How to answer hard interview questions and everything else you need to know to get the job you want

How to
answer
hard
interview
questions
...and everything else you need
to know to get the job you want
Charlie Gibbs
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First edition 2008
Second edition 2009
First published in electronic form 2009

© 2009 Charlie Gibbs

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CONTENTS

PREFACE xi

1 FINDING THAT JOB 1
Filling in your application form 2
Curricula vitae 3

2 PREPARING FOR THE INTERVIEW 5
Assessing yourself 6
Personal ratings and competencies 6
Levels of competence 10
Researching the organisation 31
Timing is everything 34
Planning what to wear 35
What should I take with me? 38
Outside the dragon’s den 39

3 LEGISLATION THAT EMPLOYERS NEED TO COMPLY WITH 40
Legislation affecting recruitment 40
Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 41
Sex Discrimination Act 1975 41
Race Relations Act 1976 44
Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 45
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 45
Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 48
Police Act 1997 50
Employment Equality Regulations 2003 51
Data Protection Act 1998 51
The employment tribunal 51

V

VI • HOW TO ANSWER HARD INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

4 UNDERSTANDING THE EMPLOYERS’ PERSPECTIVE 54
Preparation 54
Conducting the interview 55
The importance of interview notes 56

5 CONDUCTING YOURSELF AT THE INTERVIEW 57

6 COMMON INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ... AND HOW
TO ANSWER THEM 60
Questions about ...
... your drive for achievement 60
... your strategic thinking 67
... your relationship building 71
... your commercial awareness 75
... your leadership of change 79
... your leadership skills 82
... your continuous improvement 86
... your customer awareness 92
... your decision-making skills and judgement 95
... your influencing skills 97
... your development of self and others 101
... your teamworking skills 105
The ‘... and finally’ questions 109

7 QUESTIONS YOU CAN ASK AT YOUR INTERVIEW 113
First-round interviews 113
Final-stage interview 115

8 QUESTIONS ASKED BY READERS 117
Searching for information 117

9 AFTER THE INTERVIEW 122
Learning from rejection 122
Resigning from your current job 127

CONTENTS • VII

10 TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS 130

11 FURTHER TYPICAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 133
Drive for achievement 133
Strategic thinking 136
Relationship building 137
Commercial awareness 138
Leadership of change 140
Leadership skills 142
Continuous improvement 144
Customer awareness 147
Decision-making skills and judgement 149
Influencing skills 151
Development of self and others 154
Teamworking skills 156
Specialist knowledge 157

Appendix: The joke’s on HR 159

Index of questions 165

Index 169

This page intentionally left blank

PREFACE
At the point of publication of this second edition, the world is in the
middle of the most severe economic downturn in decades. As more and
more companies go to the wall, an inevitable consequence is a swelling of
the ranks of those without a job. Each one of those people who lose their
job is potentially a direct competitor of yours for the job you want. Never
has it been more important for an individual to ‘have an edge’ at interview.
I hope that I can help you gain that competitive advantage by equipping
you with the insider knowledge you need to get the job you want. Please
take advantage of my offer to answer a question you may have personally.
I would love to hear from you.
We are now living in a world where changing jobs is considered a
natural thing to do. Only a generation ago, my father being a prime
example, it was common for people to clock up 20, 30, 40+ years of
service with the one organisation. Most of us cannot conceive of
remaining with the one employer for the vast majority of our working
lives. It is a combination of the increase in individual aspirations and the
nature of commerce which has brought about this change. The
consequence is that practically all of us, whether by choice or
circumstance, will be required to seek employment elsewhere and will
need to go through the whole process of job seeking, applying and then
being scrutinised in some way (the interview still being the most
common example), before we can actually spend that first pay cheque.
I will briefly cover the search and application process. However the main
thrust of this book is the employment interview itself.
It’s getting on for twenty years now that I have been fortunate enough
(some might say unfortunate enough) to be on the side of the desk
where sits that scariest of dragons: the interviewer. During that time I
have seen candidates who have inspired me to almost offer them the
job there and then and not let them leave the building until they’ve
signed a contract. I’ve seen candidates excuse themselves to go and

XI

XII • HOW TO ANSWER HARD INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

throw up due to nerves. I’ve seen candidates who have tried to convince
me that they were doing me the greatest favour in the world by
deigning to come for interview. I’ve seen candidates whom I’ve thought
were mute, such was their reticence. I’ve seen candidates whose
vocabulary ranged all the way from ‘yes’ to ‘no’. I’ve seen candidates
who gave me such detailed answers to my questions that I was on the
verge of losing the will to live.
The sheer variation of quality in the performance of interviewees has
prompted me to distil what I’ve learned into one manageable body of advice
which, I hope, will give you the edge when it comes to getting that job.
What follows are my tips on how to prepare for the interview itself, how
to conduct yourself at the interview and, most crucially perhaps,
examples of the kind of answers we interviewers REALLY want to hear.
These are grouped into categories known as ‘competencies’ as the
approach most modern organisations take these days is the
‘competency-focused’ interview. After all, we, as professional managers,
are trying, on behalf of our organisations to secure the services of the
most wonderful, motivated, efficient and productive employee, while
trying to show how clever we are at recruitment at the same time!
The interviewer(s) are never the enemy. They may use methods which
you think are in turn obvious, brutal or downright devious, but
remember it is all in the cause of getting the right person for the job
who will fit in because of their skill set, personality and attitude – for
cultural fit is really important in terms of the likely longevity of their
term in post. One day you may very well be sitting where they are and
I’ll bet you will be able to justify your approach for the cause!
Finally, if you have been asked a particular question in the past that
stumped you, or you are anticipating a question that I haven’t covered
in this edition, you are welcome to email me your question and I will
personally give you a considered response. Send your question to:
charlie.gibbs@live.co.uk.
I hope you will find this book useful and I wish you every success in
your chosen career.
Charlie Gibbs

Chapter 1

FINDING THAT JOB
While the intention of this book is to provide you with great answers to
tough interview questions, it would be remiss of me not to at least
touch on the subject of job-hunting. After all, you either need to be
actively looking for and applying for jobs or be the subject of a
headhunting exercise before you can stun them with your carefully
crafted answers!

Job vacancies fall into two camps: those that are advertised and are
made available to the public (either the internal population of an
organisation or the public at large) and those which are sometimes
known as ‘hidden vacancies’ – those which are given to recruitment
agencies, headhunters and the like, or those which are not yet
advertised but you have made a speculative application for.

Did you know that it has been estimated that only around 15 per cent
of available vacancies are actually advertised in newspapers or magazines?
Newspaper advertising costs are verging on the prohibitive for many
organisations these days. Even small-circulation, provincial newspapers
can charge several thousands of pounds for one-off adverts in the
‘situations vacant’ section, so many employers are turning to alternative
media such as the Internet. There are many well-known job sites in the UK
such as TotalJobs.com, Reed.co.uk, Monster.co.uk etc. Most job sites will
also allow you to register your search preferences and then e-mail you
when jobs matching your selection criteria are posted.

However, many employers still like to place adverts in specialist
publications such as trade and professional magazines in the hope that
the specialist readership is more likely to elicit a greater response than
1

2 • HOW TO ANSWER HARD INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

the pot luck that is generic press advertising. Choose where you search
for your next job carefully.

OK, so you’ve now seen an advert that has caught your eye and you are
sure you want to apply. Firstly, does the advert say that applications are to
be made by supplying a curriculum vitae plus covering letter or via
application form? Lets look at some pointers for dealing with each of these.

Filling in your application form
I Once you receive it, take a copy or two of it to draft your responses.

You will want the form that your prospective employer receives to be
immaculate and not have any blots, rubouts or scribbles on it!
I Read all the instructions contained upon it carefully and comply

with them.
I Do not be tempted to try to put a form through your computer

printer and have your typed words line up into the boxes – it will take
you forever!
I Never, ever, EVER write in any of the boxes ‘See enclosed CV. It is a
’
guaranteed way to have your application rejected. Employers use
these forms for a reason; they do not take too kindly to someone
who is too lazy to be bothered to fill them in.
I Boxes on application forms tend to be small. Choose your words

carefully. If the box simply is not big enough for what you want to
tell them, attach a piece of plain paper with your script and refer to it
on the form.
I When listing your previous employers, ensure there are no

unexplained gaps.
I Try to adopt a positive attitude throughout the form. Stress

achievements if you can.
I If you are asked to name referees, ensure that you have sought their

permission first, or if you do not want them contacted until you’ve
been made an offer, indicate this on the form.

FINDING THAT JOB • 3

I Once you are happy with your draft, transfer the detail to the original
form. Always write application forms in your neatest hand and in
black ink for preference as this photocopies well. Never use any other
colour except black or blue inks.
I Once you have completed the form, photocopy it for your own
records. You may wish to take it to interview with you to refer to.
I Draft a covering letter to go with your form. Keep it brief and always
use the term ‘Dear Mr Smith’, or whatever the recruiter’s surname is.
Don’t be tempted to use their forename, even if the advert has it on,
as this is over-familiar. Never write ‘Dear Sir or Madam’ as it too
demonstrates a lack of attention to detail.

Curricula vitae
I will leave it to you to decide on the style and content of your
curriculum vitae. There are many sources which will advise you on these
aspects. Here are some brief pointers:

I Use the best paper you can afford.
I Use only white or off-white paper.
I Do not use a fancy hard cover or binder.
I Use a simple font such as Arial and use the same font in your
covering letter.
I Never use a generic covering letter. Be specific in its content by
bringing out one or two elements of how you match what they are
looking for. It is not just a wrapper for your CV!
I Your CV needs to get past that first 30 seconds after the recruiter has
picked it up. Imagine yours is just one of 50 or 60 or more
applications received. You want your professionalism to stand and
not stand out because you’ve used bright yellow paper!
I Stress your achievements in your CV; not simply list your past
employers and job titles.
I Comply with any instructions in the adverts such as supplying your
current salary – you may wish to do this within your covering letter.


Imagine your delight, constant reader, when two weeks later you receive
on lovely headed paper an invite to attend an interview for this
potentially wonderful new job! That’s when your hard work really
begins. In Chapter 2 I will explore what you need to be thinking about
before you actually attend the interview.

CHAPTER 2

PREPARING FOR THE
INTERVIEW
Unlike preparing for a sporting event, you can never over-prepare
before you go for an interview. You will never ‘leave your game on the
training ground’. Think of each minute you spend in preparing as an
investment in your potential career. To use a well-worn phrase: ‘Fail to
prepare, then prepare to fail’.

When should you start preparing? Assuming that you did at least some
preliminary research when you first decided to apply for the job, as soon
as you receive the letter inviting you to interview! In order to prepare
properly in terms of research on the organisation and analysis of
yourself, you need to set aside time where you can be focused and free
of interruptions.

You would be extremely lucky to attend an interview completely
unprepared and sail through by a combination of your sparkling
personality and incisive wit (which no doubt you DO possess).

Remember, there are no second chances, no retakes in a real-life
interview situation. You have to be on top of your game and be
prepared to respond to questions you may find difficult and to talk
about yourself in highly personal terms. This is not the time to hide your
light under a bushel! The reality is that this is a selling exercise. You are
selling yourself from the moment you submit that application form or
post your CV.

5


ASSESSING YOURSELF
Before you even embark on your journey of securing that fantastic job,
it is advisable to take stock and do some self-assessment. In under-
standing what you are looking for in a job you can develop clear goals
and targets to assist you. You shouldn’t enter into looking for a new job
frivolously. This is a potential life-changing decision after all!

There are many factors which may influence you reaching the decision
to either begin work or change job. Maybe you feel you have not had
the breaks you deserve this far. Maybe you’ve been overlooked in the
past for promotion or development. Maybe you think circumstances are
not right for you to have the job you want. I’m with George Bernard
Shaw on this one, who said:

People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I don’t
believe in circumstances. The people who get ahead in this world are
people who get up and look for the circumstances they want; and if
they can’t find them, make them.

PERSONAL RATINGS AND COMPETENCIES
What follows is a simple method for assessing your strengths and
weaknesses and also those skills known as ‘transferable skills’ or
‘competencies’ which are skills you acquire as you meander through life.
They may be consciously acquired or gained by osmosis. Either way,
these are not job-specific skills, but ones that can be readily applied to
different roles. Incidentally, the word ‘competency’ has generated a lot
of heat and light over the last few years within the world of human
resources and indeed the interview which you attend may be described
as a ‘competency-based interview’ or a ‘competency-focused interview’.
In either case, what they mean is they will be asking you questions
aimed at finding out whether or not you have the competency level in

PREPARING FOR THE INTERVIEW • 7

the areas they require rather than simply seeking confirmation of the
information contained in your CV.

Have a look at the descriptions of competencies listed below.

Competencies tend to fall into broad categories such as those
described below.

Drive for achievement
Defined as: The individual grasps opportunities to achieve and exceed
their business and personal objectives; success is a great motivator for
them; desires to perform tasks to the highest standards; is generally
positive and enthusiastic at all times; does not suffer too greatly by
setbacks and is tenacious; is resourceful and self-driven; can accept
change and is flexible; has a high level of energy; leads by example.

Strategic thinking
Defined as: The individual can think about their industry/sector as a
whole; can identify threats and opportunities to the organisation; can
monitor the progress of short- and longer-term projects; can manage
multiple priorities; understands the link between departmental and
organisational objectives; recognises the interaction between people and
technical issues in achieving objectives.

Relationship building
Defined as: The individual puts effort over a sustained period of time in
building influential relationships; puts effort into building both external
and internal relationships; understands the importance of good business
relationships; demonstrates proactivity in utilising the expertise of others;
works with others to formulate solutions; builds on friendships and
actively networks.


Commercial awareness
Defined as: The individual understands how organisations work; can
apply commercial and financial principles; demonstrates an active
interest in the financial performance of the organisation in terms of
profit and loss, cash-flow, added value, routes to market,
competitiveness, etc.

Leadership of change
Defined as: The individual works with others to implement change; helps
to clarify and avoid ambiguity; willingly accepts change; takes
responsibility for driving things forward; can identify and initiate change;
understands the interconnectivity of departments and how change
affects others.

Leadership skills
Defined as: The individual demonstrates an ability to share a sense of
vision and common purpose; has respect of others through words and
deeds; inspires loyalty and commitment; has an adaptable leadership
style depending on individuals and circumstances; can create and build
teams; is inspirational and enthusiastic; demonstrates empathy; can
transform strategic objectives into firm actions.

Continuous improvement
Defined as: The individual demonstrates the ability to identify the actions
needed to make things happen in a quality-oriented way; can ensure
these actions are carried out; seizes opportunities to make improvements;
establishes conditions to ensure continuous improvement; can plan and
organise tasks; can challenge the status quo.

Customer awareness
Defined as: The individual can demonstrate an ability to meet and exceed
customer expectations; recognises the prime importance of the customer;


can anticipate future customer needs; goes the extra mile for the
customer; takes responsibility for developing long-term relationships
with customers; forges partnerships that contribute to future growth
opportunities for both customer and own organisation.

Decision-making skills and judgement
Defined as: The individual can demonstrate a readiness to make
high-quality decisions based on the information to hand using logic and
analytical skills; breaks complex issues into component parts; considers
the outcomes of varying courses of action; can draw reliable conclusions
from disparate and often conflicting sources of data; can make sound
decisions in a timely manner; is able to make decisions with an
awareness of the political climate internally.

Influencing skills
Defined as: The individual demonstrates competence in convincing
others or impresses them in such a way as to gain acceptance, agreement
or behaviour change; sets a positive example by modelling behaviour; has
excellent listening, oral and written communication skills; has the ability
to influence peers, subordinates and superiors and key decision-makers;
can influence at tactical and strategic levels.

Development of self and others
Defined as: The individual demonstrates an interest in the development
of others as well as himself; seeks out opportunities to learn new skills;
encourages others in their development; accepts coaching and
mentoring responsibilities; monitors own and others’ skill levels; keeps
abreast of development in their chosen field.

Teamworking skills
Defined as: The individual demonstrates an ability to work cooperatively
and productively with others; copies the teamworking styles of others;


looks for opportunities to work in ad-hoc and established teams;
understands how to set and monitor team objectives and goals;
recognises the differing skill sets of individuals and the need for a mix
within teams.

LEVELS OF COMPETENCE
Interviewers will often have already defined the levels of competence
the potential jobholder will need to possess in each of these categories
prior to the interview. Their ideal candidate will score above the
minimum level against each particular competence. However,
interviewers also live in the real world (hard to believe, I know) and may
recognise that they are unlikely to find someone who straightaway
exceeds their minimum requirements. More often than not, the
candidate who has the highest overall score will be the one that
receives the offer. The fact that you may score lower on one or more
competencies does not necessarily mean that you won’t be offered the
job – an enlightened employer will then build training into your
induction period which will address these shortcomings.

Which level of each of these competencies do you currently possess? It
is easily understood that someone can be ‘OK’ at something or ‘brilliant’
at something in everyday life. But how do employers stratify the level of
competence an individual has? Many organisations have gone through
a long and painful process of examining their competencies and putting
into words what each level of competence looks like. Below is a typical
example of the type of analysis that has been done in the ‘real world’.


TASK
Get a piece of paper and a pen. Read through each competency
level description in turn and write down which level you believe
you are operating at currently. Once complete, you will have
created a fairly comprehensive Competency Profile of yourself. This
process is an excellent way for you to focus your mind on what
skills you actually have. Once you have a self-awareness of your
skills, this will enable you to speak so much more eloquently to
your prospective employer. I have rated these levels 1–5, with 5
being the highest.

Drive for achievement
Level 1 – is motivated by success and the desire to perform tasks at a
high standard.

Demonstrated by:
I Shows the desire to perform tasks to a high standard.

I Is driven to achieve excellent standards.

I Is enthusiastic and adaptable.

I Displays high levels of energy.

I Enjoys working hard.

Level 2 – is positive and enthusiastic generally; is resourceful and
proactive.

Demonstrated by:
I Often makes suggestions and recommendations.

I Is not phased by setbacks or new challenges.

I Displays a flexible and proactive approach to work and achieving

objectives.
I Regularly uses own initiative.


Level 3 – can accept change and is flexible and applies sustained
energy in order to adapt to new requirements.

Demonstrated by:
I Can articulate the need for business change to move the business

forward.
I Creates an environment in which peers and subordinates can achieve

challenging objectives.
I Remains positive in the face of setbacks.

I Seeks to find answers, not problems.

Level 4 – displays tenacity in the face of unforeseen circumstances and
difficulties.

Demonstrated by:
I Understands internal politics and interpersonal sensitivities and

differing agendas.
I Takes on enthusiastically new challenges and tasks.

I Is an effective planner and maximises the use of everyone’s time who

is involved.
I Goes above and beyond what is needed to get the job done.

I Is not afraid of taking calculated risks.

Level 5 – Models drive and resilience and leads by example.

Demonstrated by:
I Is single minded in achieving objectives.

I Is driven by objectives and targets the majority of people could not

deliver.
I Tracks the progress towards the achievement of objectives.

I Displays passion in their role.

I Demonstrates commitment to the company and acts as an

ambassador at all times.


Strategic thinking
Level 1 – strictly speaking, there is no Level 1 competence in this
competency.

Level 2 – understands greater organisational context, markets and
competitors.

Demonstrated by:
I Understands relationship between own role and business strategy in

the short term.
I Can interpret some business strategy in the terms of operational

plans.
I Uses customer feedback to make improvements.

I Gives some consideration to external factors.

Level 3 – can maintain an overview of complicated situations with an
eye on detail.

Demonstrated by:
I Sees beyond the immediate needs of their own area to understand

the interconnectivity of departments.
I Has an eye on the future at all times.

I Maintains an overview of complex situations but controls the finer

details.
I Understands the impact of strategies on the medium to longer term.

Level 4 – sets plans and objectives with a view to the future success of
the organisation in terms of technical and people issues.

Demonstrated by:
I Understands the impact of strategies in the long term.

I Has cognisance of people issues.


I Embraces and works with technological advances.
I Recognises trends in performance in both the organisation and it’s
competitors.

Level 5 – Translates short- and long-term decision-making into actions.

Demonstrated by:
I Actively contributes to the strategic direction of the organisation.

I Is inspirational and engages others with the organisation’s vision.

I Can utilise all specialisms in achieving organisational goals.

I Can provide solid business rationale for large expenditure.

Relationship building
Level 1 – makes efforts to build and maintain a network of internal and
external contacts.

Demonstrated by:
I Uses others to complete tasks.

I Responds helpfully to requests for information.

I Is courteous and honest in dealing with others.

I Is aware of own impact on others.

I Keeps others informed of own progress in work.

Level 2 – understands the value of building up sound working
relationships.

Demonstrated by:
I Puts sustained efforts into building relationships.

I Uses both formal and informal channels to communicate with others.

I Checks understanding when communicating.

I Can identify key decision-makers.

I Is aware of the importance of including the right people at the

right time.


Level 3 – is highly proactive about getting others involved.

Demonstrated by:
I Demonstrates diplomatic skills and is tactful.

I Recognises cliques and alliances and can utilise these.

I Recognises others’ talent and utilises it.

I Can read ‘body language’ .

Level 4 – with others, constructs solutions, building on their ideas.

Demonstrated by:
I Encourages suggestions from others without being judgemental.

I Takes on board criticism.

I Can overcome traditional organisational barriers using novel

solutions.
I Facilitates the efforts of others.

I Develops relationships which facilitate the resolution of complex

problems.

Level 5 – regularly uses the cooperative and combined efforts of others
to add value to the results.

Demonstrated by:
I Builds an influential presence in the external business environment to

raise profile with key customer groups.
I Represents the organisation’s interests persuasively with key

stakeholders.
I Is proactive in keeping a network of contacts across the industry

or field.
I Attempts to build symbiotic relationships with others external and

internal to the organisation.


Commercial awareness
Level 1 – shows a level of interest in internal and external
business issues.

Demonstrated by:
I Finds out about how the organisation works.

I Knows who the organisation’s competitors are.

I Knows who the organisation’s main customers are.

I Seeks to develop general business knowledge.

I Keeps up to date with current affairs.

Level 2 – can analyse in terms of profit and loss, cash-flow and added
value.

Demonstrated by:
I Understands basic financial and commercial terminology.
I Keeps abreast of current business performance.

I Keeps abreast in terms of product and market development.

I Understands how own role/department contributes towards business

success.
I Is aware of cost implications and their effect on the bottom line.

