The Job Interview: Your first date

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I arrived home one day and spotted my daughter’s teen magazine lying on the floor. I cringed at the messages with which those magazines tend to inculcate young girls, but while paging through it, I came across an article listing dating tips that were uncannily similar to my mental list of interviewing techniques.

1.Pay attention to your appearance. Groom thyself. Depending on your field, over-dressing could come across as ostentatious, but you always want to be neat and clean. Interviewers, like well-mannered first dates, probably will not comment on personal hygiene, but they will notice.

2.Show that you are interested. Your interviewers do want to hear about you, but they also want to tell you about themselves and the organization. Prepare questions ahead of time and then ask them. If your questions all get answered in the course of the interview, try this strategy used by a savvy candidate I once interviewed. She took one of the questions we had asked her, one that she later told me she didn't think she had answered very well, and asked it of us, stating that she was interested in hearing our thoughts on the question. By doing this, she not only turned the interview into more of a conversation, but she also opened up the opportunity to build on her previous response to the question.

3.Anticipate questions and craft responses. The questions probably will not cover the same ground as those of a first date. But there are questions you can pretty much count on answering in some form. Explore your library’s career resources or Google interview questions and practice. Consider the main points you want to get across and make sure to work them into the conversation. But be careful: strive for balance between being prepared and being over-scripted.

4.Let your personality show through—as long as it’s pleasant. If you tend toward whininess, now is the time to cop a new attitude. Few employers want to invite negativity into their lives by hiring, a complainer. But letting aspects of your being that are important to who you are to shine during an interview not only lets a potential employer know who you really are. It also provides a barometer for you to gauge how you will fit in. As an interviewer I have so enjoyed candidates who are relaxed and confident enough to let their sense of humor and character emerge.

5.Never insult your interviewer. Obvious and intuitive, certainly, but the topic still sells magazines, which suggests that the tips bear repeating for those new or returning to the interviewing—or dating—scene.
 
Jill Markgraf is Interim Head of Reference & Instruction at the McIntyre Library, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
 

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