but you would welcome
the opportunity to manage larger groups or projects. You might
explain that you have been successful at managing smaller
projects and that you could apply some of the basic principles.
The message you would be sending is that you are willing to
accept more responsibilities and a larger workload.

Even though things are improving in the job market, the employer is still in the “driver’s seat” and can still be somewhat
arrogant in the way they choose people. In a normal market they
are looking for 80% of the job requirements. In a tight market the
expectation level raises to 100% and then some.

You wouldn’t want to take a job that you couldn’t do well so maybe they are doing you a favor flushing out their expectations before
it is too late. Make sure you are looking at the job as objectively
as possible and asking yourself, “Would I want this job?”

— Carole Martin, The Interview Coach

Originally posted by alwin