I Seeks to maximise productivity and reduce costs wherever possible.

Level 3 – knows the marketplace, competition and business issues faced
by the organisation.

Demonstrated by:
I Has sharp operational focus so that actions can be prioritised and put

into context.
I Fully understands the business plan and can communicate corporate

objectives.
I Understands key messages from the profit and loss report and

balance sheet.
I Knows the position of own business in terms of market share.


Level 4 – focuses on profitability and contribution to increase
competitiveness.

Demonstrated by:
I Capable of managing cost or profit centres.

I Uses commercial judgement to enhance growth opportunities.

I Can assess market trends and has the capability to make decisions

which will enhance organisation’s ability to compete.
I Understands the underlying issues affecting the performance of the

business or organisational unit.

Level 5 – applies financial strategies and tactics in the wider context.

Demonstrated by:
I Understands acquisitions, mergers and divestments.

I Develops creative new financial and commercial strategies to

enhance growth.
I Confidently communicates messages from company financial

documentation such as profit and loss accounts, balance sheets, etc.
I Benchmarks against others in order to seek commercial advantage.

I Uses external sources to keep informed of competitors’

actions/developments.

Leadership of change
Level 1 – can successfully adapt to changing conditions and
circumstances.

Demonstrated by:
I Endeavours to be resilient in situations which may appear unclear or

contradictory.
I Shows a willingness to broaden skills and try alternative work.

I Understands the need for progressive change.

I Can adapt quickly and successfully to change.

I Assimilates new ways of working well.


Level 2 – enjoys the change agenda and willingly accepts the need for
change in methodologies, materials, workflows or technology.

Demonstrated by:
I Understands how change supports the vision of the business and

links with business strategy.
I Anticipates and plans for change in own function.

I Actively cooperates in implementing change.

I Demonstrates an awareness of the ‘big picture’ .
I Sees change as a positive thing in respect of career-enhancing skills.

Level 3 – identifies ways to improve the organisation and encourages
others to do the same. Takes on responsibility for driving the change
agenda.

Demonstrated by:
I Can articulate the benefits of change and shows confidence about

taking on different tasks and activities.
I Works well within a continuously changing and improving

environment and helps others do the same.
I Leads change with vigour and enthusiasm.

I Can produce own innovations and is prepared to take risks with new

ideas and concepts.
I Supports people through the emotional impact of change.

Level 4 – frequently identifies and initiates change affecting specific
organisational operations.

Demonstrated by:
I Prepares and implements plans for the changes taking into account

the material and people factors necessary to make the
implementation work.
I Conducts changes with an eye on minimising disruption to outputs

and quality.


I Manages and anticipates the consequences for those outside and
inside the organisation.
I Works closely with subordinates, peers and superiors to integrate
change activities.
I Takes the time to get to know what people really think about the
changes and allays these fears where possible.

Level 5 – understands how change drives towards the achievement of
the business vision and strategy and can manage complex change
programmes.

Demonstrated by:
I Manages the expectations of key stakeholders such as customers and

shareholders effectively at all stages of the change process.
I Leads organisational change dynamically.

I Maintains a powerful motivating vision for all affected by change and

encourages a positive approach at every level of the organisation.
I Maintains an overview and focus on the change agenda to ensure it

is happening.

Leadership skills
Level 1 – in deeds and words, gains the respect and confidence of
colleagues.

Demonstrated by:
I Able to give guidance and support to colleagues.

I Gains the confidence and respect of the team and supports them in

achieving targets.
I Clearly communicates individual and team goals.

I Generates plans instructions and directions.

I Continually reviews progress and gives clear and specific feedback.


Level 2 – can build teams, involve others and motivate them.

Demonstrated by:
I Demonstrates integrity and trust in dealing with others internal and

external to the organisation.
I Is able to maximise the performance of others.

I Anticipates conflict and takes steps to resolve this at the earliest

possible stage.
I Defines tasks clearly, including objectives, outputs, timings and

available resources.

Level 3 – inspires loyalty and establishes credibility quickly, motivates
and enthuses.

Demonstrated by:
I Celebrates and rewards successes with colleagues and teams.

I Adopts a coaching and mentoring style with subordinates.

I Delegates effectively to encourage skill development.

I Is accountable for the organisation’s policies, agreements and procedures.

I Is committed personally to the organisation’s vision.

Level 4 – handles situations involving people with confidence and is
empathetic. Develops a leadership style that empowers others to
constantly achieve and exceed personal and company objectives.

Demonstrated by:
I Talks beyond today, about future possibilities optimistically.

I Shows others how they can benefit and contribute to the business.

I Takes personal responsibility for the team/department, representing

them and their interests to the business.
I Displays flexibility in leadership styles in order to tell/sell/involve and

delegate.
I Communicates inspiringly to wide audiences.


Level 5 – contributes to the strategic direction of the organisation and
has influence over behaviour at an organisational level.

Demonstrated by:
I Can steer through complex political situations effectively.

I Establishes goals and gives others freedom and accountability for

achieving these goals.
I Acts as a role model to all of the leadership and brand values of

the organisation.

Continuous improvement
Level 1 – completes tasks within the allotted time and with the
correct quality.

Demonstrated by:
I Pays attention and challenges processes and content.

I Typically gets things right first time and within timescales.

I Plans own time and resources to meet the tasks ahead.

I Can prioritise work in order of importance and urgency.

Level 2 – can challenge the status quo and generate new ideas.

Demonstrated by:
I Searches for new solutions to make required improvements.

I Challenges current working practices in order to identify areas for

improvement.
I Can manage multiple tasks to meet a goal.

I Adapts own working practices to meet new requirements.

Level 3 – knows how to plan and organise tasks.

Demonstrated by:
I Good at mapping out processes in order to get things done.

I Can use resources such as people, materials, machinery, etc.

effectively in order to achieve targets.


I Understands key performance indicators and knows how to measure
against them.
I Understands how to combine or separate tasks in a workflow.
I Sets daily, weekly, monthly and yearly targets.

Level 4 – grasps opportunities to make improvements and sees them
through.

Demonstrated by:
I Is able to identify existing processes and suggest improvements.

I Recognises duplication and opportunities for integration.

I Gets rid of as much red tape as they can.

I Understands both the tactical and strategic picture.

I Encourages others to challenge the status quo and to suggest

improvements.

Level 5 – creates strategies that lead to process improvement and
longer-term business planning.

Demonstrated by:
I Develops products or services that stay ahead of competitors’ efforts.

I Plans for the longer term.

I Recognises and champions the need to work ‘smarter’ not ‘harder’ .
I Brings in on time and within budget large projects.

Customer awareness
Level 1 – understands that the customer is important to the
organisation. (Note: ‘Customers’ in this sense can mean internal as well
as external customers.)

Demonstrated by:
I Recognises the importance of internal and external customers.

I Treats every customer respectfully.


I Complies with organisation’s brand values.
I Can utilise customer-care skills effectively.
I Spots potential problems and resolves them before they reach the
customer.

Level 2 – identifies customer needs and responds appropriately.

Demonstrated by:
I Displays a positive attitude when dealing with customers.

I Responds quickly and with respect to customer requests and informs

them of progress.
I Can negotiate a positive outcome with customers.

I Has refined questioning technique to clarify customers’ needs and

expectations.
I Researches customers for ways to improve the service offered.

Level 3 – anticipates and responds to changing customer expectations.

Demonstrated by:
I Recognises the cost/benefit implications of providing the service or

goods.
I Identifies a range of solutions which exceeds customer expectations.

I Actively suggests improvements to make the customer experience

better.
I Establishes empathy and rapport with the customer.

I Benchmarks customer satisfaction levels.

Level 4 – develops long-term relationships with customers and
establishes personal relationships with key players.

Demonstrated by:
I Can adopt the perspective of the customer and understands their

needs, wants and expectations.


I Seeks first-hand customer data and is able to utilise it well.
I Meets with peers regularly to assimilate their experiences with
customers.
I Looks for symbiotic outcomes with customers.
I Recognises service which is above and beyond what is required.

Level 5 – forges strategic partnerships that enable inputs to business
opportunities.

Demonstrated by:
I Shows that the customer is at the core of decision-making.

I Understands the bigger picture and communicates this to others.

I Sets customer-focused strategies and objectives.

I Promotes a customer-focused culture.

I Is a champion for excellence in service and enthuses others to be

the same.

Decision-making skills and judgement
Level 1 – analyses issues and breaks them down into smaller parts
before coming to a decision.

Demonstrated by:
I Thinks through outcomes before acting.

I Can learn from mistakes.

I Generates a range of solutions and challenges existing practice.

I Assesses all the available data and refers to others before making

decisions.

Level 2 – considers and takes responsibility for the impact a decision
may have on others and in relation to business success.

Demonstrated by:
I Understands when the decision needs to be referred to others.

I Makes decision within their own authority boundaries.


I Uses established procedures to ensure correct action is taken.
I Makes high-quality decisions in a timely manner.
I Can make decisions without complete information.

Level 3 – draws reliable conclusions from disparate sources of data.

Demonstrated by:
I Gives consideration to how decision impacts on others.

I Deals with unusual problems confidently without hesitation.

I Does not put off making a decision to avoid conflict.

I Does not put off a decision to avoid ‘getting it wrong’
.
I Considers the cost implications to a decision.

Level 4 – makes timely and sound decisions when data is less
accessible, inconclusive or contradictory.

Demonstrated by:
I Not afraid to take risks to find a solution.

I Seeks a practical solution despite vagueness of data.

I Can assess multiple or complex or contradictory data in order to

reach decision.
I Understands cause and effect.

Level 5 – can take decisions which require political or organisational
interpretation with an eye on internal politics but which are beneficial
to the organisation.

Demonstrated by:
I Evaluates the relationship between short-term consequences and

long-term gains.
I Is persuasive when presenting case to stakeholders.

I Is confident about making decisions which involve the organisation

going forward into uncharted territory.


I Is not afraid of controversy and will make decisions with cognisance
of the political landscape.
I Is often sought out for advice by peers, superiors and subordinates.

Influencing skills
Level 1 – behaves in a straightforward and transparent way that sets a
positive example.

Demonstrated by:
I Wins respect and influences others by own behaviour.

I Is confident and determined.

I Sets a positive example.

I Encourages others to challenge and does not mind being challenged.

I Communicates clearly both orally and in written form.

Level 2 – is aware of the impact on others, is a clear communicator,
speaks and writes clearly, is a good listener.

Demonstrated by:
I Regularly shares own views in a clear manner.

I Can articulate the key points of an argument.

I Can be assertive when working with others.

I Observes and listens and understands what is being said.

I Demonstrates integrity when dealing with others at all times.

Level 3 – has the personal stature and capability to influence a broad
range of people including key decision-makers.

Demonstrated by:
I Displays a variety of styles of action from diplomatic to assertive.

I Uses the appropriate approach to diffuse difficult situations.

I Is able to compromise when necessary.

I Identifies key influencers and focuses on their requirements.

I Demonstrates confidence clearly in all communication scenarios.


Level 4 – adapts style and interacts at all levels, whilst maintaining
credibility, to secure commitment.

Demonstrated by:
I Identifies the key influencers and focuses on their requirements.

I Can compromise in order to achieve agreement seen as benefiting all

parties.
I Uses appropriate influencing, assertive and negotiating techniques to

diffuse difficult situations.
I Can persuade senior colleagues by being confident and assertive, and

sensing best timing to gain most favourable outcome.
I Radiates experience and self-confidence in all communication situations.

Level 5 – influences at individual, team, departmental and
corporate level.

Demonstrated by:
I Can deliver organisational messages confidently and with conviction.

I Keeps abreast of sector developments to influence external and

internal customers.
I Understands completely organisational politics.

I Has strong lobbying skills.

I Can influence at all levels within the organisation.

Development of self and others
Level 1 – knows own career path and actively works towards achieving
career objectives.

Demonstrated by:
I Has a positive mental attitude and seeks to be professional at work.

I Contributes fully and seeks additional responsibilities.

I Seeks goals for self and looks for learning opportunities.

I Identifies opportunities to develop and support colleagues.


Level 2 – markets self and others for opportunities for development;
recognises others’ career aspirations and supports them.

Demonstrated by:
I Regularly asks for feedback on own performance.

I Is aware of what is required to achieve career ambitions.

I Gets actively involved in developing others.

I Does not prevaricate and makes things happen for themselves.

I Consistently tries to develop current skill set.

Level 3 – continually improves the capability of the organisation
through contributing to a learning culture.

Demonstrated by:
I Gives practical feedback to others.

I Mentors and coaches others to achieve their full performance

capabilities.
I Takes direct accountability for success or failure of subordinates.

I Sees the appraisal system as an excellent way to identify training

needs for self and others.
I Ensures training needs analyses results are acted upon.

Level 4 – actively addresses career development and pushes for the
achievement of career plans.

Demonstrated by:
I Is pragmatic about one’s own strengths and weaknesses and how

best to get the results needed.
I Gives practical guidance and support to others in achieving their

career ambitions.
I Recognises more subtle talents in others and actively encourages the

development of these talents.
I Conducts the appraisal process in a professional and thorough manner.

I Looks for opportunities to ‘stretch’
.


Level 5 – measures and monitors skill levels throughout the
organisation with an eye on future needs.

Demonstrated by:
I Keeps abreast of developments outside immediate area of expertise.

I Makes sure others get the resources they need to deliver what is

expected of them.
I Is intuitive about people; takes informal and creative risks with them.

I Maximises the potential of the organisation’s human capital.

I Strives to be an employer of choice by demonstrating commitment to

people development.

Team working skills
Level 1 – is an effective team member.

Demonstrated by:
I Works effectively with others in a team.

I Requests help, or offers support when required.

I Cooperates with other team members and has a flexible and open-

minded approach.
I Projects a positive image of teamworking.

Level 2 – Develops effective and supportive relationships with
colleagues.

Demonstrated by:
I Draws on each team member’s particular talents to maximise the

effectiveness of the team.
I Contributes to the running of the team.

I Shares ideas and data with team members.

I Can work across team boundaries.

I Aware of the strengths and development needs of other team

members.


Level 3 – understands how and when to set team objectives and utilises
the talent of all team members.

Demonstrated by:
I Able to capitalise on the strengths of team members.

I Makes use of everyone’s innate abilities.

I Recognises the cultural aspects of teamworking.

I Is a champion for diversity.

I Defines success as when the whole team contributes and shares in

the glory.

Level 4 – looks for opportunities for inter- and intra- teamworking to
achieve bigger business goals.

Demonstrated by:
I Can put personal needs aside in order to concentrate on team needs.

I Suggests ways of teams working together to achieve business goals.

I Suggests formation of new teams to satisfy the needs of particular

projects.
I Can identify factors which hinder team performance.

I Strives to assist the team in developing its own identity.

Level 5 – models teamworking and champions the benefits of
partnerships across the business.

Demonstrated by:
I Acts as a role model for others.

I Can use ‘blue sky thinking’ to circumvent hindrances to effective

teamworking.
I Encourages a sense of esprit de corps.

I Is inspirational and morale boosting.

Phew! Quite a list, I’m sure you will agree. It can be quite cathartic to go
through this exercise. The information you glean from doing this will


not only give you a general sense of what your competence levels are at
this moment in time, but it can also advise you when you are revising
the content of your curriculum vitae. Perhaps some of the terminology I
have used here has caused you to think ‘Yes! That’s exactly what I do!’ If
so, I’m glad. Use these terms to expand on your role and responsibilities
detailed in your CV. It is often difficult to find a form of words that fully
describes what it is you do exactly. I’m sure there are some phrases here
you can adapt for your own use.

RESEARCHING THE ORGANISATION
An obvious place to start preparing for your interview is to research the
organisation you’d like to work for. There are many, many sources from
which to gain the kind of information you need, ranging from the
Internet to periodicals, annual reports, etc. All of these have their own
part to contribute in building up the picture you have of the organisation.

The Internet will obviously give you access to the organisation’s own
website. However, be aware that the organisation will use this medium
to present the face to the world that they want, and it may be heavily
‘spinned’. Putting cynicism aside for a moment, make sure you read as
many of the web pages as you can and jot down salient points as you
come across them. You will often find information on their markets,
their products, their employee numbers, their green credentials and
usually details of how you can contact them directly.

For larger companies, call up their public relations department (it may
have many other titles) and ask them to send you any brochures or
literature that they have all about the company.

Now most employers will have expected you to do at least a basic
Internet search on them and I’ve lost count of the number of times a
candidate has recited verbatim statistics published on the website. To


many of us, this is lazy research. Unimaginative and predictable. I will
expand on this in Chapter 6 on questions and answers later on.

So what should you do? Using what you have gleaned about the
organisation as a starting point, see if you can find out who their
competitors are and what they have to say on their websites.

It is much better to answer an interviewer in response to the question
‘What do you know about us?’ with a brief summary of what you’ve
learned followed by your own question such as ‘… however, I see that
Company XYZ is also expanding into the Pacific Rim market in direct
competition with yourselves. How do you see that battle going?’

It is a golden rule when researching or collating data on any subject not
to suffer from ‘paralysis by analysis’. You must react to what your
research tells you.

EXAMPLE
You are going for a job with a company which manufactures parts
for the production of cigarettes. Your research tells you that you
the company has enjoyed growth over the past 20 years and
shows no sign of declining. However, the recent introduction of
anti-smoking legislation in the UK has made you think that this
company must be doing something right in order to continue
growing. You dig around some more and find that in the UK
smoking is actually in decline through a combination of the new
legislation and through greater awareness of health issues by the
general public. Ergo, the only reason the company can still be
growing is because they are selling outside of the UK.
You do some more searching and find that the world’s growth
markets are India, China and other ‘developing’ countries. Now, it is
tempting to then just drop into your conversation with the


interviewer your knowledge that these are the growth markets.
How much better does it sound when you come out with: Are there
any plans then to expand your manufacturing operations into
China and India to give you a more direct route into the growth
markets? This not only lets your interviewer know that you are
aware of where the growth markets are, but also that you have
thought through what it might mean to them as a company.

The Annual Report is an invaluable source of historical information on
an organisation as it reflects the previous year’s trading/activities.

The Annual Report is often a daunting read as it contains highly detailed
financial information. My advice is that unless you are familiar with
financial terminology, simply scan those pages. The juicy stuff is
contained in the Chairman’s Report (usually near the end). This is the
narrative report to shareholders by the top person in the organisation
on how the previous year has gone. It will also point out where the
organisation hopes to be going in the future. This again is valuable
information you can take with you to the interview.

TIP
Companies which are public limited companies (PLCs) are duty
bound to supply copies of the most recent Annual Report to anyone
who requests one. Find out the registered address of the company
and telephone their Public Relations Department for a copy.

Lastly, but not least, how much information on the post you are
applying for is actually contained in that job advert? Not much, I’ll
wager. Enough to capture your interest, sure, but enough to decide


whether or not this really is the job for you? Probably not. Telephone or
e-mail the Human Resource Department and ask them for a copy of the
formal job description. This should have much more detail than the
advertisement and again provide you with clues on how to prepare.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING
There is an old saying relating to appearing for an interview: If you are not
ten minutes early, then you are ten minutes late! Do you know, it’s true!

If you are way too early it may appear that you have (a) not researched
the travel time; (b) are a tad desperate to impress; (c) have poor time
management skills. Be aware of potential road traffic issues if you are
travelling by car and make sure all public transport selections will have
you arriving in plenty of time. Take along with you the original
invitation letter which will give you the organisation’s telephone
number should you have to call ahead and explain that you are going to
be delayed. If you do not have a mobile phone, make sure you have
change for a payphone.

Ten minutes is almost ‘respectful’. It allows the organisation plenty of
time if they have not finished their preparations just yet and you are the
first candidate.

It may well be that the previous candidate’s interview is extended a little
or they are late in seeing you. However fed up you are at this obvious
personal slight, please do not let it show on your face! Remember, you
might just be grateful for the interest you have generated in them
whereby they don’t notice the passage of time and your allotted time
runs on!


PLANNING WHAT TO WEAR
It’s time to head for the interview and you have one question: what is
the dress code?

Should you be strictly formal? Should you just go ahead and be
yourself? After all, they won’t want to employ yet another worker bee,
will they? What about earrings, nose studs, tattoos, etc.? Should they
come off? Would you make more of an impression if you stood out
from the rest of the crowd?

Dressing for the interview is a big issue and many get this woefully
wrong. The answer is actually very simple. The job interview is a formal
meeting between people who are assessing each other’s capability and
suitability to work together in a professional environment which could
lead to a legal formal agreement between an employee and employer –
the employment contract – therefore its not overstating the case to call
it professional. The dress code then must obviously be biased towards
the formal.

Prepare for it with all the seriousness it requires because you need to
create an impression on those whom you are meeting that you are a
responsible and resourceful kind of a person.

This means that the casual look or even the smart/casual look is out. It
means that the conservative (no, that doesn’t mean going for the David
Cameron or John Major look, I meant with a small ‘c’) look is what you
need to work at. Even if you are going for an interview as a call centre
operative who has no contact whatsoever with the public or a part-time
summer job, it will surely make a difference if you go to the interview
dressed formally. One rule that most human resource people promote is
that an applicant must dress as if he or she is going for the interview of
a job one level higher than the post actually being applied for.


The point of dressing yourself well is to leave behind an impression of
yourself as well groomed and professional. Nothing does this as much
as the clothes you wear, the fragrance you wear and the colours you
wear. With conservative colours and clothes you are in the safe zone
with most people whereas a daring fashionable look could just
disqualify you for too much attitude of the wrong kind.

Some of the things for female applicants that are to be avoided are:
I too much jewellery – remove any visible piercings except discreet

earrings;
I brightly coloured clothes or nail polish;

I chewed, unsightly nails;

I skirts that are too short and clothes that are too tight or revealing;

I accessories that are too colourful or floral;

I Inappropriate shoes (leave those killer Jimmy Choos with the four-

inch spikes at home);
I collarless shirts, etc;

I strong perfume.

And for guys:
I pale coloured suits;

I suit, collar and no tie combo;

I rolled up sleeves;

I tattoos on display;

I overpowering aftershave;

I brown shoes with any colour suit except dark brown;

I always wear a black belt unless you are wearing a brown suit;

I white socks with any outfit!! (This is a golden rule for life: unless you

are taking part in sport, there is no room in life for white socks.)
I sandals or any type of open-toed shoe.

These all just go to prove that you do not really care about the job and
all you are worried is about your own personal attitude, which may not


be a great advertisement to someone who is looking for a colleague
who is going to fit in. Once you’ve got the job there will be plenty of
time to assess the ‘real’ dress code of the organisation.

Now what is it that you must wear? Colours that are suitable are the
traditional blue and grey. Blacks and dark browns are fine as well, but
are less conservative than blue and grey.

Whatever the role is, remember organisations do want disciplined,
professional, responsible people in their jobs and it is best that you
reflect that in your attire and attitude. White shirts, plain, striped or
small patterned tie and jacket are de rigueur for guys, while for ladies,
it’s best to stick to a business suit if you can or alternatively a demure
jacket/skirt/trousers combination work best.

In all cases, never wear brand new clothes. You don’t want to be sitting
down to the embarrassing sound of a too-tight seam on your trousers
parting company or be near to tears because those new shoes really are
a tight fit!

I know, I know, it sounds like advice from two centuries ago, but believe
me, most interviewers are conservative in outlook and do actually
believe this stuff. As they are the ones with all the power and you are
playing in their back garden, you need to adapt YOU to fit them, not the
other way around.

If you are still unsure , it does make sense to call and ask beforehand
what the dress code is and then dress appropriately.

You are trying to make the interview as memorable for good reasons as
you can, so to that end:
I Do not eat garlic for 48 hours before the interview.

I Do not smoke for an hour before hand. If you do, make sure you are

able to wash your hands and freshen your breath before you go in.
I Do not ever, ever, EVER chew gum!


WHAT SHOULD I TAKE WITH ME?
The answer to this will depend on the role and perhaps whether or not
you will be required to do a presentation. I will cover presentations in
the next section.

It is a good idea to take a copy of your CV with you for your own
reference. I have seen many candidates fumble and splutter when asked
to talk through the CV simply through the pressure of the occasion.
Unfortunately, a candidate who simply waffles or prevaricates at this time
often comes across as ‘shifty’ or suspect. By having a copy to hand, you
can glance at it and you will be surprised just how effective a prompt a
peripheral glimpse of a past employer’s name or an old job title is!

Do you have any, easy-to-read documentation that backs up your
claims of success in the past? For example, you may wish to take copies
of annual appraisals which show you in a good light. As these tend to
be lengthy documents, highlight the narrative comments of your line
and functional manager for the interviewer. If time allows they will read
these, as they are much more insightful than formal references as many
employers these days only supply basic, factual information on an
employee’s time with them for fear of litigation.

If you can, take hard-copy examples of work that you have done –
particularly if it is new or innovative. Do not, under any circumstances,
plagiarise anyone else’s work! Also have consideration for copyright
issues and do not take controlled documents with you without the
appropriate permissions.

Again, time is the likely deciding factor for whether or not the
interviewers will look at these. Often, it may even be the interviewers’
curiosity that prompts them to ask what it is you have brought with you.
It is a good idea to place anything you have brought to the interview in
plain sight and to one side of the desk or table you are sitting at. If the


interviewers have set the room up in a more casual manner, e.g. with
their chairs at 45 degrees to you, then place it at your feet on the side
that faces them. If possible utilise clear-covered folders rather than have
them within a posh leather folio.

It is a good idea to take a notepad and pen with you too. At the outset of
the interview ask if it is all right for you to take notes during the
employer’s input as you may wish to ask questions based on what they say.

OUTSIDE THE DRAGON’S DEN
When you are shown to the waiting area, be polite and thank your
guide. Once there, use your eyes and ears. Tannoy announcements may
just give you some snippet of information that you did not know. Look
at the walls. Are there copies of the Mission Statement? Are there copies
of Quality Assurance awards? Are there pictures of past successes?
There will most likely be trade magazines on a table for guests to peruse.
If you are there in good time you will have the opportunity to scan
these searching for any specific references to the organisation and also
any other snippets which may be of use to you once your inside. All of
these sources can yield little bits of data that can enhance your
knowledge of the organisation and may inform your conversation once
you are inside.

Sit up straight on the seats provided. I know, I’m being your mum again!
The reason all this sounds so familiar is because it is a universal truth.
When you are collected to go in, if you are sprawled all over their plush
leather couches then the very first image of you (and there are varying
reports of people making their mind up about someone within the first
10, 20, 30 seconds) will not be a complimentary one. Think of the
interview process as having started the minute you enter the building.
Be polite to every member of staff whom you encounter. Your big
chance starts here!

CHAPTER 3

LEGISLATION THAT
EMPLOYERS NEED TO
COMPLY WITH
While it is not the purpose of this text to be a reference book on
employment law, I have included this chapter to make you aware of the
legislative aspect of recruitment. Employers have to ensure they comply
with the varying pieces of law and regulations or suffer not only
punitive fines but also immeasurable damage to their reputation as an
employer. Discrimination claims of all types are heard in the
employment tribunals in Scotland, England and Wales. Employers may
also be liable to make compensatory awards to those whom they have
wronged. If you have a basic awareness of what an employer can and
cannot do in the interview situation, then you are more likely to know
whether or not you have the right to seek remedy at tribunal.

At the end of the chapter, I will briefly discuss employment tribunals
should you decide to make a claim if you believe you have been
unlawfully discriminated against when you have applied for a job and
failed to be appointed. Note: This legislation applies in the United
Kingdom only.

LEGISLATION AFFECTING RECRUITMENT
Employers have a legal responsibility to ensure no unlawful
discrimination occurs in the recruitment and selection process on the
grounds of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation and religion or
belief. The following acts set out the legal requirements and areas they
cannot discriminate in and are further discussed below:

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L E G I S L A T I O N T H A T E M P L OY E R S N E E D T O C O M P LY W I T H • 41

I Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
I Sexual Discrimination Act 1975
I Race Relations Act 1976
I Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992
I Disability Discrimination Act 1995
I Asylum and Immigration Act 1996
I Police Act 1997
I Data Protection Act 1998
I Employment Equality Regulations 2003.

REHABILITATION OF OFFENDERS ACT 1974
This act deals with spent criminal convictions.

SEX DISCRIMINATION ACT 1975
This Act is concerned with discrimination on the grounds of sex, gender
reassignment or marital status, either directly or indirectly, and covers a
broad range of workers including contract workers. It applies regardless
of length of service in employment or the numbers of hours worked. It
allows you to take a case to an employment tribunal. If your case is
successful, you will receive compensation for any financial loss you
have suffered; an award for injury to feelings can also be made.

The types of unlawful discrimination under the Sex Discrimination
Act are:

I Direct sex discrimination is less favourable treatment of a woman
than a man (or vice versa) because of her sex. For example refusing to
consider women for a mechanic’s job because of her sex, or for
refusing to consider a man for a nursery nurse’s job.
I Direct marriage discrimination is less favourable treatment of a
married person compared to a single person of the same sex. For
example having a policy of not employing married women.


I Indirect sex discrimination occurs when an employer applies a
provision, criterion or practice equally to both women and men but
which puts or would put women at a particular disadvantage when
compared to men (or vice versa) and which the employer cannot
show to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. An
example of this might be where an employer applies a provision that
all job applicants must have been previously employed by the Armed
Forces; as women have not traditionally worked in the Armed Forces
in the same numbers as men, fewer women than men would be
eligible to apply and so women would be put at a disadvantage.
I Indirect marriage discrimination occurs when an employer applies a
provision, criterion or practice equally to both married women and
single women (or married men and single men) but which puts or
would put married persons at a particular disadvantage when
compared to single persons of the same sex and which the employer
cannot show to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate
aim. An example of this might be a provision that applicants for
promotion must be prepared to relocate to a different part of the
country. As fewer married women than single women are mobile (and
also, arguably, fewer married men than single men), this may be
unlawful indirect marriage discrimination, unless the employer could
show that mobility was a valid and necessary function of the job and
was thus a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

Be aware however, that in certain limited circumstances it is lawful to
discriminate in recruitment, training, promotion and transfer in a job for
which the sex of the worker is a genuine occupational qualification
(GOQ). The SDA allows an employer to restrict applications for a vacancy
to women (or men) if the essential nature of the job, or particular duties
attached to the job, calls for a woman (or a man).

GOQs can only be claimed in relation to:


I physiology (excluding physical strength and stamina) – for example, a
female model for women's clothes;
I privacy and decency – for example, a male care assistant whose job
involves helping men dress or use the toilet;
I certain work in private homes – for example, a live-in carer;
I single-sex accommodation – for example, working on board a
submarine;
I single-sex establishments – can only be claimed when the jobholder
has to live in the premises provided, which are normally occupied by
persons of one sex and there is no separate sleeping accommodation
for persons of the opposite sex;
I personal welfare or educational services – for example, a female
counsellor in a rape crisis centre;
I jobs outside the UK in a country whose laws or customs are such that
the job can only effectively be done by a man;
I the employment of married couples – for example, residential posts
of female warden and male caretaker.

An employer cannot claim that a GOQ applies if there are enough other
members of staff of the appropriate sex to cover the duties in question.
For example, it would be unlawful for an employer to restrict a vacancy
in a clothes shop to women on the grounds that part of the duties
involved assisting in the changing room if there were enough women
sales assistants already employed to cover that aspect of the job.

But how can I find out if I was rejected for a post because of
my sex?
In order to successfully make a claim of direct sex discrimination, you
have to show that you would have been appointed if not for your sex.
You can do this by showing that you were better qualified and
experienced than the successful candidate. You may know little about
the employer and his recruitment practices; you may not know anything
about the successful candidate. In these circumstances, it is important


to use the Sex Discrimination Questionnaire (SD74) which can be
obtained from the Equal Opportunities Commission’s website at
www.eoc.org.uk. The form gives you the opportunity to ask the
employer particular questions which will help you find out more
information. You can ask the employer questions about the successful
candidate, including details of their sex, skills, qualifications and
experience. You can also ask for details of the recruitment process,
including how many men and how many women applied, the sex of all
those interviewed, their qualifications and experience. This information
should help you find out whether you have sufficient grounds for
proceeding with a sex discrimination claim. For example, suppose you
were not shortlisted, but you find out that all of the shortlisted
candidates were better qualified than you and that both men and
women were shortlisted – this would tell you that there would be little
point in pursuing a case of sex discrimination.

RACE RELATIONS ACT 1976
The employer is prevented from treating an individual in a less
favourable way because of their race or ethnic background.

This can be via direct discrimination which is where an employer
discriminates directly against a certain group or individual because of
their sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation or religion or belief.
For example, an employer may not want to employ women within the
work place or individuals from a certain race. However, the law does
not take into account that the employer may have chosen to
discriminate against someone for their own protection – for example,
the decision not to employ a black person may have been to protect
the individual from racist comments.

Alternatively it can come from indirect discrimination which is where an
employer discriminates against a group or individual without perhaps
realising they have done so.


TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS
(CONSOLIDATION) ACT 1992
This Act applies to discrimination on the basis of whether or not an
applicant is a trade union member.

DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION ACT 1995
The DDA places obligations on employers not to discriminate against
disabled people either indirectly or directly. It also places an additional
duty on employers to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to accommodate a
disabled person’s needs should they be suitable for a position and would
have been selected were it not for their disability.

Direct discrimination
Determination of whether there has been discrimination under the DDA
usually involves comparing – asking 'how would the employer's
treatment of me have been different if I was somebody else?' The
'somebody else' is known as a comparator. It can be a real person or a
hypothetical person. The comparator can be a person without a disability,
or a person not having the same disability as the disabled person making
the claim (that is, you). You will see how this might work below.

Direct discrimination happens when an employer's treatment of the
disabled person is because of that person's disability and the employer
treats the disabled person less well than they would treat a comparator
– that is, a non-disabled person or a person not having that particular
disability (you will hear this called 'less favourable treatment') AND the
relevant circumstances – and abilities – of the comparator are pretty
much the same (in ways that count) as those of the disabled person.
This part of the DDA became law in October 2004. However,
employment tribunals have not decided many cases about this kind of
comparing as we have gone to press.


Failure to make reasonable adjustments
This happens when an employer (or potential employer) has failed to
make adjustments which are reasonable to accommodate the person's
disability to the physical working environment (for example, things such
as doorways, toilets, office furniture, etc.) where this failure places a
disabled person at a substantial disadvantage and/or the employer's
criteria or practices (for example, their selection and interview
procedures, the terms on which employment is offered and conditions
of service) place the disabled person at a substantial disadvantage
and/or where the employer has failed to make an adjustment which
they had already accepted was reasonable and where the employer
knew or could reasonably be expected to know that the person
concerned had a disability.

If the employer does not make reasonable adjustments then you may
have a claim that unlawful discrimination has happened. If you can show
that the employer has failed to make an adjustment, the employer cannot
defend this failure. Examples of reasonable adjustments are given below.

You would need to:

I identify whether it is a physical feature of the building where you
work which puts you at a substantial disadvantage;
I identify whether it is a 'provision, criterion or practice' which places
you at a disadvantage;
I identify what the substantial disadvantage is and how it affects you;
I have made the employer aware that you are a disabled person and
that you require appropriate reasonable adjustments.

The duty to make reasonable adjustments is owed specifically to the
individual disabled person (that is, you). It does not matter that a non-
disabled person (or a person not having your particular disability) would
not have been put at a substantial disadvantage because of the


employer's 'provisions, criteria or practices' or by a physical feature of
the premises. What counts is that you (the disabled person) are at
a disadvantage.

What is reasonable?
If the adjustment you require is a reasonable one then the employer
must make it. However, an employer may say that the adjustment you
require is not 'reasonable' in the circumstances. For example because:

I the cost of the adjustment is too great;
I the adjustment is not practical;
I the adjustment would cause too much disruption;
I the adjustment would not have the desired effect.

It would be for an employment tribunal to decide whether the
employer's reasons adequately explain why the adjustment was not
reasonable and was not made.

Examples of reasonable adjustments
Reasonable adjustments that an employer (or potential employer)
should consider making include:

I allocating some of the disabled person's duties to another person;
I altering the disabled person's working hours or training;
I transferring the disabled person to a different place of work
or training;
I giving or arranging for training or mentoring;
I allowing the person to be absent during working or training hours for
rehabilitation, assessment or treatment;
I acquiring or modifying equipment (for example, providing voice-
activated computer software for an employee with a visual
impairment);
I modifying or adjusting disciplinary and grievance procedures;


I adjusting redundancy selection criteria;
I altering physical features of the building/office layout.

Disability-related discrimination
Disability-related discrimination happens when an employer's treatment
of the disabled person is for a reason related to their disability and is less
favourable than the way in which others, to whom that disability-related
reason does not apply, are or would be treated and which the employer is
unable to justify and/or when the employer has failed to make a
reasonable adjustment, which would have made a difference to the
reason the employer has given justifying its less favourable treatment.

To work out if disability-related discrimination has happened to you,
you need to identify whether a disability-related reason is a factor in
the treatment you are receiving and identify in what way the treatment
that you are receiving is less favourable compared to others to whom
the disability-related reason does not apply, and consider whether the
explanation for the treatment, if any, put forward by the employer could
justify the discrimination. This means that you would have to look at
whether there is a strong link between the explanation given for your
treatment and your circumstances. You would also have to consider
whether the explanation carried real weight. You would also need to
consider whether the employer had failed to make a reasonable
adjustment and, if so, whether, had an adjustment been made, it would
have made a difference to the explanation that the employer used to
justify the less favourable treatment.

ASYLUM AND IMMIGRATION ACT 1996
The Asylum and Immigration Act makes it a criminal offence for an
employer to employ those who do not have permission to work in the
UK. Be aware, then, that the employer is likely to ask you to provide one
of the following:


1. A passport showing that the applicant is a British citizen or has the
right to abode in the UK.
2. A document showing that the applicant is a national of a European
Economic Area country or Switzerland. This must be a national
passport or national identity card.
3. A residence permit issued by the Home Office which has an
endorsement stating that the applicant has a current right to
residence in the UK as the family member of a national from a
European Economic Area country or Switzerland.
4. A passport or other travel document endorsed to show that the
applicant can stay indefinitely in the UK or has no time limit on his
or her stay.
5. A passport or other travel document endorsed to show that the
applicant can stay in the UK and that this endorsement allows the
applicant to do the type of work the employer is offering if he or she
does not have a work permit.
6. An Application Registration Card issued by the Home Office to an asylum
seeker stating that the applicant is permitted to take employment.

Alternatively, the applicant can provide two of the following original
documents:

First combination:

I A document giving the person’s permanent National Insurance Number
and name. This could be a P45, P60, National Insurance Card or a letter
from a government agency. Along with checking and copying a
document giving the person’s National Insurance Number, the employers
must also check and copy only one of the following documents:
I A full birth certificate issued in the UK, which includes the names of
the applicant’s parents; OR
I A birth certificate issued in the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or
Ireland; OR


I A certificate of registration or naturalisation stating that the
applicant is a British citizen; OR
I A letter issued by the Home Office which indicates that the person
named in it can stay indefinitely in the UK or has no time limit on his
or her stay; OR
I An Immigration Status Document issued by the Home Office with an
endorsement indicating that the person named in it can stay
indefinitely in the UK or has no time limit on his or her stay; OR
I A letter issued by the Home Office which indicates that the person
named in it can stay in the UK and this allows him or her to do the
type of work the employer is offering; OR
I An Immigration Status Document issued by the Home Office with an
endorsement indicating that the person named in it can stay in the UK
and this allows him or her to do the type of work that is being offered.

Second combination:

I A work permit or other approval to take employment that has been
issued by Work Permits UK. Along with a document issued by Work
Permits UK, the employer should also see, check and copy one of the
following documents:
I A passport or other travel document endorsed to show that the
holder is able to stay in the UK and can take the work permit
employment in question; OR
I A letter issued by the Home Office confirming that the person named
in it is able to stay in the UK and can take the work permit
employment in question.

POLICE ACT 1997
The Police Act provides a statutory basis for certain criminal record
checks which may be used by employers. These checks can be made via
the Criminal Records Bureau which came into being in 2001.


Organisations who work with vulnerable children or adults tend to
utilise this service.

EMPLOYMENT EQUALITY REGULATIONS 2003
These regulations relate to sexual orientation, religion or belief and age.

Equality of opportunity should be an integral part of the recruitment
and selection process. Employers may be required to offer training and
assistance to under-represented groups. For example:

I pre-application assistance to applicants without English as their first
language.;
I adverts to include a statement encouraging applications from under-
represented groups.

DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998
Recruitment involves the gathering of personal information on
candidates. Recruiting managers must therefore ensure that they
comply with the requirements of the Data Protection Act in the way
they obtain and handle this information.

THE EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL
A tribunal is less formal than a magistrate’s court or county court but,
like a court, it has procedures and rules. There is a panel of three
members. The chairman is a lawyer. One of the other two members is
from an employer panel, the other from an employee panel.

When you take a discrimination claim it is up to you to convince the
tribunal that you have been discriminated against. The person you say
discriminated against you will defend the claim and try to persuade the
tribunal that you have not been discriminated against. Throughout the


process you are known as the claimant and your opponent as the
respondent. Together you are known as the parties to a claim.

You can bring claims against individual employees who you believe have
discriminated against you as well as the employer. It is important to
name individual employees as respondents as well as the employer if
there is any possibility that the employer might be able to persuade the
tribunal that it took reasonable steps to prevent the discrimination you
are complaining about.

To help you decide whether or not to take a claim to the tribunal, it is
worth considering what you hope to achieve and whether this is
something the tribunal can order if your claim succeeds. A tribunal can:

I make a decision on whether or not the law has been broken;
I award compensation for your financial loss because of
the treatment;
I award compensation for injury to feelings suffered as a result of
the treatment;
I award compensation for injury to health suffered as a result of
the treatment;
I in certain circumstances order exemplary damages to punish
the respondent;
I award interest on compensation.

Like all legal environments, there are certain burdens of proof before a
claim can be successful and a number of decisions regarding the shift in
the burden of proof in discrimination cases have been heard in the
Court of Appeal. The court states that, when considering discrimination
cases, a tribunal has to conduct a two-stage exercise.

First the claimant has to prove discrimination (i.e. facts from which the
tribunal could conclude that, in the absence of an adequate explanation,


the respondent has committed an unlawful act of discrimination); then
the respondent had to prove they did not commit the unlawful act.

The decision makes it clear that to succeed in relation to the first stage
of the test, a claimant must prove on the balance of probabilities facts
which, in the absence of an adequate explanation, would be
discrimination.

In assessing the first stage, the court states that it is important to bear
in mind that it is unusual to find direct evidence of discrimination. It is
also important to consider what inferences could be drawn from the
facts. For example, inferences could be drawn from an evasive or
equivocal reply to a race relations or sex discrimination questionnaire,
or a failure to comply with a relevant code of practice.

Once a claimant had passed this first stage of the test, the tribunal
should then go on to consider the second stage.

This stage, i.e. once the burden of proof has shifted to the respondent,
involves the respondent proving on the balance of probabilities that the
treatment was in no way whatsoever on the ground of sex or race or
disability. Therefore it is not enough for the respondent to provide an
explanation for the facts; they must show that sex, race or disability
were not grounds for the treatment in question.

As you can see, the law is very complex in this area and I would urge
you at this point to consider taking professional advice should you feel
that the prospective employer has treated you in a way which
contravenes any of the Acts mentioned above.

CHAPTER 4

UNDERSTANDING THE
EMPLOYERS’ PERSPECTIVE
Knowing what employers will be doing and thinking will give you an
insight into their processes and thoughts. This will help you better
prepare for your interview.

PREPARATION
In order to get the best out of any interview, employers should have
prepared thoroughly. Once they have shortlisted candiates and decided
on the interview date, they should have tried to find a good location - a
quiet office or room which is free from interruptions and suitable for all
candidates. They should have considered whether any of the candidates
attending are disabled, as it may be necessary to consider whether any
adjustments to the process need to be made, such as holding the
interview in a brightly lit or wheelchair accessible room. Hopefully they
will use a room that will create a good impression!

Good practice states that two managers and an HR representative are
present at interviews to minimise any bias and provide protection
against any discrimination claims that the candidate could make from a
one-to-one interview. Obviously the size and the resources of the
organisation will have a bearing on who actually interviews.

Be aware that when employers use two or more interviewers, they may
have agreed in advance who should ask which questions. This may
mean your head turns from interviewer to interviewer like watching a
tennis match!

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U N D E R S T A N D I N G T H E E M P L OY E R S ’ P E R S P E C T I V E • 55

When selecting interview questions, the interviewers should have made
themselves familiar with the application forms or CVs, job description
and person specification. To avoid discrimination and to assist the
interviewers in making an informed and fair decision, they are highly
likely to be asking the same questions of each candidate; however,
individualised questions may be needed during the interview to follow
up on particular answers or circumstances. This is perfectly acceptable
as long as the questions relate to the your suitability for the job and do
not stray into irrelevant personal details.

Most questions used should be based on the Job Description and Person
Specification which they initially based their shortlist on, so make sure you
have a good grasp of the detail contained within each of these documents
(if supplied to you) so that you may tailor your answers appropriately.

In order to encourage individuals to talk, interviewers often use open
questions which cannot be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and often begin with
‘what’, ‘why’, ‘how’ or ‘when’. So be prepared to do the lion’s share of the
talking! Incidentally, good interviewing practice has it that candidates do
80 per cent of the talking and the interviewers only 20 per cent.

CONDUCTING THE INTERVIEW
A good interviewer will explain the structure of the interview - i.e.
provide you with some background information, tell you that they will
be asking a series of questions and allow some time at the end to
discuss any questions that you may have – and how long it will last.

During the course of the interview the interviewers may fall silent.
Remember, the aim of the interview is to gain as much information as
possible from you to establish if you are suitable for the job. They
should know that any silences caused by you could just be that you are
considering your question. Don’t, however, be afraid to use terms such


‘Hmm, let me think about that for a moment’ to make sure they are
aware that you haven’t just gone blank.

They will probably take notes throughout the interview, so don’t be put
off by the lack of eye contact.

At the end of the interview, the interviewer may make sure that you are
familiar with the terms and conditions of the job and that they are
acceptable. You should be informed what will happen next and when a
decision will be made. If not, ask!

Since a contract of employment can be formed by a verbal offer and
acceptance, interviewers should ensure that they do not use words that
could be construed as an offer unless this is what they intend. In most
cases – and particularly where the job offer is to be made is subject to
conditions such as satisfactory references – it is likely that your
interviewer will say at best that they will recommend that an offer be
made or that an offer will be sent out in due course. The most common
approach is to make the offer afterwards. Interviewers will be aware that
promises made to successful candidates at their interview can end up as
part of their contract of employment, so are likely to be cagey in going
into too much detail about what any offer would entail. Remember,
statements made at interview can also be used as evidence of the terms
of the contract if there is subsequently a dispute about its content.

THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERVIEW NOTES
Taking notes throughout the interview is important because it not only
assists recruiters in their decision-making and helps when providing
candidate feedback but it also helps should their decision ever be seen
as ‘unfair’ by an unsuccessful candidate.

The Data Protection Act 1998 enables candidates to see interview notes
when they form a set of information on that candidate. It is your right
to ask to see these notes at any time (subject to the payment of an
administration fee in some cases).

CHAPTER 5

CONDUCTING YOURSELF AT
THE INTERVIEW
There is a variety of different types of interview: such as one-to-one,
panel and group interviews. The style of the interviewers will vary too –
some will seem very stern and assertive while others will be more
welcoming and engaging. In every case though, there are basic
principles that you should adopt in how you deport yourself and behave
during the interview.

I make no apologies for using the word ‘behave’ as there used to be a
(now discredited) style of interview where the interviewers were
deliberately antagonistic, the idea being to see if they could get the poor
candidate to behave as they would when working under pressure.
Thankfully, this practice is very rare these days and you are unlikely to
have to suffer the torment of this.

OK, basic principles then –

I When you first enter the room make sure you have good posture and
make eye contact with everyone in the room.
I As you are introduced to everyone, give a firm (not too firm)
handshake. If you are prone to sweaty palms, make sure you
discreetly wipe them before you commence shaking hands.
I Scan the room layout once only and maintain eye contact with the
lead or only interviewer.
I Look alert and wait to be asked to sit down.
I If you are offered a tea or coffee, politely decline. Its only another
thing that can go wrong – like spilling it down yourself or worse still
knocking it over!

57


I Three rules of behaviour in the interview are professionalism
professionalism, and professionalism! That’s not to say you can’t use
humour where appropriate, but remember, it’s not a comedy audition
and stay well away from areas of humour that could remotely be
considered offensive.
I You are likely to be asked if you found your way to the interview
venue easily. Always answer positively, even if it was a nightmare
getting there. These people will be so used to getting to those
premises that it will jar in their minds if you moan about not being
able to find the building. You are trying to build a consistently
positive picture in your mind from the word ‘go’.
I If you are asked about your well-being generally, e.g. ‘So how are you
today then Ellie?’ never, ever answer in the negative! Not even slightly
negative such as ‘Oh, you know’ or ‘So-so’. Be positive and
enthusiastic – ‘Very well thank you. And you?’ This is common social
interaction that oils the wheels a little. Be polite. End of lecture.

Ok, so the interview is under way. You may be asked to talk through
your career to date. This is where your copy of your CV comes in handy
to have in front of you. As I said in Chapter 2, it’s amazing what a visual
prompt can do for the memory. When talking about your career to date,
don’t repeat merely what it says on your CV. Your interviewers will have
read it already and are looking for you to expand on what it contains. If
you’ve done your own competency profiling as I suggested in Chapter 2,
you will be able to talk about your various positions in terms of your
competencies and, more importantly, achievements. Always accentuate
anything of note that you were responsible for. Beware, however, of
over-exaggerating your role in the success of an organisation. In a
recent reality TV show that sought a budding entrepreneur to work with
a highly successful and well-known London-based businessman, a
contestant claimed that through her efforts her company increased its
turnover by several million pounds. ‘What? By yourself?’ asked the
stony-faced interviewer. The resultant spluttering of the contestant was

C O N D U C T I N G YO U R S E L F A T T H E I N T E R V I E W • 59

a joy to behold – if you are prone to Schadenfreude that is! If you
were part of a team that achieved noticeable results, be honest. Don’t
try to hog all the glory for yourself.

In terms of the body language you should exhibit throughout the
interview, I would say don’t sit to rigidly upright in your chair but don’t
slouch either. For those of you who have dabbled or been involved in
training in neurolinguistic programming (NLP)1 do not on any account
fall into the trap of ‘mirroring’ the interviewer closely in order to build
rapport. Guess what? We’ve heard of it, and unless you are a master at
it, it will come over as false and manipulative. I’ve personally
experienced it once and clocked it after a few minutes. I had quite a bit
of fun moving my hair about and varying which leg I crossed etc. I
almost forgot about the questions I was asking this guy, such was the
fun I was having.

Its easy to say ‘be yourself’, but really that’s exactly what you should be.
The interactions between you and the interviewer (who may well turn
out to be your new boss) will then be genuine and honest, and a good
guide to whether or not you are going to get on.

The following chapters are about giving you the ammunition to come
back with well-thought out answers to tough questions.

Note
1. In NLP, practitioners are advised to match, as if in a mirror, the
gestures, postures and even breathing rates of the person they are
attempting to establish rapport with. NLP holds that subconscious
signals are sent to the other person which guides them into thinking
favourably of you.

CHAPTER 6

COMMON INTERVIEW
QUESTIONS … AND HOW TO
ANSWER THEM
QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR DRIVE FOR
ACHIEVEMENT

Q Tell me what you know about our business?
This question falls into this category as the new employer will be
assuming that you want to join their firm because it is a sound and
progressive career move for you. It is, isn’t it? That’s a hint … Again, this
question will come up time after time. You expected it to be asked. Didn’t
you? So you went onto the Internet and ‘Googled’ their name. You went
onto the corporate website and noted down some facts and figures.

Well, you employ some 15,000 people in over 12 countries, your main
areas of operation are in textiles and in paper, your …

Zzzzzzz – I’m asleep already. Any fool can regurgitate facts from a
website. It doesn’t mean you know anything about the company at all.
Now while I’m not suggesting that you don’t quote them some
devastatingly interesting statistics around their niche market specialisms
etc., what I am saying is get behind the facts that they present to you.
What is their market share? Who are their competitors? What threats are
there to their continuing growth? What opportunities might they wish to
exploit? What did their CEO say in their last annual report?

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COMMON INTERVIEW QUESTIONS … AND HOW TO ANSWER THEM • 61

By all means use the net, but don’t just settle for the party line. Find out
who their competitors are and what they are saying. Find out the
registered office of the company and telephone their marketing
department and request that they send out to you a copy of the most
recent annual report. By law in the UK, PLCs must comply with this
request from any person. I have had some fun over the years reminding
junior clerks of this!

Can you imagine interviewing five people and all of them trot out the
same facts and figures taken from the same source? What if the sixth
interviewee reminds you that at the moment you are only number two
in the world market; however, the CEO has a strategy in place to take
you to number one, and that involves … No contest! Get him/her back
for a final interview!

I’m asking you to be a bit smarter than the average bear on this one. Be
creative about how you illustrate what you know about their company.

Q Give an example of when you’ve experienced a
setback
If you are asked this question at interview and you are unprepared for it
you will probably make a hash of it. No question. It’s the interviewer
mining that negativity seam again and your auto-response will be to go
into denial about it. After all, someone as brilliant as me gets it right
first time, every time, don’t I?

The trick here is to recall a time when, although the eventual outcome
was positive, the success was down to either your intervention or your
realisation that what you were doing first time round was not working.
There’s no shame in admitting that your initial approach to a situation
turned out to be less effective than you’d hoped, but through your well


developed sense of self-awareness, you changed some or all aspects of
your approach and achieved the aim after all.

Interviewers will be expecting you to describe the situation, your
thinking behind why you initially did what you did, how you reacted to
the realisation that it wasn’t working and maybe the reaction of others
round about you. For example:

We had a situation in my last place where team leaders were identified
as needing training in the various areas of management expertise in
order for them to perform at the level at which the company expected
them to. My initial thought was to get them an off-the-shelf training
course which would supply these skills. I booked them onto a course at
the local college, which meant they would attend on a half-day
release basis on various days of the week. I informed their managers of
what I had done, emphasising how I had arranged it so that not all the
team leaders would be away from work at the same time. A few weeks
passed and although I was getting anecdotal evidence from the shop
floor about the course, when I got the first report from the college
which showed nearly half of the employees who were supposed to be
attending only did so intermittently I was shocked. I immediately
arranged for these guys to come in and see me on a one-to-one basis
to find out why they hadn’t been going. During these interviews I
discovered that many of them were actually scared of the traditional
classroom environment and for most of them, the last time they had
been in that environment was when they were 16! It was obvious to
me then that this methodology wasn’t going to work for all of them, so
I took a poll of all of the team leaders to identify who would rather not
be in the classroom environment. Of the 26 team leaders seven said
they were actively resistant to it and two were unsure. I then did some
research and found that I could have these nine guys do an NVQ-
based qualification with the learning provider actually coming on site
to deliver the more formal parts in our own training room. The


qualification that they would gain would be broadly similar to those
attending the college course, so that was a bonus. I also successfully
negotiated a partial refund from the college for the guys we took out
as they hoped to get more business from us in the future. In hindsight,
perhaps I should have had more dialogue with those who were going
to be affected by the training and sought to supply a training
methodology to suit their needs.

This answer contains all the essential elements: an outline of the
circumstances; your initial approach; your recognition that it wasn’t
working; your gathering of data to come up with an alternative solution;
the implementation of that solution and its subsequent success; and
finally a recognition of where you went wrong in the first place.

Q What have you done to progress your education
to date?
Obviously I cannot state here what you should be saying in terms of
formal education because you will all have different experiences.
However, education comes in many forms – and you should talk with
enthusiasm about this …

Well, I left school with a few GCSEs and one A level and started in
company ABC’s sales department. The company sold house and car
insurance via their call centres. After I had received my initial training
for the job I was taken on for, there were a few opportunities for me to
attend short training sessions such as assertiveness training and
customer care etc., but I realised I was capable of a lot more so I asked
my team leader if I could perhaps spend some time in other
departments, such as the underwriters room. They seemed to be
pleased with my enthusiasm so they let me spend a month watching
and learning what they did in that department. As a result, when a
vacancy came up I was the obvious choice for the role and got a


position in there. When I was there, I asked the company to support me
in going to night school to gain insurance qualification, and I’m
pleased to say that they did – as you can see from my application.

This answer conveys several attractive qualities from the employer’s
perspective: enthusiasm, loyalty, a willingness to broaden your skill base,
a recognition of the importance of industry-specific formal
qualifications and a desire to be proactive in your career.

Q Do you think you are overqualified?
Why on earth would an interviewer ask you this question? Didn’t they read
your CV before they decided to interview you? You can safely assume that
this is not really an issue for them otherwise they would have discarded
you at first sift. What they are really trying to gauge is if they have been
lucky enough to be able to buy a Ferrari for the cost of a BMW.

Turn the tables on them. ‘Why do you think I’m overqualified? Tell me
what your concern is?’ Wait patiently for an answer. Do not be surprised
if they are flustered and struggle to explain. If they respond that the
concern is that you are going to get bored, reply with something along
the lines of that you are dedicated and don’t start projects that you
don’t complete. Say ‘My hope is that I can do the job sufficiently well to
be recognised for this and maybe this will help me progress in the
company in due course’.

Q Do you mind reporting to someone who is
younger than you?
Easily countered with, ‘Absolutely not, I respect competency and position
and have no problem working with people who have obviously proven
themselves in the past to be worthy of their position.’


Q Which is more important to you, the job itself or
your salary?
Ah, now I bet you are thinking that they are trying to get you to admit
that you are a greedy, grasping sod, now aren’t you? Interviewers are
realistic you know. Whilst surveys tell us that money isn’t always the
most important thing about work, there are damn few of us who would
work for free! It’s OK to mention salary in your response.

Like most people I suppose I am looking for a salary and benefits
package commensurate with my experience and qualifications, and
the relative worth you have already placed upon the role. However to
me it’s crucial to be in a job I enjoy doing and feel that I am making a
genuine contribution to the success of the Company.

Q Whyother candidates? you rather than one of
the
should we employ

Ouch! You didn’t see that one coming, did you? Should you really be
negative about the other candidates to paint you in a better light? Of
course not. How could you be? You don’t know them from Adam! The
interviewer wants to know what unique quality makes you the best
person for the job. To differentiate yourself from the other candidates,
you must show that you have researched the company thoroughly and
studied the job description. You should be prepared to demonstrate
clearly how your skills, qualifications, and accomplishments match the
employer’s specific needs. It is important to convey genuine enthusiasm
for the post. You might want to finish with:

Of course I have no idea of the quality of the other candidates,
although they must be of a high quality for you to interview them.
However I would like to think that by the end of this interview I will
have done enough to convince you that I have everything that you are
looking for and that I am the best choice in this instance.


Q In your job, what is ‘good enough’?
Big flashing green light! Big flashing green light! This is a personal
invitation, copperplate script on hand-tooled vellum, delivered by a
footman in fetching white stockings and scarlet slippers! This is your
opportunity not only to underline your work ethic, but also to reinforce
your approach to quality.

Well, it would be easy for me to sit here and say that to be good
enough I have to produce the work required of me to an acceptable
quality and on time. However, my own personal standards are higher
than that. I like to look for ways to add that little bit extra to what I do.
It may be something as simple as hand delivering something to
someone rather than putting it into the internal mail, or producing a
set of comparison figures to contrast against, rather than assuming
the reader of the new figures will do that anyway. I suppose I am an
advocate of continuous improvement – not change for change’s sake,
but I’m always looking for a better way of doing things whilst
respecting existing traditions.


QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR STRATEGIC THINKING
You may think that this section is not really for you and be tempted to
skip by it because you’ve never worked in a role where you’ve been
expected to think ‘strategically’ – don’t!! Strategy is not all about top-
level corporate decision-making or ‘blue-sky thinking’ needing the
mental capacity of Einstein. It’s about thinking further ahead than the
completion of the current task. I bet you do it all the time but just don’t
give it such a grand name as ‘strategy’.

Once you’ve read some of my examples, have a think about times
when you have looked further than the end of your nose. Maybe it
was simply organising your diary or even playing the ‘long game’ in
terms of office politics.

Q ‘In what pastvisionary/strategic thinking?’most
evidence of
situations have you shown

This question is aimed directly at you to get you to describe an occasion
where you thought about things from a wider perspective. The trick here
is not to go into too much detail because that will ultimately bore your
interviewers. They will not have the same terms of reference that you
have and will not be able to know about the characters involved. Like all
your answers in the interview, they should be concise but with sufficient
detail to get the highlights across. A typical answer would be:

In my department we basically processed papers that came from
another department. Once we had done our bit, the papers went to a
third department for them to work on. It meant that each of the three
departments was only aware of their bit of the puzzle. Looking at each
piece of the process like that was just the way things had always been
done. In reality what it meant was that there was lots and lots of
communication via e-mails and telephone conversations throughout


the day where people were seeking confirmation of something being
done or clarification on a point, etc. We were even on different floors in
the building, so nipping into the next office wasn’t on either. I took a
proposal to my boss outlining my plans for multidisciplinary teams,
teams made up of representatives of all three departments. My
rationale was that we could each have a client base or set of key
accounts so that between us we would handle all their needs from
enquiry to dispatch. It also meant that the client could have a single
point of contact with our firm for all their enquiries, no matter what
the subject was. I explained to my boss that there would be training
needs for us all where we would all need to acquire the skills necessary
to do two jobs previously done by others. It would also mean some
office moving and equipping, because I thought that we’d need new,
round tables, so each team could work facing each other making it
easier for information to flow round the team. We had had a problem
with people leaving before due to the repetitive nature of the work,
and I was sure that this new way of working would help counter that,
due to the increase in variety for the individual. The customer would
receive a slicker operation too. I’m pleased to say that we trialled it in
our branch and it worked so well that we rolled it out throughout the
country. My boss complimented me on ‘seeing the bigger picture’ and
made mention of it during my appraisal.

This answer not only shows a continuous improvement attitude, but that
you were able to demonstrate an ability to think of the wider implications
for the organisation, not just the team you were working in.


Q What do in the long the main threats to our to
business
you see as
term? What can we do
ensure long-term success?
As I have said earlier in this book, most employers will expect you to
have researched them to some extent on the internet or in the library.
This approach will give you lots of statistics and facts about them –
ones that they wish you to know. What a company’s website will not
give you is information on their competitors or the state of the market
that they are in, or developments that their competitors have that may
influence their position in the marketplace. My advice to you then is
that when you do your research, find out who their direct competitors
are and go to their websites too. Try to get a global viewpoint of their
market as a whole. Ask yourself what external influences there are on
their products or services. For example, changes in legislation, such as
the introduction of smoke-free workplaces may have a negative effect
on organisations that make products related to smoking – tobacco,
paper, filters, etc. – but may have a positive effect on those
organisations providing employers with ‘no smoking’ signs, or who
manufacture smoking shelters etc. A typical answer would be:

As your organisation manufactures bread and bakery products, I
believe that it may be subject to external influences such as the price
of grain because poor harvests in grain-producing countries can have
a dramatic effect on your raw material costs. I’m sure the Atkins Diet
craze had a negative effect too through people consuming less
carbohydrates, but I think these effects are more likely to be short lived.
I’d bet that if we had a long, dry summer, more people would be having
barbecues, and as hamburgers are very popular for barbecues, then
people will need more bread rolls to put them in. During my research
on your company and its competitors [it’s great if you can actually
TELL them you’ve done research] I see that XYZ Bakeries and
Ubiquitous Bakeries have both opened new plants in this part of the


country. This would tell me that this is still a growing market for them
to invest in new plant, and they might see benefits from economies of
scale as they get larger, which would drive their costs down, making
them more profitable and therefore more competitive. I also saw that
XYZ have developed a new process which reduces the baking time of a
loaf by 20 per cent. This will also make them tough to compete against.
I would say in order to secure the long-term success of your business
you will need to ensure that you are keeping up with technological
advances in the manufacture of your product. You will also have to tie
your suppliers down to deals that secure your supply of raw material,
with minimal fluctuations in price, and you will need to ensure that
your distribution system is at least as good as your competitors to
enable you to keep abreast of them in terms of getting goods to
market as fresh as is possible.

This answer demonstrates your commercial and business acumen by
offering the employer a chance to see that you can develop an opinion
based on various sources of information – and not just regurgitate the
corporate blurb.


QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP
BUILDING
In the vast majority of working environments, people are required to
interact with others on some level or other. Your potential new
employer is looking to reassure themselves that you will ‘fit in’. ‘Is that
strictly necessary?’ I hear you ask in a fiendishly clever, Devil’s advocate
sort of way. Look at it this way: how do you feel about new people
coming to spend time with you? Be truthful, would you more expect
them to fit into you and your group’s social ‘norms’, or feel that it’s
more you and your group’s responsibility to fit in with the new person?
Hmmm, call me psychic, but I’m betting it’s the former.

The employer is using these questions in a two-pronged approach.
Firstly, he or she may be exploring whether or not you can build
relationships as that is part of the job requirement, or he/she might be
seeking confirmation that you are of a similar personal disposition to
the team where the vacancy lies.

My advice to you is, once again, to be true to yourself. If you try to
adopt a persona that you feel is the type suited to the team in question
and you get the job, it will not be that long before your true self comes
out and that may be in conflict with others. There are not many people,
actors excepted, that can carry off displaying behavioural characteristics
that are different from their own for any length of time. You may also
find that you have talked yourself into the job and regret it because
your new colleagues ‘are not your kind of people’ either!

Q Tell me about a recent situation when you had
to build a relationship with a new colleague.
Why was the relationship important?
This question can be answered equally well from the point of view of a
subordinate or a manager. As a manager your relationship with your


direct reports will often influence how well your department performs,
therefore it’s imperative you get your team pulling for you as much as
they are pulling for themselves. A typical answer might be:

When I took over as Team Leader in my last job, I realised that I’d have
to gain credibility really quickly. I decided not to trot out the old
platitudes about ‘my door always being open’ etc., but rather tried to
make myself seem grounded and definitely on their side. I knew that
one of the team had applied for my job and had the potential to
undermine me from within, so one of my first tasks was to take him
aside (I did 1-2-1 meetings with all of my staff in my first week) and
shared with him my views on being new in the role. I told him I needed
someone whom I could trust, to be my guide to office politics and to
steer me through the minefield of the organisation’s policies and
procedures. He was delighted to be separated out from the rest of the
team like that, to be treated like a trusted aide so quickly. However, I
knew this was a high-risk strategy as he might have reacted negatively
in a fit of pique, but thankfully it turned out well.

From a subordinate’s position, a good answer might be:

When I first joined the team I realised that I had to fit in really quickly. I
made sure I asked lots and lots of questions relating to my job, but I
took an interest in people’s personal lives too – without prying of
course. I made sure that I remembered people’s partner’s names etc.,
and to ask how their children had got on at sports day, for example, if
a colleague happened to mention she was excited about her son
taking part. I was scrupulous in meeting deadlines or getting back to
people when I said I would and I was always honest enough to admit
when I didn’t know something or couldn’t help someone. That way
people would trust me and I would be seen as credible and reliable.


Q Think of someone who’s particularly effective at
building and maintaining relationships with
others. What do they do exactly?
This question is not only about you having self-awareness, but also the
ability to spot such traits in others. You can use a bit of poetic licence
here if you wish. After all, if you describe this person in the correct way,
it could be Hamish McTavish from Glasgow (who might not even exist)
to Sir Richard Branson (who may or may not be as you describe him).
Either way, the crux of the matter here is for you to describe this person,
ficticious or otherwise, using the right type of adjectives.

I used to work with this chap called Ewan. I’ve never seen someone
who could get so many people to do things for him when he needed
them to or to be so readily accepted in any company. From my
observations of him I saw that he always communicated in the same
relaxed and friendly manner with everyone, no matter what their
position in the company. He’d occasionally work late in order to get
things completed for other people. He genuinely seemed to care about
others and always made a point of being extra helpful to new people. I
once asked him what he thought he did that made people trust him,
and he simply told me that he always treated others like he expected to
be treated: he was truthful, kept his promises, didn’t make excessive
demands on others, and acted on the basis that people are intrinsically
good and would rather do you a good turn than a bad one. I suppose
you might say that some could’ve thought him naïve, but I didn’t. He
lived up to his own ideals which made people round about him live up
to them too.

Q How do you behave when you meet new people?
The reality might be that you might behave differently each time you
meet new people. However, they really wouldn’t ask you a question like


this to get such a bland answer as that would they? No. If you didn’t
answer ‘no’ at this point, go stand in the corner and come and see me at
home time.

What they are getting at here is – are you self-aware enough of your
own behaviours and how they affect others? Can you adapt depending
on the character or nature of who you are with?

I’m conscious that I don’t dominate the conversation when I meet new
people. I genuinely like people, so I ask a lot of questions – not enough
to be accused of prying, but I always try and remember the details of
what they say to me. Maybe it’s their interests, or things they’ve said
about their family. I then drop it into conversation and the response is
usually positive.


QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR COMMERCIAL
AWARENESS
Your initial reaction to seeing a section devoted to commercial awareness
might be ‘Well, I don’t really have to be that commercially aware do I?
There are loads of people for that such as accountants, finance controllers
etc.‘ The truth is, you really SHOULD have a commercial awareness no
matter what line of business your employer is in. After all, if the enterprise
is not successful, it won’t be in existence for very long. Be aware that each
and every employee, some way or another affects the bottom line of a
business’s balance sheet and you should be prepared to demonstrate how
you contribute and your awareness of the ‘bigger picture’. You may be
looking to work for a non-profit-making organization. In this context,
look at ways of minimising expenditure, which makes the money that
does come in go that much farther.

Q Why, in your opinion, do customers choose our
products and services?

The initial question here is almost designed for anyone who ever took a
marketing course in the past or has a basic grasp of common sense (I
know, I know, it’s in short supply).

Well I think first and foremost your organisation has built up its brand
to a point where people automatically think of you when they think of
(their product/service here). My view is that people regard Company
XYZ as one of the leaders in their field supplying this particular market
in such a way that people know what to expect: a good product at a
good price at the right time.

Q How could we make them more competitive?
‘It is a basic fact of business that you can only make more profit by
either (a) selling more product at the same margin, or (b) increasing


your margin, and you can only increase your margin by either raising
selling prices or reducing selling costs. I don’t really know enough
about your particular business model to offer a serious opinion on
what I think you should do. Do we have time to explore this further?‘

Here again we have used honesty in admitting we don’t have all the
facts. The candidate who makes bold statements on how the people
interviewing him have actually got it all wrong thus far is not brave,
merely foolish! Again, you have shown good time awareness by asking if
there is enough time to go deeper into this question.

Q What are the market trends that affect us?
Here is a chance for you to shine. You NEED to know the factors that
affect your prospective employer’s business.

For example, if they make items which are not considered to be good for
us or the environment – cigarettes, sweets, 4 × 4 cars, nuclear reactors,
etc. – then you should be aware of the mood of the country at that
moment. Maybe there has been a lot of press coverage on childhood
obesity and it’s a boiled sweet manufacturer you are trying to work for.
You might want to lead with:

Has Company XYZ examined using sugar substitutes in its products?
I see the Chancellor has put the road tax levy up again for SUV
vehicles. Is the industry lobbying Parliament to try and have this
decision reversed? With the advent of biofuels, I’d have thought that
the type of vehicles you make were ripe for this change in motoring.

There is no substitute for research here. Prospective employers will
choose every single time someone who demonstrates a knowledge of
their market over and above a candidate with specific knowledge of
their business they’ve gleaned from the corporate website.


Q What opportunities have you had to identify
cost savings in the past? Give an example.

Again, this is your most direct opportunity to demonstrate your
contribution to the bottom line. If every employee came up with a single
idea which saved the company money or increased its profitability, then
that company would be successful beyond the dreams of avarice. It may
seem like Utopia, but it’s what employers want. Do yourself a favour and
stand out from the herd by showing how you have been and will
continue to be a positive item on the balance sheet!

In our department we kept a number of forms which employees
needed to complete, such as a ‘car registration form’ which entitled
them to a free parking pass on site, a ‘holiday requisition form’ and a
‘bereavement leave application form’, etc. This involved them leaving
their place of work and calling in at our office. Employees always came
during working hours, not break times. Sometimes they brought a
mate with them to keep them company. I thought it was daft for them
to come to us and the forms should be more local to them. My first
thought was to supply all our team managers with paper copies so
they would have their own supply, but then I remembered that we had
a company-wide intranet site where forms could ‘sit’ and be
downloaded only when needed. I had the IT people put them up on the
site and then sent a global e-mail telling people about the changes. As
a result, the traffic slowed to a trickle and lots of time was saved by
people no longer coming over to our office.

Q How did you choose where to make the savings?
Our company was on the verge of going into austerity measures and
we were all asked to think of ways to save money. We had lots of the
usual ideas: using both sides of paper, trimming faxes so no blanks


went through the machine, doing away with Post-it notes, etc. It just
dawned on me that the biggest cost for us was people’s time, so the
more time we could save, the better. I then realised that it was actually
other people’s time in coming to see me and my colleagues that was
the biggest waste, so I came up with the intranet idea.

When you come up with your own answer to this question, be sure to
incorporate an element of you comparing options and going for the
most practical/cost-effective/easily achieved, etc.

Q How much money do you think you saved?
At first we couldn’t think how we were going to quantify the savings,
but then we simply took an average number of calls a day we used to
receive asking for forms, multiplied that by the average number of
minutes the whole journey to and from our office took and then
multiplied that by an average hourly rate figure given to us by finance.
We reckoned on saving over £4,000 a year.

Never, ever, make wild claims on any savings you made – you might very
well be asked to justify them.


QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR LEADERSHIP OF
CHANGE
More and more these days, the philosophy of ‘continuous improvement’ is
being adopted and applied by organisations in every sector. By the very
nature of continuous improvement, change is inevitable and indeed
welcomed – but not by all. Some individuals react well to change and see
this as a way of enriching or improving their working lives. Others are
fearful of change and either resist overtly or by more subtle methods.

You may very well be asked about your experiences of change in the
workplace and possibly how you have initiated or led change. This does
not have to mean formal change programmes with milestones and
Gantt charts and the like. It may mean simple changes to the way you
have worked in the past that has accrued a benefit for the organisation.
It may mean how you have reacted to a change thrust upon you. Either
way, there is nothing as sure as change as organisations develop and
evolve over time, so you should be equipped with the types of answers
that employers want to hear.

Q Tell us about a recent time when you had to
adapt to a major change.
I How did you adapt?
I What was difficult about the transition?
The clue to a good answer for this question is in the use of the word
‘major’. Your interviewer is not looking for some answer in relation to
how you changed suppliers for the photocopy paper for example. This is
BIG change they are on about. Granted, you may not have been subject
to big change, as not everybody has, so if you haven’t, just say so.

I worked for an organisation which was a plc and the culture and style
of how we worked was very much as you’d expect from a large
organisation. We had the best equipment, flexible working practices,
cheap gym membership, etc. However, the company’s shares were
bought by a group of venture capitalists and that’s when the changes


began. After a while, once the dust had settled, we started to get visits
from people who were working on a ‘synergy project’. We soon found
out that this meant they were looking for ways to identify savings by
seeing where we had functions and processes that could be carried out
by the new owners’ existing staff and they could cut costs by axing
people and jobs at our end. After the HR function was moved to their
head office along with finance and marketing, we realised that ‘we
weren’t in Kansas any more’ and that things were going to be a lot
different. Where we always had a human being to talk to in relation to
personnel matters, we now had to talk to a voice on the end of the
phone and our calls were logged and we were given a ‘case number’.
Most people hated this and many complaints were lodged about it. I
had heard of the ‘Business Partner’ approach to HR which has first-line
managers carrying out many of the less complex functions of HR. I
looked into this and suggested to my department head that all first-
line managers get a grounding in discipline, grievance, recruitment
and the like so that we could deal with our team members’ basic stuff
without them having to phone this hated ‘hotline’. He put the idea up
the chain of command and I’m pleased to say that we had a number of
seminars on personnel subjects and we were given basic guide books
to help us out. So what started off as a terrible situation turned out to
be one where a lot of us were pleased to be receiving new and
interesting training, and we provided a solution to the problem of
there not being a human face there when people had problems.

Q Tell us about a recent time when you questioned
or challenged a way of working.
I Why did you question it?
I What alternative did you suggest?
I To what extent were your ideas used?
I worked in a factory where most of the jobs were not particularly
complex, but nevertheless there were training periods required for
someone to become competent in each of the roles they might be
asked to fulfil. The system the company adopted was one where an


inexperienced employee would work with someone who had more
experience (although sometimes not a lot more) for around two weeks.
The team leader would then go through a checklist and tick off all the
various boxes which were supposed to indicate that the new person
was competent in that role. I was asked to take part in what is known
as an ‘intervention’. This is where a focus group made up of employees
from various departments around the factory would examine a
particular issue and find ways to resolve whatever the perceived
problem was. The problem we were looking at was the quality of
training of new starts. During this intervention, I was given the task of
reviewing these ‘competency profiles’ as the checklists were known.
After a little while I noticed that the wording of these checklists was
weighted towards what inputs the employee had been given. For
example: ‘Has the employee been shown where the red emergency stop
button is located?’ and ‘Has the employee been told what is the correct
personal protective equipment to wear?’ What struck me was that
someone could have been told vital information – such as how to halt
the machine in an emergency – but there was no guarantee that they
had absorbed this information and could put it into use! As a lot of the
plant and equipment was potentially dangerous, I flagged this up to
the intervention leader. I suggested that we change the wording on all
the checklists to record that the individual has demonstrated their
knowledge, not just record the fact that they’d been informed. For
example: ‘Can the employee demonstrate the location of and correct
usage of the red emergency stop button?’ and ‘Can the employee
demonstrate the correct personal protective equipment they must
wear and how to use it?’ I also flagged up the fact that we had team
leaders who were signing off people as competent on a machine or
process that they themselves had not been trained on.

After a discussion with the members of the intervention team, we
made this one of our key recommendations of the project. As a result,
each team leader was tasked with rewriting each of the competency
profiles in use in their area and they also had to be signed off as
competent on each machine or process that they were signing other
people off on.


QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR LEADERSHIP SKILLS
There comes a time in many people’s career when they move up the
greasy pole and take on the responsibility for others’ work as well as
their own. Many people only describe success in their chosen careers in
terms of how far up the corporate tree they have climbed (to mix my
metaphors). As yet, other methods of measuring career success have not
fully been assimilated. So for the purposes of this chapter, we will treat
any role that involves leading others as a ‘good thing’. But have a look at
what others have said about leadership before you decide exactly what
type of a leader you are:

Dwight D. Eisenhower: ‘You do not lead people by always hitting them
over the head. That’s assault, not leadership’.

Faye Wattleton: ‘The only safe ship in a storm is leadership.’ Who also
said: ‘Whoever is providing leadership needs to be as fresh and
thoughtful and reflective as possible to make the very best fight.’

The former British Prime Minister, James Callaghan, said: ‘A leader
must have the courage to act against an expert’s advice.’ A more
recent British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, also famously said: ‘The art of
leadership is saying no, not yes. Its very easy to say yes.’

The answers I have given below are written from the perspective of
someone who has actually led others before. However, it is always going
to be a difficult position for someone who has never been a leader
before to get across how good they ‘would be’ as a leader, as they have
not been tested. However, if you can grasp the underlying principles of
the answers here, then you can adopt your response accordingly, to a
‘… well, if I had been in that situation, I would have …’ etc.


Q Describe a time when you had to coordinate the
work of other people.
I What were you trying to achieve?
I How did you go about organizing the work?
This is the classic version of this question. This is the big pink neon sign
that says: ‘C’mon! Show us just what a brilliant leader you are!’ You can
adapt your answer to fit depending on whether or not you have
experience in leadership.

I was working as a member of the production staff at XYZ Co. and this
year they conducted an employee satisfaction survey. Once all the
results were in, a focus group was formed to look at the results. I was
nominated from our area to be part of this group. I thought at first it
was just a matter of turning up and expressing my opinion about the
results. I quickly found out that the company was deadly serious about
making changes based on the results of this survey. One of the results
that came out was that people often felt that they were kept in the dark
about what was going on with the company. ‘Mushroom management’
was the way one person described it! An action was formulated that
stated a sub-group would examine the options for improving
communications on site and I was designated the ‘action point owner’. I
was given a free hand to choose three or four people from the entire
workforce – both blue and white collar – to work on this with me. I had a
timescale for feeding back recommendations to the focus group. I
thought the best approach would be to have team members with
different skill sets to help us achieve our goal which was effectively to
provide the employees by suitable means with the type of information
that they wanted to hear. I thought about the various elements of the
action point and had an idea of who I wanted in the team. I convened a
meeting quickly and designated each team member with a particular
role. I had a secretary devise, distribute and collate the results of a simple
questionnaire to determine what exactly people wanted to know about; I
chose one chap from our buying department and he was tasked with
finding out exactly what ways we could use to get our message across.


That meant he was pricing up plasma TV screens, text-light boards, the
cost of printing newsletters, etc. I chose one chap from our planning
department who drew up a progress chart itemising all our actions and
milestones. I chose one lady from production who I knew was a member
of a writers circle. She would be tasked with producing the actual
wording of anything we produced.
Over the course of the six-month project we met regularly to discuss
our survey’s findings, to come up with ideas for the media we would
use to get the messages across, to iron out any difficulties we had and
to discuss factual information such as the cost of buying and
installing large-screen televisions etc.
My approach was that, like any good football team, you needed a mix of
specialists. You couldn’t win trophies with eleven strikers on the pitch. I was
very fortunate in that we all worked well together. However, I am aware
that sometimes there can be conflict in teams for any number of reasons,
including personality clashes, but I did not have to cope with that. It was
not all plain sailing of course as people had other commitments to attend
to outside of working on this action. I had to learn diplomacy skills quite
quickly to ensure that each team member contributed their bit on time and
in full. As a result, we produced a set of recommendations, some of which
were adopted without change and some were adopted in a less expensive
form. In all I think I did well and received positive feedback from my
manager, my team and the focus group.

Q Think of someone who isWhat do you effective
in providing leadership.
particularly
think they
do successfully?
Do you have a business hero? Honestly? I watched a certain BBC series
recently. The premise was that 12 ‘candidates’ lived together in a posh
London house for 12 weeks and were split into two teams and had to take
part in business simulations on a weekly basis, after which some poor sod
from the losing team was ‘fired’. This process went on until there was only
one candidate left. The reward for the overall winner was a job with a well-
known London-based businessman and a six-figure salary. Towards the end
of this so-called ‘job interview from hell’, the business guru pulled in three


of his closest advisers to conduct face-to-face interviews with the
remaining five candidates. I hesitated to describe them as ‘interviews’. Out
and out maulings would be a better description! I’m happy to report,
constant reader, that these were far removed from how 99.999999 per cent
of employers, enlightened or otherwise, would behave during the interview.
I digress. One of the interviewers asked one of the candidates why he
wanted this particular job. ‘Oh, Sir Albert Sweetner [name changed] is an
all-time hero of mine. I was aware of him as a boy growing up and I’ve
always wanted to work for him.’ As you can imagine, the interviewer was
close to throwing up (as was I watching this). When challenged on his
strange taste in boyhood heroes, our extremely clever but demonstrably
addled candidate continued along this line leaving the interviewer shaking
his head in disbelief. The point I’m making here is that if you do chose a
public figure to illustrate your answer to this question, don’t go overboard
on your praise for them. Be sure of your facts and figures, history and
anything else you wish to use for why you think they are a good leader.

A far safer strategy would be to describe someone your interviewer has
never heard of. Far be it from me to encourage you to make use a
fictional example…

I used to work for a manager called Albert Einstein. He was head of a team
of eight people including myself. I found him to be an excellent leader
because, although he was not the most charismatic person in the world, I
trusted him. He was consistent with his treatment of people. When he
gave you something to do, you knew what he wanted, how he wanted it
and when he expected it by. When he pointed out something you had
failed in it was never in a condescending way and he never shouted at
you. He pointed out the error and asked you to come to the conclusion of
what the root cause was and then asked what ‘we’ could do to prevent it
happening again. He was loyal to his team but not to the point of
blindness. He was always encouraging us to stretch ourselves and do
more complex and important tasks. He could definitely keep to himself
anything you told him in confidence. He also liked us to have fun at work.
He actively encouraged celebrating people’s birthdays or the birth of a
baby. He was an all round good egg and I wish there were more managers
like him. As I progress in my career, I intend to model myself on him.


QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR CONTINUOUS
IMPROVEMENT
If you are applying for any sort of role within a company, particularly in
the manufacturing sector, then it is almost certain that you will find
yourself being asked questions about ‘continuous improvement’. For
those who do not know, continuous improvement is a philosophy which
does exactly what it says on the tin: it’s about looking for changes in
the way people do things or processes are performed which provide
incremental gains for the organisation. Larger organisations have whole
continuous improvement departments where ‘lean thinking’ and ‘just in
time’ approaches are commonplace. To survive, an organisation must
always look to be increasing or maintaining its profits. (Yes, I can hear
you say: ‘But what about non-profit-making organisations, smarty
pants?’ These organisations do need to make a profit, perhaps not just
in terms of money. Their ‘profitability’ may be a measure of the impact
they make in their field. They will still need to have made a difference
compared to their starting point, otherwise what would be the point of
their existence?) There are only a limited number of ways to improve
profits: sell more, sell at a higher price or spend less on your operations.
For the individual employee, the easiest way for them to contribute is in
the last area – reducing the cost of what we do.

The Japanese have a word for this philosophy: ‘kaizen’, which literally
translated means ‘little – good’ demonstrating that the cumulative effect of
little actions can have a dramatic effect overall and modern organisations
these days recognise that every single employee can contribute to the
success of the company no matter what their role. Each employee should
be adding value in some way and everyone has a responsibility to
contribute to the improvement of the way the business works.

While it may be obvious to those who are at the front line of manufacturing
for instance to demonstrate savings made by actions they have taken which
have increased productivity, candidates for any position should be ready to
provide examples of where they challenged the status quo and made even
the smallest of improvements. Below are some examples.


Q Tell us about a time when you initiated an
improvement at work.

Office-based example:

I worked for company XYZ Ltd in their purchasing department. In the
days before routine ordering via e-mail or the ability to order online,
for urgent orders we used to fax them to our suppliers. Now, being a
really busy office with many urgent orders, we were sending loads and
loads of faxes every day. We had recently had a circular memo
reminding us of the costs of leaving lights on etc. and that our
telephone bills were really high. I noticed one day that when we were
sending faxes, the last page of the order documents often only had a
little bit of text at the top and a lot of plain paper underneath. This
wasn’t planned; it was just the way the text wrapped from one page to
the next when it came off the printer. It struck me that every time we
sent a fax like that we were paying for a piece of plain paper to go
through the fax machine and this was at our expense because the
telephone link with the receiver’s fax machine was still open. I made a
suggestion to the office manager that we tear off any white paper at
the end of the fax to use as scrap paper – people used to use Post-it
notes for scribbling on – and that way, when the last, short page went
through the machine, the fax would cut off and shorten the time we
were on the phone line. Now I’ve no idea how much we saved in terms
of the phone bill, but I did see loads of home-made scrap pads from
the saved pieces of paper, so it must have been a reasonable amount.

Employers love this type of story. Anything that you have done to save
them money translates directly to the bottom line. Each
pound/dollar/euro/whatever saved in expenditure is one they can
reinvest in the company to secure its future! Never, ever think a small
contribution like the one illustrated here would go unnoticed, and it will
always earn you brownie points in an interview.


Production-based example:

’When I worked for Mega Crisps Ltd at their potato crisp factory, I was
employed as a machine setter. One of my jobs involved removing a circular
drum which had around 20 sharp blades in its circumference through
which the potatoes passed to be sliced into their final thickness before
they were fried, flavoured and bagged. I was instructed to watch a display
which showed an ever reducing time reading counting down from four
hours down to zero. At that point, I was to remove the drum and replace
the blades before putting it back into production. The blades which sliced
the potatoes only had a production life of four hours before they became
too blunt to slice cleanly. I realised after a bit that I was taking a drum
offline, replacing the blades, then putting the drum back into production
again. The whole time that this took was around 35 minutes from taking it
off to putting it back again. I’d then wait until the next line was due to be
dealt with. This might mean a wait of around 45 minutes before the next
one was due. I just had to busy myself with cleaning etc., but a lot of the
time I was just mooching around waiting to work again. It struck me that
if we only had one more drum, I could fill that up with blades while all the
machines were operating and then use it to replace the first one as soon
as I’d taken it offline. This operation only took five minutes, so the line was
only unproductive for five minutes instead of 30. I’d then replace that
drum’s blades and wait for the next one to require changing and so on and
so forth. So over a shift we got an additional 60 minutes of production
time for each line. This meant a massive leap in productivity over the year.
I got a cash award for that suggestion.

The above was an actual example given to me during an interview. It’s a
great example because the candidate didn’t just follow instructions. He
demonstrated a genuine interest in his own job and how he could
contribute to the productivity levels. He was directly responsible for
increasing the profitability of his organisation and was rightly rewarded
for it. Now not everyone will have such an obvious example that they
can quote at interview, but I would urge you to think hard about the
time when you perhaps acted outside your strict remit and gave that
little bit extra for your employer.


Q Tell us about how you normally cope with a lot
of work.

I Where do you start?
I What do you do to ensure it all gets done?
I What prevents you from getting it all done?
I have deliberately included these questions in the continuous
improvement section as good answers to these will demonstrate your
ability to recognise and set priorities and be flexible in your approach,
all of which show that there is no one answer to any problem and that
the ability to make improvements and adjustments to your approach
make for a continually improving performance.

I have worked in many roles where I am under pressure to get the work
done accurately and on time. I start every morning with a modified ‘To
Do’ list. Apart from being a simple list of things I need to get through,
I divide them into four sections: ‘Urgent’, ‘Important’, ‘Not Urgent’ and
‘Not Important’. I then look at the tasks and decide which categories
they fall into. Of course they can be ‘Urgent’ and ‘Not Important’ or
‘Important’ but ‘Not urgent’ too or any combination, and it’s the
‘Urgent’ and ‘Important’ that I work on first, with the ‘Not Important’
and ‘Not Urgent’ going to the bottom of my list. Of course, a task’s
status can change at any time and may move up or down the list, so to
make it easier for me I have a clipboard permanently marked with the
four categories onto which I stick the tasks written on post-it notes.
That way its easy to see where any task is in terms of status. When a
task is complete, I remove the post-it from my clipboard.
I ensure it all gets done by referring to the ‘expiry date’ I write at the
bottom of each post-it note and make sure these deadlines are met. At
the end of the day I always go over what is left on the board and
reconsider their status. If a deadline is looming I may move it into the
‘Urgent’ category for instance.


What prevents me from getting it all done? Well, the usual things, I
suppose: telephone calls, e-mails, colleagues and bosses interrupting
me! My approach is to try and be disciplined with my time. I will have set
times for answering e-mails or making calls where possible, although
you have to be flexible too to cope with what the job throws at you.

What you have done here is demonstrated an excellent grasp of time-
management skills – as taught by many reputable and fine
organisations. Even if you don’t employ such techniques, at least be
aware of them so that you might quote them in the interview situation.

Q Where do you want to be in five years time?
Again, their motive for asking you is not necessarily to see if you would
be looking to move on, but more to see if you indeed have fire in your
belly and want to progress. You must never be afraid of this question.
It’s an excellent opportunity for you to big yourself up and to tell them
what they really want to hear. ‘I'd like to be in a challenging position,
whether it’s this one or a promoted role, within this company, and
possibly with more responsibility.’

Q Which is more important: creativity or efficiency?
Why?
This is not a trick question. In fact, I think it is an excellent question.
There is no right answer, but you might like to try: Well I think there
ought to be a balance between the two. Efficiency sees the most
immediate results, but long term growth depends on creativity. First
drafts of creativity are rarely efficient anyway, so I like to think I have
skills in building upon original ideas, refining and honing them into a
workable shape.’


Q Are you applying for other jobs?
Be careful on this one. You don’t want to give the interviewer the
impression that you will take the first job that presents itself. Your
answer will be determined by the reason why you have applied for this
role anyway. Circumstances may have left you without a job and you
are endeavoring to get back into employment, or you may be looking for
a change. Explain that you have (if this is the case) applied to other
companies that would be well served by your experience, knowledge
and skills and who are offering exciting positions. ‘However, this role is
the one I am truly keen to land.’


QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMER
AWARENESS

Q What, in your view, makes it difficult to relate
well to certain customers?
This question is typical of the approach many interviewers take
nowadays. Instead of asking questions that allow you to demonstrate
how easy it is for you to do your job and how wonderful everyone
thinks you are, the questions concentrate on what some might consider
as ‘failures’ or at least times when things haven’t gone so well. Again,
fear not, as it gives you a chance to show how resilient you are and how
flexible and adaptable you are.

For this question you should be focusing on the fact that customers come
in all shapes, sizes and types and that there will be, on occasion, times
when you encounter a customer that you don’t naturally ‘gel’ with.

On occasion I have had to deal with a shouty, irate, greedy and
downright rude customer. While inside I might feel mortified and
offended at their behaviour, I realise that I have to be professional and
maintain a calm demeanour. I allow them to rant and raise their voice
for a bit and at all times I keep my voice on an even level. I allow them
to blow themselves out. I don’t take their views personally because it’s
not me they are really having a go at, but their frustration is being
vented at me, as the public voice/face of the company. I would never
react like that to a similar situation, so I cannot really understand
what motivates them to be so awful. So while I may not be able to
relate to them on that level, at least I can still deal with them in a way
that I know is professional and hopefully will resolve the problem.

Q Tell me about a recent situation when you had
to build a relationship with a new customer.
For all customer-facing roles you can almost guarantee that this
question will come up. A business can only grow in two ways.


The first is by selling more to existing customers. (This can be difficult –
the amount they purchase from you is determined by factors totally
beyond your control. Growth in sales to existing customers tends to be a
slow process. Imagine it like the relationship between a man and a
woman. At first the gifts come thick and fast before levelling out to
being just at Christmas, birthdays and special occasions…). The second is
by increasing the sales base by attracting new customers.

What the interviewer does not want to hear is an account of your
fantastic cold-calling skills and how many new customers you attracted
by sheer strength of your personality. Rather they are looking for a
specific instance where you secured a sale with a notoriously reticent
customer or where the sale was a direct result of YOUR efforts.

I remember a time a few months ago when I received an enquiry from
a local business relating to a product we stocked. This gentleman had
very specific needs and was able to quote the exact specification of the
item almost as if he had designed the thing. I calmly noted down his
enquiry and took his number so that I could call him back. Aware that
this could lead to bigger and better things, I asked HIM what would be
the best time to call him back with the price and delivery information
he needed. I could’ve actually given him his answers there and then,
but I wanted to run past my supervisor first my idea about giving this
new customer our top-level discount and having the part taken over to
him that day. After all, I thought, if it had been an existing customer,
we’d have only made the smaller margin anyway, and in terms of the
cost of same day delivery, it was a ‘sprat to catch a mackerel’. I’m
pleased to say that the customer was delighted and we got lots of new
business from him afterwards. I made sure though in the early days it
was only me who dealt with him in order to build a sustainable
relationship with the customer. I suppose you could say it was because
that I took personal responsibility for us keeping our promises to him. I
was even aware later on that some of the items we supplied to him he
could have sourced elsewhere locally a bit cheaper, but obviously the
good service was what mattered to him the most.’


Its clever to put this last bit in, as all companies would like to pride
themselves on their level of customer service, and would see themselves
in you by your obviously highly developed customer service skills!

Q Give me an example when you have given
excellent customer service.
Again, the temptation here is to cite some example where you climbed
up to the summit of Mount Everest, sought out the expedition leader
and said: ‘Here, you left your change on the counter!’ Interviewers are
realistic (honest) so a more mundane example of where you just did
that little bit extra and helped someone’s day be that little bit better is
perfectly acceptable here.

We received a request in our office for an application form for an
office role we had advertised. One of the guys came in from the shop
floor with his greasy overalls and mucky hands to collect one. He was a
bit self-conscious given the nature of the role he was applying for was
white collar and he had always been a blue collar worker. During the
process of getting the blank form I chatted to him the whole time
telling him how good it was that he was applying and how he would
stand a good chance of getting it with his experience in the company
etc. As well as giving him the form, I gave him an A4 envelope so he
wouldn’t need to fold the form, and then put the whole shebang into a
bigger envelope so the stuff wouldn’t get dirty from his hands. The look
on his face made me realise that I had made a good impression on him.
This was backed up later after he didn’t get the job when he popped in
to see me to say thanks for the support.

Nothing earth shattering, but a touching little story which shows
your skills.


QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR DECISION-MAKING
SKILLS AND JUDGEMENT
Questions like these are used in every context, however junior the
position may be that you are applying for. We all have to make decisions
every day and it’s the methodology of how you reach your conclusion
on how to act that the interviewer is looking for here. As much as you
may think you have a natural innate skill and are getting it right, the
reality is that you WILL follow some form of logical process in your
mind before you make a decision.

There are no right and wrong answers here, but my top tip for you is to
realise that different forms of decision-making are appropriate for
different sets of circumstances. It may well be that in an ideal world you
would sit down and gather all the facts in front of you and weigh each
one up carefully before modelling possible outcomes and consequences
of each route you might take before deciding on the one course of
action that offers the least risk/biggest return etc., but life being what it
is you will sometimes have to make decisions based on gut instinct or
incomplete facts. It’s how you treat this situation and how you react to
the result that is important here. As I have said elsewhere in this book,
do not be afraid to share an experience that was less than happy in its
outcome. If you can demonstrate a lesson learned you will have
demonstrated both resilience and the ability to progress to your
interviewer, and both of these qualities will earn you big Brownie points!

Q Tell us about a recent situation in which you
had to be reach a decision without having all
the facts.
Although this example may seem trivial, it demonstrates maturity and
an ability to approach work conceptually. The interviewer will want to
know that you understand that just getting the job done isn't enough.
Your response should show resourcefulness and initiative.


When I was on work placement from university, my supervisor, a
marketing manager, asked me to assemble five hundred press kits for a
mailing. I wasn't sure in what order the pages and press releases
should go, but my supervisor had already left for a client meeting.
Afraid of putting the information together in the wrong order, I
managed to track down her mobile phone number and called her in
her car. She explained the order of the materials over the phone, and in
the end I managed to prevent a mistake that would have cost hours of
work and a delay in the mailing – not to mention a few headaches.

Q How do you usually go about solving a problem?
The interviewer will want to hear the logic you use to solve problems as
well as the outcomes you're able to achieve. Are you decisive? How do
you narrow the options and make decisions? What do people say about
your reasoning skills?

When I need to solve a problem, I often start by writing down as many
ideas as I can think of about possible causes. Next I look for relationships
among the causes so I can group together symptoms of bigger problems.
Usually, after I study these groups of problems, the real cause becomes
readily apparent. I can then devise a route to getting a resolution.

Q Would you say you are good at making decisions?
It’s time once more to admit your fallibility I'm afraid. There is not a single
one of us who has not made a decision in our lives that has turned out to
be the wrong one. This answer is short and sweet, but irrefutable.

I do have my own preferred style of making decisions and that is, like most
people I guess, in circumstances where all the facts are to hand and I have
enough time to weigh up the options properly and then come to a
reasoned decision. That is not always possible of course and sometimes we
have to go with what's available. We've all made decisions which turned
out to be the wrong one. Hindsight is 20–20 vision after all. However, I
hope that any wrong decision I have made in the past has left its mark on
me so that I can learn from it and avoid making the same mistake again.


QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR INFLUENCING SKILLS
For the vast majority of us, our ability to make things happen through
other people will come from being able to influence them rather than by
our directing them. While we all may work in organisations that are
hierarchical in structure, the stark reality is that most changes of
direction come through decisions being made following acceptance of a
point of view from individuals requiring the changes to be made. That’s
not to say that there are no direct ‘chain of command‘ decisions, it’s just
that these tend to be for the more formal, strategic or tactical decisions,
not the minutae of everyday workplace life.

Think of it this way: where would we be without lies in our society? Your
immediate thought might be ‘in a much better world‘. Would we? It’s the
little lies which are recognised by all but acknowledged by no one that
oil the wheels of our social transactions. How many marriages would
still be intact if the truthful answer to the question ‘Does my bum look
big in this?‘ were given? We are all subject to influence from our
subordinates, peers and superiors at work without the need for formal
orders being given or followed. While there are some roles which will
obviously require you to have a fair amount of influencing skills – sales
staff, marketing people, etc. – enlightened employers will recognise too
that there may be occasions where you need to get things done by
others when, strictly speaking, you don’t have the authority to demand
or instruct them to be done. For example, production people will always
be at odds with maintenance people due to the conflicting agendas they
have: production will always be wishing to produce, while maintenance
will always seek to have production stopped in order for maintenance to
be carried out properly. So, as you can see, you have probably applied
for a position where your ability to influence others is an important part
of your job – whether it is in the job description or not!


Q What are your strengths in terms of influencing
people?
I What’s your approach in influencing others?
I What could you do to make yourself more
effective in influencing others?
I think the strength I have in influencing others lies within my ability to
communicate well with others in order to get them to share my vision
of what success looks like. I have found that people are on the whole
suspicious of anything which effects change without their
understanding of the thought processes behind the decision which
would result in change. Its simply impractical to involve everyone in
every decision-making process; what I like to do is to take the time to
reiterate the current state, then say why the changes are necessary. I
give a broad-brush picture of what was being thought about when a
solution was being worked out and tell them of the reasons why I or we
decided on a particular course of action. I’d then describe what likely
results would come out of this change and I would be sure to make
them feel that they were recognised as important in the achievement of
the new objective and thank them in advance for them helping out. I
think I could improve my influencing skills if I slowed down a little bit.
Sometimes in my enthusiasm I skip over points that to me are obvious,
but to the person I’m talking to might not be. I sometimes then have to
backtrack to explain what I meant on some points. Maybe I could plan
my discussion with them better. Maybe I could write out some bullet
points to make sure I covered all the bases.

The final element in this answer shows that you are human. As I’ve said
earlier, employers far prefer to see a candidate who has a high level of
self-awareness and knows their development needs than to interview
someone who is so smug that they never admit to having made a
mistake in the past or need to change in any way.


Q Give an example of when you had to settle a
dispute between two people.
There were two colleagues within my section whose relationship
deteriorated to the point where the atmosphere was terrible. As they
couldn’t resolve it, I decided to see what I could do. My aim was to first
take any heat out of the situation by calming down the individuals. Then
I arranged a three-way discussion later in the day away from the section
in a meeting room so we wouldn’t be disturbed. I made sure that I was in
charge of the discussion of the issues, the reason being to arrive at an
agreed positive way of going forward or a compromise. I think it's
important to understand each person's standpoint and feelings, without
necessarily agreeing with them. It wasn’t pretty at first, with both of
them just trying to score points. But I suppose I used my diplomatic skills
to get them to see that there was no future in the current situation and
that a compromise was the only possible solution. After about an hour,
we left the room with a shaky compromise, but I made sure that
whenever possible afterwards I encouraged them to be first more civil,
then in time more friendly towards each other. The result was an easing
of the atmosphere and then a return to normal.

Q Have you ever had a conflict with a superior?
How was it resolved?
Yes, I have had conflicts in the past. Never major ones, but certainly
there have been situations where there was a disagreement that
needed to be resolved. I've found that when conflict occurs, it's
because of a failure to see both sides of the situation. Therefore I ask
the other person to give me their perspective and at the same time ask
that they allow me to fully explain my perspective. At that point, I
would work with the person to find out if a compromise could be
reached. If not, I would submit to their decision because they are my
superior. In the end, you have to be willing to submit yourself to the
directives of your superiors, whether you're in full agreement or not.


Q Some people are easier to persuade than others.
Which people do you find it hard to persuade?
I What is it that makes persuading them so
difficult?
I think the people I find most hard to persuade are people who have
opinions based solely on prejudice or bias. People who are bigoted,
racist, misogynistic, etc. can often have views that are so entrenched
that they are unlikely ever to change. I think you have to make a
judgement call as to whether or not it is really your place to attempt to
change these people, or whether or not you have to accept that while
you may disagree strongly with their views, you might still have to
work with them. Of course, you might be forced into a situation where
you have to confront someone about their views if it is against your
employer’s dignity and diversity policy for instance, but you can still
ask them politely to keep such views to themselves in the working
environment. I think you have to develop your own skills in deciding
when enough is enough-when you are not going to get that sale,
when you are not going to convince your boss to give you that rise, or
when it’s simply time to stop banging your head against a brick wall!

This answer conveys some good points. It shows that you are aware that
you can never change the world entirely, that you can employ
diplomatic skills when necessary, and that you can also cry ‘enough!‘
when it is warranted.


QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR DEVELOPMENT OF
SELF AND OTHERS

Q What do you consider to be your weaknesses?
Time and again, this question proves to be the one interviewees most
dread. I bet you’ve heard it before, and I bet you hated it! In the many,
many years in which I have asked this particular question, it is the one
that most often provokes a ‘rabbit caught in headlights’ look.

Take heart, because all is not lost! You do not need to launch into a list
of your failings and foibles, exposing your lack of self-worth and
insecurities and ultimately giving your interviewer a hundred and one
reasons NOT to employ you!

Perhaps you would feel more comfortable if it were couched like this:

Q What would you consider to be your
development needs?
Now doesn’t that sound better? I can hear you breathe out as you read
this new, more touchy-feely version of the old classic. In fact, they are
exactly the same question and really designed to illicit the same kind of
answer. Think of it like this: why would an interviewer expect you to tell
him something about you that absolutely rules you out of getting the
job? It wouldn’t make any sense. It would be asking you to prove a
negative. An interviewer’s job is not only to find out if the candidate is
the best fit for the job now, but also to see if they can grow within the
company and expand on their existing skills and ultimately become a
more valuable asset to the company.

A good answer to this question might be:


I’m glad you asked me that. I periodically take time to review my skills
and recently I thought I might like to expand my commercial
knowledge a little. I thought perhaps a more formal training course in
business finance might complement my general commercial
awareness. Also, I have found that recent developments in software
package XYZ may help me be more productive. Perhaps I will buy a
manual on the subject or go on a refresher course.

The key is never to come across too cocky as if you have nothing new to
learn. We can all do with at least some refresher training in at least one
aspect of our skill set. How long ago was it since you qualified? If the
company you are hoping to work for has an international dimension,
perhaps you’d like to learn a new language. When was the last time you
used the more obscure functions of a spreadsheet programme? Are you
really Mary Poppins? (Practically perfect in every way.) No, probably not.

Do not be afraid of this question. It is one that you are very, very likely
to be asked at interview, so be prepared for it. Think of something you
are reasonably good at (at least good enough for the job as it’s been
described to you) and then decide how you could be even better at it. It
is better to have over-capacity of skill than under.

Q In what past situations have you been most
effective in developing others?
This question is aimed at determining your ability to act outside of your
own personal silo. If you have occupied roles in the past where it was
part of your responsibilities to develop others, then all well and good.
Draw upon those experiences to highlight a good example of developing
someone – perhaps illustrating how their appraisal rating improved
following your help. If not, then you should be thinking about occasions
when, through sheer generosity of spirit of course, you went out of your
way to help someone improve or progress, for example:


I remember the time when one of our more junior members of staff
was struggling to get to grips with the human resource software we
had. She had been given the usual training that we all had and a
photocopied manual. To be honest, the manual was like one of those
flat-pack instruction booklets, and not much good to anyone really.
She was the type of person who didn’t like to complain and
occasionally took flak for mistakes she had made. I took her to one side
and asked if I could assist. We agreed that for half an hour each
lunchtime I would sit with her and we would go through the parts of
the package that she was less than sure about. In the end it took about
two or three weeks, but I was happy to help her and she rarely made
mistakes like she had before again. On my birthday she bought me a
big bunch of flowers to say thank you. I was really made up!

Remember, interviewers very rarely ask a single question and let you answer
it fully before moving onto the next one. They may wish to drill down into
what you’ve initially told them, so be prepared for this. For example:

Q What did you do specifically that was effective?
Having known this girl for a short time, I knew that if she was pointed
towards our training department for help it wouldn’t work because
she’d see it as a sign of failure, and that others were recognising her
shortcomings. By lending a hand in an informal way, it was less of a
big deal and she responded to that. If anything, it was me who plonked
myself down beside her each day with my sandwiches so she couldn’t
go anywhere until we had her knowledge at the level she needed to be
successful. So I suppose you could say it was my persistence and my
approach that was effective.

Q What was the last piece of learning you
undertook?
Now instantly you are thinking back to the last formal course or
qualification you took. In the words of George Gershwin, ‘It aint necessarily


so‘. Most professional institutions such as the Chartered Institute for
Personnel and Development require their members to demonstrate
continuing professional development and cite reading articles and books,
watching TV shows, attending lectures or seminars, secondments, etc. as
just as legitimate learning experiences as the more traditional types of
learning such as courses of study which lead to a qualification.

This might be a typical answer:

I was watching the news only the other evening and there was a piece
on the new anti-smoking legislation coming into force in England and
what it would mean for employers. It struck me that there had been no
discussion about this at work and it made me think we might be
unprepared for what was coming. I went onto the Internet and
downloaded the actual statutory instrument as well as all the
comments on the ACAS and DTI websites and I also looked at
discussion forums. I then took all this information to the HR officer. I
was right. We were unprepared and I have been co-opted onto a
committee which is looking at all the aspects of the legislation and we
are tasked with coming up with policies and proposals for practical
measures to make sure we comply.

Don’t for a second think that this will make you look like a swot.
Employers are desperate to find people who are prepared to ‘go the
extra mile’ for them and use their own imagination and creativity to
resolve problems and issues. This type of answer demonstrates to the
interviewer that the candidate has an awareness of the bigger picture, a
bit of get-up-and-go to do the research, and a willingness to help
colleagues from other departments.


QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR TEAMWORKING
SKILLS
For the vast majority of us, we will during our employment be required
to work as part of a team. This may be a small unit of two or three
people; alternatively it may be a larger team altogether. Good
management practice has it that the maximum number of people any
one person can manage well is around 12–15. If the number is any
higher than this, then there is usually simply not enough time to devote
to each team member to get the best out of them. Conversely, a
manager should be able to spend more time with their team the smaller
the number of members. Its in everyone’s interest that a team performs
well. It should perform better than a simple sum of its parts. A good
team is made up of people with an array of talents which compliment
each other. After all, you couldn’t field a cup-winning team of 11 strikers
or 11 goalkeepers! Your interviewer will probably already have a good
idea of the attributes of those in the team for which they are recruiting
for and will be looking to see if you possess the necessary
complimentary attributes. Its easy and glib to say ‘Oh yes, I’m a good
team player‘ but what does that actually mean? Let me give you some
killer responses to these types of questions.

Q Tell us about the last time you worked as part
of a team.
I What did you like about working in
the group?
I What did you dislike?
The last time I worked as part of a team was when I worked for XYZ Co.
I was part of a team in a call centre which sold new and renewed
existing motor and home insurance policies. The team I worked in was
around 10 or 12 in number and the group was fairly stable with not
many starters or leavers. I really appreciated the fact that the team


was made up of a diverse range of people in terms of their age, their
background, their ethnicity and character. I felt it gave us a rounded
view of things because of the variety of life views. There were some
who were experts in the home market and some who were experts in
the motor market. We were encouraged to share tips and tricks with
each other and to bond as a team socially as well. I suppose the selling
type environment would foster a strong team anyway, but I think it
was more than that. When we socialised we always made it as
inclusive as possible. For example, a couple of members of my team
were Muslim girls and couldn’t go into pubs, so we made sure that we
didn’t always suggest drinking as a social activity. I honestly believe
that our closeness as a team of individuals made us better as a team
collectively. What did I dislike? Well I think that sometimes it can be
harder to be recognised for any special efforts you have made
personally and that maybe you could get lost in the crowd a bit.
Although, I think its probably down to the individual at their annual
appraisal not to be shy in demonstrating what they’ve done well. I
wouldn’t say there’s too much not to like about working in a team for
me, maybe its not for everyone, but I thrive in that environment.

Q Tell me about a time when you had to get
people to work together more supportively.
I What caused the original difficulties?
I How did the others respond to you?
I What would you do differently next time?
These type of questions may appear to be aimed at people who control
the activities of team members, i.e. supervisors. However – and
remember this because it is a truism not widely understood – while
there may be a titular head of a team, there are also the unsung or
unrecognised leaders of teams. These are those who, through respect
from their peers or by a natural ability, actually influence the work of


others. These people are often natural coaches and mentors, and while
they may not have any leadership type of job title on their contract, are
as much a driving force behind a team’s performance as their appointed
leader. So, even if you have not held a leadership position, you may be
able to describe instances where you influenced others.

I remember this time at XYZ Co. when I was working as part of a team
who were brought together to plan and execute an office move to
another building. The management thought it was a good idea to get
people involved from all areas of the company, although some cynics
said it was to get it done on the cheap rather than hiring a specialist
firm. I tend to think that the management were enlightened enough to
think that the whole experience might just be good in terms of the
team members’ personal development as well as tapping into the
existing talent pool. We were led by a manager who had had some
experience in project management and the firm didn’t appear to be
taking too big a risk by appointing her. In the early meetings I was
aware that we were going through a normal process of jostling for
position, trying to ‘bags’ the better tasks of the project and finding our
niche in the whole thing. I know from my studies of group dynamics
that new teams go through a stage of ‘storming‘ initially, they then
settle and find their shape in the ‘forming‘ phase and then work
unconsciously and consciously together in a stage known as ‘norming‘.
That is they all work to the same standards. I was acutely aware that
our project leader, while very hot on detail and the mechanics of
project management, failed to recognise what I was seeing which was
that people were being paired up to work on elements of the move in a
very haphazard way. She was not taking notice of what people’s
backgrounds were or attempting to play to their strengths. After a
while it became clear that a number of people in the team were really
quite unhappy and when I asked them if they had brought it to our
project leader’s attention, they said they didn’t want to upset her or
rock the boat. After I realised that around half the team of 12 were


unhappy I took what was, I suppose, a risky step. I called a private
meeting of them and we aired our grievances to one another. Now this
could have been a pretty unproductive activity if I hadn’t made a point
of going round the table and getting everyone to say what they would
rather be doing and why they felt they were right for it. As it turned
out, we were able to produce a proposal to shuffle people round in
order that they may contribute more fully – for example, one team
member was tasked with dealing with the telephone provider over the
arrangements for our telephony requirements in the new place yet she
had a background in sales. She swapped with one of the IT guys who
was happy to take it on. She ended up negotiating with removal men
over the costs of the move. Once we had an alternate plan I arranged
to meet the project leader privately. I broached the subject carefully
saying how this was not an attempt to undermine her authority, but,
realising how busy she was, it was an effort on my part to take to her a
solution, not just a problem. She was taken aback a little at first, but I
talked her round into seeing the plan’s advantages and she then
ratified the changes at the next team meeting. What would I do
differently? I probably would have had the guts to approach her myself
much earlier on, because on reflection, it maybe did seem to appear a
bit rebellious on my part.


THE ‘…AND FINALLY‘ QUESTIONS
One of the reasons that human resources has occasionally received a
hard time over the years was the propensity of some of its practitioners
to put questions the purpose of which the interviewee couldn’t
understand, nor could they see how what they might give as an answer
would have any relevance to the role they had applied for.

We have already seen that one of the factors in successful performance
in a role is the ability of the post holder to assimilate into the culture of
the organisation, or at least to ‘fit in’ with those around them. Therefore
it would be a legitimate aim of any interviewer to get an impression of
the kind of person the candidate is in terms of character, interests, etc.
Of course, the interviewer may just be nosey!

What follows are what I call the ‘… and finally‘ questions. I have named
these after the more frivolous news items that came at the end of news
bulletins in the UK. If you are asked these types of questions, they will
most likely come at the end of the interview. Obviously there are no
right or wrong answers to these questions, only your own answers.

There may be the odd time when you are asked questions that you may
have no clue what the interviewer is driving at. To be honest, sometimes
there will be a definite attempt to prise out some facet of you that
relates to the job on offer. There will be times where it is an attempt to
get a feel for what your personality is like. Sometimes it may just be the
interviewers having a bit of fun (Shock! Horror! Interviewers in Sense of
Humour probe!).

Q If you could invite three people (living or dead)
to a dinner party, who would you invite?
Depending on what you have already established about the company,
you should be ready to call to mind three people who most closely fit
the type of organisation. For example, an altruistic, not-for-profit


organisation may like to hear you say: ‘Mahatma Ghandi so I can learn
what his struggle was like for him first hand; Bill Gates to ask him why he
has decided to dedicate most his fortune to charitable enterprises rather
than leaving it to his children; and Stephen Fry, because the conversation
would never falter with Stephen there’!

A good tip is to always include Stephen Fry as he is (apparently) the
most popular choice for a dinner guest in the UK and the chances are
your interviewers would’ve picked him too!

If the company concerned was very entrepreneurial, you may wish to
choose Freddie Laker, Richard Branson and Sir Alan Sugar – probably the
most famous entrepreneurs of modern times.

You get the idea.

Q Do you think workplace romances are O.K.?
Far be it for me to say what would motivate an interviewer to ask this
question. However I have sat alongside a manager who has asked this
question of candidates. Maybe there has been a bad experience in the
past or maybe he just liked watching interviewees squirm, who knows?
Anyway, my advice is that there is only one possible answer for this.

‘From my own perspective I cannot see anything but trouble ahead
when co-workers get involved. If there is a subordinate-superior
relationship there then neither party can act with any objectivity. If
they work together in a large workplace and have very little contact
during the day, then perhaps there is less opportunity for things to go
wrong – but I am uneasy about the whole thing. I do see merit in the
view that employees’ private lives are their own concern and nothing
to do with the employer, however I think it best if private lives and
working lives are kept separate.’


If we were risk managers and decided to examine the pros and cons in
two columns on a flip-chart, I’m sure we would find many more entries
in the ‘cons’ column than in the ‘pros’ column. This question would
appear to be one where the answer is open to debate. I don’t think so, as
well as being in HR I am also a manager and I would much rather not
have to deal with the complications resulting from personal
relationships going sour – which they quite often do! I’d opt for the
easy life every time as would all of the colleagues I recently polled.

Here are some for you to consider what kind of answer you might give:

Q What would constitute a perfect evening
for you?

Q What would be a nightmare evening?
Q Would you rather have an extremely successful
professional life and have a tolerable home life,
or have a fabulous home life and a merely
tolerable professional life?

Q If you could wake up tomorrow having gained
one new ability, skill or quality, what would
it be?

Q Who is your hero/heroine (alive or dead)?
Q Who is your biggest villain?
Q Describe the one person who has had the single
biggest influence on your life.


Q Has anyone told you that you have been their
inspiration?

Q How forgiving are you? Give me an example.
Q Have you ever made a big sacrifice? If you have,
is it something you have kept to yourself or do
others know about it?

Q Has anyone ever made a big sacrifice for you?
Q What percentage of people your age do you
think are having a better life than you? On a
scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you?

Q Tell me about the last time you laughed at
yourself.

Q Does others laughing at you bother you?

CHAPTER 7

QUESTIONS YOU CAN ASK
AT YOUR INTERVIEW
During the vast majority of assessment or interview processes you will be
given the opportunity to ask questions of the recruiters. While your brain
may be shouting to you to ask questions like ‘How much filthy lucre are
you gonna pay me big boy?’ or ‘So exactly how big is my private office
going to be?’ you should be aware that on where you are in the recruitment
process will depend what questions from you will be appropriate.

For example, you have been called for a first-stage interview. Your letter
has clearly defined that this is an ‘initial stage in the process’. It would
be completely inappropriate to ask questions relating to remuneration
at this stage. What follows is a brief guide to the types of questions you
can ask at each stage.

FIRST-ROUND INTERVIEWS
Questions at this stage from you will be directed squarely at the nature
of the employer’s business and the role for which you are applying.
For example:

Q I see that Company XYZ made an operating profit
of £Xm last year [good opportunity to show off
your research on them if they haven’t given you a
chance to do so up to now]. Can you share with
me any projections for this operating year?’

I have deliberately used the word ‘share’ here as it shows them that you
are aware that this is potentially sensitive information. It gives them an out

113


if they can’t tell you this type of information without it being an awkward
moment. You should be asking this question to get a feel what the overall
prospects are for this company. After all, you don’t want to join a firm that
makes umbrellas when we are heading for ten years of drought!

Q What does the company do by way of
developing its employees?

This question is the polar opposite of the classic question they might
ask you on where you see yourself in five years time. Depending on your
role, further development may not be a must for you. However, be
aware that many professional organisations require their members to
demonstrate continuing professional development (CPD) and a firm
which would not give you the opportunity to do this would not be good
for your longer-term career prospects. It is possible that the
organisation may not have a robust system in place for identifying
talent within and developing it further. Gauge their response carefully
as they may waffle on a bit about how training is always available to fit
the needs of the company etc. You should be able to tell if it’s a sincere
answer or not. Alternatively, completely turn it back on them by asking:

Q Where would you see ME in five years time?
or

Q Has this role been included in any succession
planning?

One of the biggest sources of unease in employment is when you are in
a position of uncertainty about your performance. Not all people
managers are good people managers, and they may not make their
subordinates aware of the expectations they have of them. Many people
have told me that they resent the annual appraisal meeting, especially if

Q U E S T I O N S YO U C A N A S K A T YO U R I N T E R V I E W • 115

they are criticised for under performing during the year but have had no
indication during that year that they were failing. Try this question:

Q What would outstanding performance in this
role look like?

Once they have answered this question, you will at least know how high
you have to aim for!

Q What are the reporting lines within this
organisation?

Many organisations will not describe the structure of the organisation
either in the initial advertisement or in the papers they subsequently
send you prior to the interview. In many cases, an invitation will consist
of a letter detailing where and when you have to present yourself and
who you are going to meet. Of course you may have had the foresight
to request a Job Description before the interview anyway, but if you
haven’t then it’s not too late at the interview to get this point clarified if
your interviewer hasn’t described the set-up to you.

FINAL-STAGE INTERVIEW
All your hard work and preparation for the first interview has paid off
and they’ve asked you back for a final look at you. It may well be that
they want you to jump through more hoops such as delivering a
presentation or completing psychometric tests as well as a face-to-face
interview. I will leave it to other publications to counsel you on these
aspects of recruitment so here we will dwell on your proactive
contribution to this ‘conversation’.

If you have been wise, you will have done further research into the
company, its business and the market it operates in. You will be aware


of the trends and threats to their operation. You will, in short, be a good
person for them to choose to deliver a presentation on their company,
so in-depth will your knowledge of them be! Now is the time for you to
ask them questions that not only elicit answers from them that assist
you in making your decision about whether or not you want to work for
them, but also demonstrate your understanding of your research and
also what was said to you during the initial interview. This is the time to
also get a flavour of what it is actually like to be an employee of
Company XYZ.

Some examples:

Q You mentioned when we first met that the
company was expanding into Eastern Europe.
What does this mean for the UK operation?

Q At our first meeting you said that there were no
plans to further mechanise your operation.
Given that most European firms cannot compete
with Far Eastern manufacturers on price
because their labour costs are so low, can this
lack of mechanisation be a long-term strategy,
or is it subject to change?

Q What is your employee turnover level?
Q What were the headline results of your last
employee satisfaction survey?

Q Why do people like working here?
Q How would you describe the atmosphere and
culture within this organisation?

CHAPTER 8

QUESTIONS ASKED BY
READERS
The following three questions are actual questions I received from
readers of the first edition of this book who took advantage of the ‘Ask
the author’ offer. I have reproduced them below verbatim, along with
the answers I gave them.

Dear Charlie,
I found your book really good to read and it helped me with my
interviews, there is one question though that I’m not sure is covered
and I was wondering if you could help me with it. Can you please help
me answer it, I come from a finance and project background.

Regards,
Akbar

SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION

Q Describe a time when you had to overcome
challenges in order to obtain the information
needed to complete a project?
I How did you decide how much information was needed?
I What steps did you take to overcome the challenges?
I What sources of information did you use?

117


Akbar
Thanks for your comments.

I cannot say what would be normal for your methods of research for
your particular field. However, as well as listing what would be obvious
to most in your game, think about 'off the wall' methods, for example in
the HR game, HR managers are researching candidates on Facebook and
MySpace. So think about unusual ways of finding out about your
subject. Make sure that you incorporate any failures you had on the
way; how you felt about the whole thing; include perhaps asking a
mentor or trusted colleague.

Hope this helps
Charlie

Excellent. That was gold dust. Please continue with your writing and I
look forward to a new edition of your book. I found it to the point, up to
date and lacking jargon (most importantly!).

Thanks for the reply.
Akbar

Dear Mr Gibbs,
I recently purchased your book 'How to answer hard interview
questions', and have found the book very useful so far.

Regarding your offer to give some input into a potential question that is
not covered in the book, could you give me some insight into answering
a question relating to the below scenario:

The position I am applying for will be as a joint project manager. The
other project manager is in another organisation, has been working on
the project for quite a while, and has expertise in the general project

QUESTIONS ASKED BY READERS • 119

area. I on the other hand, have very little familiarity with the project,
and very little expertise.

Could you please give me some advice on how I should prepare my
answer to a question on how I would approach the above situation, if I
was successful?

Thanks in advance.

Garry

Well Gary, what you have to do is make yourself different from your
competitors – all of whom are in the same boat as you!

Can you research what the job will entail? Is there a job description for
this post? If so, you will have to demonstrate what attributes you have
that match the job description.

You must get speaking to people who are currently working on the
project as soon as possible before your interview. Get the good, the bad
and the ugly from them. This will inform your approach at interview.

You need to impress on your interviewers how you can pick things up
quickly; how you are adaptable and have attention to detail; for
example: you have spelled ‘experience’ twice in your email to me
‘e-x-p-e-r-i-A-n-c-e’ and there are some other spelling mistakes.
Make sure you always use the spell-check facility.

Good luck

Charlie


Dear Charlie,

I have read your book on answering hard interview questions, however I
would like to ask a question which relates specifically to salary.

I have a second interview for an audit manager position with a
multinational organisation next week. The first interview went really
well and the second stage comprises psychometric tests and a
competency based interview where I will be asked to describe my
actions in different business situations. Once this is complete and it’s
my chance to ask questions, should I approach the salary and benefits
situation, or say nothing and assume they will go into detail with the
recruitment consultant if I am successful? They have already explained
the benefits in general with him before the first interview, but were
reluctant to go into salary detail at that stage.

If I approach the subject it might look too presumptuous, but if I say
nothing it could look as though I'm not interested?

Please advise,
Andy

Andrew
Thank you for your question.

This has always seemed a bit of a dilemma! Do I say nothing and appear
lassaiz faire? Do I ask for something and appear greedy?

The position you describe seems to be fairly senior, so they will expect
you to act with the utmost professionalism.

You must ask yourself what would be gained by asking what the package
is at the 2nd interview. I'm guessing the reality is that it’s just natural
curiosity! If they told you then, and it didn't match your expectations,
your face may give this away and it may subconsciously register
negatively in their minds.

QUESTIONS ASKED BY READERS • 121

You say that you are there via an agency. That is always good from the
candidate's point of view, because if you do enter into a negotiation
with your potential employer, it will be less awkward as you have the
agent as a buffer.

My advice is to be concerned strictly with the role and whether it is
right for you – remember, an interview is as much about seeing if the
role is what YOU want as it is to see if you are what THEY want!

If the job is right for you, then display some passion at the second
interview. Leave them with the impression that you are dead keen
without being creepy and coming over as desperate!

Once you get the offer via the agent, then your curiosity will be satisfied
and you can then think about whether or not it meets your
expectations!

Thank you for buying my book and the very best of luck with your
interview!

Kind regards

Charlie Gibbs

CHAPTER 9

AFTER THE INTERVIEW

LEARNING FROM REJECTION
You were convinced that this was going to be it. You had been looking
around for a while, but no jobs seemed to be advertised that suited your
unique mix of skills and abilities. When you saw your dream job
advertised at last, you really felt like this was it. So after toiling away on
your covering letter and CV and tailoring the information to fit what the
recruiter seemed to be looking for, you sent in your application in and,
sure enough, you were called for a first-round interview.

And you could tell that the interviewers really liked you. So, you were
not surprised when they called you back for a second-stage interview.
You were ready for it. It was kismet after all. Then they asked you to
have a tour of the company. You knew that you were a finalist, and you
were starting to think about salary questions, benefits, and the like. You
even started looking at new cars, thinking about how you could get one
that was less than 10 years old at last.

And then the phone call came. ‘I'm sorry to have to tell you this,’ the
voice began. Somewhere beyond your disappointment, you knew you
had to finish the conversation, but what were you going to say and how
were you going to handle it?

This all sounds a little dramatic I suppose, but, for those of you who
have already been out in the job market, I'm sure some of it also sounds
familiar. And it soon will be for those of you about to go out into the
market. Given the number of people who apply for all positions these
days, the fact is that the odds are that you could well face some kind of
rejection before you finally land the job that you want.

122

AFTER THE INTERVIEW • 123

For all that has been written about getting a job in a difficult economy,
and for all of the advice that you have probably received from friends
and family, not much is said about dealing with the other side of coin –
about not getting the job.

Although rejection happens so often in the crowded job market, there is
still a strange kind of denial about it. It is one of those ugly realities that
only seem approachable through statistics and ratios that compare
applicants to openings.

Post-graduate placement programmes, for example, tend to focus on
the positive. They want you to hope for the best and make their
graduates believe in their chances, so they may not spend time talking
about worst-case scenarios or how to deal with bad news. But you
should take a moment to think about rejection. How will you respond if
you do not get the job? How you handle that scenario can be as
important as what you say or do during an interview.

Some forms of rejection are less painful than others. If you applied for a
position and never made it to the interview stage, receiving a rejection
letter in the post may be disappointing, but it isn't usually devastating.
After all, the recruiter never saw you face to face. They don't know what
you are like or how you conduct yourself in a professional conversation.
They have not seen you work or heard you speak passionately about
your achievements.

In short, they have not rejected you personally and, conversely, you have
not had the chance to size them up and get a sense of how you would
fit in with the department and the organisation as a whole. In a sense, it
has all been a paper transaction.

All the recruiter knows of you is what's on your cover letter and CV, so,
if you want to think about this constructively, your attention should be


focused on those materials. Did you tailor your cover letter to meet the
needs and requirements as they were set out in the job ad, or did you
send a generic cover letter? Have you honestly assessed your CV and
given serious thought as to how you could make it more competitive
and more enticing? Do you need more experience? Could you be more
active professionally? Do you need to gain a higher profile in your field?
Do you need to get more involved in professional organisations?

Now, say that you do make it past the application stage. You are called in
for an interview but, alas, do not get the job. The sense of personal
rejection is far more acute, and the emotional consequences more severe.

In a competitive market, getting an interview is a feat that can actually
make you believe, often cruelly, that you might get the job. The odds
have dramatically improved in your favour; where you were 1 of 150,
now you are 1 of 5 or 10.

As calm and collected as you might try to be about it all, you might not
be able to help daydreaming about job offers or planning your future
with the firm. And, since what largely determines whether you move on
or go home is how you present yourself and your performance during
this process, it is hard not to take a rejection at this stage of the game
personally and not to feel that somehow they just did not like you.

Rejected after an interview, your initial impulse may well be to return
the blow that you have been dealt in some way, shape, or form. If
someone does call to give you the news, you may feel like telling them
‘Huh! I didn’t really want your stupid job anyway!’ in a ya-boo-sucks
kind of way. Or if they have notified you by post, you may be inclined to
send them a scathing letter in return that burns a hole through their ink
blotters and forces them into a life of watching daytime TV and
listening to old Gary Glitter records.


But, while it may make you feel better temporarily, with every damning
word and every seething syllable, you will, in more ways than one, be
cutting your own throat, professionally speaking. An emotional outburst
after a rejection can make navigating a tight job market all the more
complicated, awkward and difficult, because you may have to see or
work with these people again in some other professional capacity. It is
amazing how small some of these disciplines can actually get. You may
suddenly spot a member of the recruitment panel on a committee at a
professional conference or see them in the audience when you deliver a
speech. It could be that you run across them again in a more mundane
capacity. Either way, it’s going to be excruciatingly embarrassing for you!

Networking is part of many jobs, so, by offending a recruiter, you could
also be offending a network and burning more bridges than you realise.
And (yes there’s another ‘and’), even though you have been rejected for
the job in question, you never really know how things will work out.
New starts do not always stay put or keep their jobs. Some simply do
not fit in as well as the recruiters thought that they would. Others move
on after a short while because their dream job was something else or
somewhere else. In addition, departments often find themselves with
sudden retirements or extended leaves of absence. If you had just
recruited for a position and had an excellent first choice but another
really good candidate, and you suddenly had to hire for the role again,
where would you look first?

If getting a your dream job is like winning the lottery, then maybe the
catchphrase still applies: ‘You can’t win it unless you are in it.’

And though you may be inclined to believe that they did this to you just to
see you suffer, the fact is that recruiters are people, too. Not too long ago,
they were sitting in a similar seat, dealing with the same stress and
responding to the same types of questions. They probably hate rejecting
you just as much as you hate being rejected. They have also had to give up
their valuable time to conduct the recruitment process.


Your anger, your bitterness, and your insults will not mortally wound
them or make them change their minds and realise the error of their
ways. In the end, it will only confirm their decision to reject you.

For all of the negatives that go along with being rejected, then, there
still can be some positive spin-offs. Whether it leads to a job down the
road or it adds to your list of contacts or not, you should still try to
think about the experience in constructive terms, in the same way that
you would revise your cover letter and CV for future searches.

Make a note of questions that you had difficulty with or questions that
stood out in your mind. Also, make a list of questions that you could
have asked. Think about how you handled yourself and how you
prepared. Were you able to effectively elaborate on the information that
you provided in your initial application? Did you do some research on
the company before you were interviewed? If you think that your
interview skills need work, then you might want to set up a mock
interview or make an appointment with a career adviser to talk about
how you conduct yourself through the process. You could also consult
with your careers adviser if you had questions about what you said or
did during the interview itself.

The interview process does not, and should not, end just because you
were rejected. In a sense, the rejection is still a part of the interview. It
gives you yet another chance to demonstrate your maturity, to show
your understanding of the profession and the hiring process, and to
prove to the recruiter that you are a worthy candidate, even if you are
not its first choice. It certainly is a possibility that you should be ready
for, because, depending upon how you handle it, it could conceivably be
that situation that makes it your year after all.

Of course, if you DO put into practice some or all of the techniques I
have outlined in this book, then this chapter may not be of any use to
you at all!


RESIGNING FROM YOUR CURRENT JOB
Phew! You’ve done it! You’ve done all your research and put your time
in getting ready for that final interview. You dazzled the interviewers
with your intelligence, charm, wit and they were gagging to hire you.
You’ve negotiated your terms and you’ve accepted the job offer and
there’s only one thing left to do: resign from your current job.

The first thing you should do is tell your current manager. You will
definitely hand over a formal letter (won’t you? That’s right – keep
thinking ‘I am a professional’), but before that you should sit down face
to face and let your manager know informally.

Make sure you prepare what you’re going to say beforehand and try and
guess your manager’s reaction. You should be positive about your time
in that role and be grateful for the opportunities you’ve been given
whilst you were there. Try to remain calm, professional and polite and,
no matter how tempting it is, resist the urge to get personal!

Once you’ve let your manager know verbally, you should hand over a
typed resignation letter. If you wish, hand it over there and then; if you
feel more comfortable, then deliver it later that day by hand.

In your letter you should include the position you are resigning from and
the date you intend to leave. Although not essential, you might want to
repeat your thanks for the opportunities you have been given and offer
your willingness to ensure a smooth handover to your successor.

Whilst a little constructive criticism is acceptable, for example if your
career aspirations have been frustrated by your employer’s lack of
recognition of your talents, don’t get personal or you’ll risk your
reference and your reputation.


Always stick to the reasons you’ve given for leaving. Telling your
manager one thing and your co-workers another risks compromising
your professionalism and making your last few weeks feel awkward.

If you’ve done everything a loyal employee is expected to have done and
you’ve performed well in your role, the chances are your organisation
won’t want to see you go. The most likely way an employer will try and
make you stay is by offering you a pay rise either equal to or above
what you’ve been offered in your new job.

You should take any counter offer they make you seriously and carefully
consider how you would feel about staying in the same job but with a
better salary. This may help remind you of the other reasons you have
for leaving and help you make your decision.

Employers may also try to get you to stay by promising you a promotion
and increased responsibility. Again, you should think carefully about what
this means but don’t forget that you’ll be working in the same organisation,
with the same people and probably under the same manager.

Whatever the length of your notice period, you’re legally obliged to
work it, unless your employer is willing to waive it. Look at your written
contract of employment. You should find details of your notice period
there. Otherwise, you should allow between two weeks and a month. Be
aware that the remedy an employer has against an employee who does
not work their notice is to try to recover any losses they may sustain or
claim damages against you in a court of law. Now, depending on the
nature of your role, and how important you are to the organisation will
determine the employer’s willingness to resort to litigation.

It’s easy to imagine your notice period as a time to relax and stop
making an effort, but this shouldn’t be the case. You’ll likely have plenty
to keep you busy, finalising any outstanding work and ensuring you


properly handover your responsibilities. What’s more, being seen to
make the effort right up until your last day will ensure your reputation
as a professional and reliable employee remains intact. And you never
know when you might deal with your employer again.

Make sure you allow time to say goodbye to everyone and swap contact
details with as many colleagues as you can. Moving jobs is a great way
to extend your network and you may find you see some of your
colleagues again sooner than you think.

Don’t feel guilty about resigning. Feel good! Working is the nature of
business and job mobility is part of business.

Whilst others may think you’re resigning from a perfectly good job,
you’re the one in control of your career and only you can decide which
direction it should take. If resigning from your job will bring you closer
to meeting your goals, then it’s a legitimate step on your career path.

Now go and enjoy your new role!

CHAPTER 10

TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS
Telephone interviews are being used more and more these days as they
are extremely time efficient for the recruiter. Once used only by
recruitment agencies, many private organisations use these as an initial
filter. Undoubtedly you will come across these at some stage in your
career, so it’s best to have some idea what to expect beforehand.

Think about what you are trying to achieve here. It’s not about actually
securing the job at this stage. It’s about getting to the next level which
involves a face to face interview

Everything I have said previously about you doing research on the
organisation still applies. The advantage you will have this time is that
you can have all your research notes in front of you to refer to, rather
than having to commit it all to memory. This goes for your CV and
covering letter too. Have them in easy reach. Even better, why not
prepare a reference sheet with points to jog your memory on specific
tasks you have worked on, achievements you have made or projects
you’ve taken part in?

When you agree to an appointment for a telephone interview, make
sure that you choose a time where you know you can definitely be in an
environment conducive to you giving your best. That means no
interruptions, no background noise, etc. If you can, make sure you
receive the call on a landline. Then there is no worry about batteries
going flat or reception being lost. You will be more likely to be relaxed
and give a better account of yourself in this type of environment.

130

TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS • 131

The biggest drawback, from both the recruiter’s and the candidate’s
point of view, is the lack of visual feedback during the conversation.
These subtle, visual clues to how well we are doing are denied us, so we
must be focused and alert to picking up on purely verbal indications. If
the interviewer is good at what they do, they will have prepared well at
their end and the call will have a clear structure and purpose. This is
good for you as it stops the conversation straying into areas which may
have pitfalls in them for you.

In your responses, try to be clear and concise. Remember that the
reason a telephone interview is happening in the first place is to speed
up the whole recruitment process, so highly detailed, long-winded
answers are not called for here. I would also suggest that you make sure
that your diction is good so the interviewer understands you clearly. If
anything, slow down your speech slightly to allow extra time for the
interviewer to make written notes about what you are saying. If you
don’t have shorthand skills and have ever tried to capture people’s
words verbatim, you will know exactly how difficult that is! Do what
works for you. Some people have found that standing up during a
telephone interview helps them focus (no opportunity to doodle) and
helps with their breathing and posture. This translates into sounding
composed over the telephone.

You may want to rehearse beforehand. Try writing your own set of
questions and have someone telephone you and ask you these
questions. Remember that this is unlikely to be the hiring stage, so the
questions are unlikely to be complex or demanding. Get them to write
down your responses and add their own critique. Analyse these notes
and amend your approach accordingly.

Part of the purpose of the telephone interview, from the recruiter’s
perspective, is to find out how much you want the job and (in the case
of sales jobs) whether you have closing skills.


As soon as it seems appropriate during the conversation, ask for a date
to meet for a face-to-face interview. Say something like: 'Well, this
certainly sounds like just the job I'm looking for, Mr X. I'm sure I can
contribute a lot to your organisation. I'd really like to visit you to show
you what I can offer. When and where would you meet me?'

You may have to be content with the response: ‘Well, we have a few
other candidates to talk to yet, but we will be in touch’, but at the very
least you can ask ‘When am I likely to hear from you?’. If the manager
umms and ahhs, decide upon a reasonable timescale, and suggest ‘Well,
I'm very keen to know if I'm going forward to the next stage, so if I
haven't heard from you by next Friday, would you mind if I call you then
for find out?' This approach is particularly important if you are applying
for sales jobs, as you are expected to demonstrate your natural
salesmanship. But even in the case of other jobs, most people will
appreciate your keenness and enthusiasm. If they don't, and you lose
the job on account of being 'too pushy' (most unlikely), well, is it the
sort of job you wanted anyway?

If after a telephone interview you don’t get called to the next stage, do
not be afraid to contact the recruiter again and ask for feedback on your
performance. This will help you to improve your own skills and hopefully
produce a more positive outcome in the future.

CHAPTER 11

FURTHER TYPICAL
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Earlier in the book you had the opportunity to see the kinds of answers
that interviewers are really looking for. However, there are a million and
one other subjects that you could be asked questions on, and I have
included here just a selection for you to look at. This is like an exam: you
may broadly know what will be covered, but not the actual questions. As
you look at them, try and formulate the type of answer you would give
to each one using the guidelines previously provided.

DRIVE FOR ACHIEVEMENT
Seizes opportunities to achieve and exceed both business and personal
objectives.

Q Tell us about a time when you have been
especially motivated.
I What most strongly motivates you to work hard?
I How does this show itself?
I What demotivates you?

Q Tell us about a time when you worked especially
hard.
I Which aspects of the situation motivated you to work hard?
I Which aspect of the situation demotivated you?
I What feedback did you receive on your performance?

133


Q Describe a recent opportunity when you had to
take on new responsibilities?
I How did the opportunity arise?
I What were these new responsibilities?
I What was the outcome?

Q Give an example of when you have set yourself
an ambitious target.
I What made it so ambitious?
I How did it compare with other targets you had set yourself?
I How well did you do?

Q Describe a situation in which you had to work
under pressure.
I What was the cause of the pressure?
I How did you feel under this pressure?
I What impact did this have on your work?

Q Tell me about a crisis you have handled recently.
I What caused it?
I What did you do to resolve it?
I What were your feelings at the time?

Q Tell us about a time when you felt that you
were unfairly criticised.
I Why was this?
I How did you respond?

FURTHER TYPICAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS • 135

Q Describe a situation at work when something
was causing you to feel negative.
I What caused these feelings?
I How did you approach your work at the time?
I What impact did this have on your colleagues?

Q Can you tell us about a time when your drive
and determination inspired others to give more
commitment to their work?
I What did you say?
I How did other people respond?
I What was the result?


STRATEGIC THINKING
Able to take a broad view of industry, its threats and opportunities, and
use them to identify areas of business potential that can be exploited.

Q Tell me about a recent time when you took a
broad view of your own work.
I Why was this necessary?
I How useful was this approach?
I What wider implications became apparent?

Q How do you think the role for which you are
applying will impact on the long-term success of
the company?
I How do you see your contribution?

Q What do you know of this company’s long-term
strategy?
I What do you think of this strategy?
I How sensible do you think it is?

Q Give an example of a time when you could have
taken a more long-term view on a
project/strategy.
I Why was this important?
I What did you learn?


RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
Puts sustained effort into building influential relationships.

Q Give me an example of a time when someone
came to you for support or guidance.
I Why did they need your support?
I What did you do to support/guide them?
I How did it help?

Q Describe a time when you had to establish an
effective relationship quickly.
I What did you do?
I What did you learn from this?

effective in building and maintaining
relationships with others?
I What did you specifically do that was effective?

Q In which situations have you been least effective
in building and maintaining relationships
with others?
I What did you do that detracted from effectiveness?
I What would you have done differently?

Q What can you do to become more effective in
this competency?

I What behaviours could you demonstrate more/less?


COMMERCIAL AWARENESS
Recognises how businesses work, and understands and applies
commercial and financial principles.

Q What do you know about this company?
I How did you find this out?
I How would you keep this knowledge up to date?

Q What do you know about the competitors in this
business?
I What are the key strengths of their strategy?
I How do you think we could we be more successful?
I What opportunities do you see for growing the business in this area?

Q Why, in your opinion, do customers choose our
products and services?
I What benefits do they have for the customer?
I How could we make them more competitive?
I How could we make them more profitable?
I What are the market trends that affect us?

Q In what way do you think the role for which you
are applying contributes to our overall business
performance?
I How could we measure this impact?

Q What is the most important thing you have
done to take account of
costs/profits/commercial value?
I What prompted you?


I What long-term impact did you have?
I How could you have increased this further?

Q Give an example of a time when you spotted a
good business opportunity.
I What was this?
I Why did you think it was worthwhile?

Q What general commercial factors do you think
are most critical in managing the financial
performance of any area of business?
I How commercial is your outlook compared to your peers?
I How do you know?
I What do you perceive to be your biggest commercial failure? Why?


LEADERSHIP OF CHANGE
Identifies ways to improve our business. Engages with all colleagues to
support them through ambiguity and transition.

Q Describe an occasion when you had to change
the way you work because of changing
circumstances.
I What were the main changes in terms of demands?
I What was your initial reaction?
I How well did you adapt?

Q Give an example of a time when you had to
change your work plans unexpectedly.
I What was your first reaction?
I How did you change your plans?

Q Describe a time when you needed to explain
to colleagues an unexpected change in
work plans.
I What was their reaction?
I How did you manage their adaptation?

Q Suggestions for change often come from the
unlikeliest of sources. Tell us about a time when
this has happened to you.
I What was the catalyst for change?
I What was your reaction?
I How did you manage your colleagues’ reactions?


Q Give us a recent example of when you came up
with a different approach/solution to a situation
or problem.
I What suggestions did you make?
I Which ideas were put into practice?

Q Describe a crisis at work that you have had to
handle recently.
I What caused it?
I What did you do to resolve it?

effective at motivating others through periods
of change?
I What did you do specifically that was effective?
I What supportive conditions were present?

Q Think of someone who’s particularly effective in
motivating others – what do they do exactly?


LEADERSHIP SKILLS
Creates and communicates a compelling vision and sense of purpose.

Q Describe a time when your input motivated
others to reach a team goal.
I What did you do to motivate the team?
I Why did this work?

Q Describe a time when you successfully helped
someone to carry out a task independently.
I How did you enable them to carry out the work?
I How did you follow this up?

Q Describe a situation when you found it difficult
to focus the work of a team on an objective.
I What made this work difficult?
I How did you try to overcome these difficulties?
I How could you improve upon this?

Q What opportunities have you had to identify
development opportunities for others?
I What action did you take?
I What impact did this have?


Q We all have times when we find it difficult to
control the activities of others. Give an example
of when you faced this type of situation.
I Why did you find the situation challenging?
I How did you overcome the difficulties you faced?

effective in providing leadership and direction?
I What supportive conditions were present?
I In which situations were you least effective?
I What could you have done differently?

Q In what situations have you been most effective
in empowering others?
I What did you do that was especially effective?
I What results did you see?


CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Identifies the processes needed to make things happen in a quality-
oriented way and to get things actioned.

Q Tell us about a time when you have had to
identify the key cause of a problem.
I What processes did you adopt to identify the key cause?
I How did you solve the problem?
I What lessons did you learn?

Q Tell us about a situation where you have
implemented a process that you didn’t initially
agree with.
Q Describe the last time you had to analyse a lot
of information or data.
I What sort of information did this involve?
I How did you pick out the essential information from the less
relevant?
I What did you learn from the analysis?

Q Give us a recent example of when you were
faced with a complex problem.
I What made it complex?
I What key steps did you take to resolve the problem?
I What did others think of your approach?


Q Most people have potentially experienced
situations where they wished they had taken
action to deal with an issue sooner. When have
you anticipated a potential problem like this?
I How did you identify the problem?
I What steps did you take to address it?
I What feedback did you receive?

Q Describe a time when you had to organise
the implementation of a new process/plan
or project.
I What key stages did you work through?
I On what basis did you determine your priorities?
I How did this work out in practice?

Q Even the most organised individuals may find
that they overlook some of the activities
required in planning new activities/initiatives.
Tell us about a time when this happened to you.
I What were the consequences of this?
I How did you rectify this?

Q Give an example of when you had to organise a
piece of work, project or event.
I How did you prepare and plan for it?
I What timescales did you set?
I How well did it go?


Q Give an example of when you had to work to an
important deadline.
I How manageable were your timescales?
I What did you do to ensure that the deadline was met?
I What did you learn?

Q Describe the last time you missed a deadline.
Why did this happen?


CUSTOMER AWARENESS
Dedicated to meeting and exceeding the expectations and requirements
of all customers.

Q How much contact have you had with
customers?
I What do you like about dealing with them?
I What do you dislike?

Q Give an example of when you put a
customer first.
I What sacrifices did you have to make?
I What impact did this have on your other activities?
I How did others view this?

Q Tell me about the last time a customer made an
excessive or unreasonable demand on you.
I What made them so demanding?
I What did you do to assist them?
I How much time did this take?

Q Tell me about a time when you have kept your
promise to a customer, even though it was
really tough.

Q Describe a time when you were unable to help
out a customer as much as they wanted.
I Why was this?
I What did they say about your reaction?
I What did your manager say?


Q Tell me about a time when you were
complimented for helping a customer beyond
the call of duty.
I How frequently do you go to that kind of trouble?
I What other similar feedback have you received?
I What feedback have you had from colleagues?

Q Give an example of a time when you had to
listen very carefully to a customer.
I What did they tell you?
I How did you check you had grasped all the information?
I How did you show you were listening?

Q Describe a situation in which you have had to
deal with a particularly angry customer
I Why were they angry?
I How did you begin to calm them down?
I What would you do differently?

Q What do you think are the key factors that
influence a customer’s first impression?
I Why do you think they are important?


DECISION-MAKING SKILLS AND JUDGEMENT
Demonstrates a readiness to make quality decisions based on logical
analysis of information, and can originate action.

Q In what past situations have you shown sound
judgement?
I What did you do specifically that was effective?

Q Think of someone who shows excellent
judgement – what do they do exactly?

Q Describe the last time you had to make a spur-
of-the-moment decision.
I How did your decision affect others?
I What consequences had you not considered?

Q Tell us about a time when you took
responsibility for making a key decision.
I What was your decision?
I How did you defend your decision?
I What was the possible impact of a poor decision?

Q Describe a time when you referred a decision
upwards.
I What was the background?
I Why did you need help?
I To what extent do you seek advice?


Q Tell us about a recent situation in which you
had to be totally objective when reaching a
decision.
I What were the facts you had to review?
I How did you weight the different pieces of information?
I Looking back, what do you think of your decision?

Q How would you describe your preferred style of
making judgements?
I What are the key strengths of this?
I How does this compare with your colleagues’ style?

Q How would you describe your preferred style of
making decisions?
I Where do you typically source your information?

Q We all have to make unpopular decisions that
may affect others. Describe a situation when
you have had to make such a decision.
I Why did you take it?
I How did the people who were affected react?
I What did you learn from this experience?

Q Can you tell us about a time when you had to
source information from a variety of sources
and make business judgements based upon it?
I Talk us through the actual steps you took in this process.


INFLUENCING SKILLS
Influences, convinces or impresses others in a way that results in
acceptance, agreement or behaviour change.

Q Tell me about the last time that you won
someone over to your point of view.
I How did your opinion contrast with their original position?
I What were the key things that you did which persuaded them?
I What kind of agreement did you reach?

Q Give a recent example of when you negotiated a
successful outcome.
I What did you negotiate?
I How did you win the person round?
I How did you know that they were really convinced?

Q Give an example of a time when you were
unable to persuade someone round to your
point of view.
I Why did you not succeed?
I What have you learnt?

Q There are times when no one is prepared to
listen or agree with a point of view. Give an
example of when this happened to you.
I How did you present your view/idea?
I What were their objections?
I How hard did you push your viewpoint?
I Where did you leave the conversation?


Q For most of us, the occasion arises when we
must convince others to make an unpopular
choice/decision. Give an example of when you
have had to do this.
I How did you try to get others on board?
I With hindsight, how could you have approached this differently?

Q What kind of correspondence/presentations
have you had to produce in the past?
I How frequently have you had to write this kind of work?
I How was it received?
I Did people/colleagues understand what you had said?

Q Tell me about your experience in preparing
reports/documents.
I How often have you had to prepare reports?
I How do you go about it?
I What do you do particularly well?

Q For many businesses good communication is key
for success. What factors, in your view, ensure
good communication?
I What advice might you give to someone struggling with his or her
communication?
I How might you improve your own written communication?
I What steps have you taken to do this?


Q In what situations do you find it difficult to get
your point across?
I Why is this so?
I What do you do to overcome these difficulties?
I What methods have you observed others use?

Q Think of one of your colleagues who you
consider to be very influential. How does your
style differ from theirs?
I Give an example of your approach.

Q Tell us about a situation when you had to
modify your plans/actions to take account of
other people’s views.
I What was the situation?
I How did the other people express their views?

Q How do you get your boss/others to accept
an idea?


DEVELOPMENT OF SELF AND OTHERS
Has the ability, and interest, to take responsibility for own development
and to support and coach the development of others.

Q What can you do to become more effective in
developing other people?
I What behaviours should you practise more/less?

Q Where are you most effective in attracting and
developing the talent of others?
Q In what situations have you succeeded in
furthering your own personal development?
I How did you do this?
I What risks did you take?

Q Tell me about a situation where you felt you
failed in your own personal development.
I Why do you think it happened?
I What have you learned from this?

Q Describe a recent opportunity you had to take
on new responsibilities.
I How did the opportunity arise?
I What were the new responsibilities?


Q When was the last time you learned a new skill
(at work)?
I What was it?
I How did you apply your learning?
I What feedback did you receive about your performance?

Q What example can you give us where you have
supported and encouraged a colleague?
I What did you do?
I What did they need?

Q Describe a situation in which you have been
faced with a difficult individual.
I How did you handle this?

Q Describe how your current role has
changed/developed over the years.
Q Tell me about your professional style, how it has
developed/changed over the years.
I Has there been a time when it was inappropriate and you had to
adapt it?

Q Give us an example of a time when you were
unfairly criticised about something.
I Why was this?
I How did you respond?


TEAMWORKING SKILLS
Works cooperatively and productively with all colleagues.

effective as a teamworker?

Q In which situations were you least effective as a
teamworker?
I What did you do that detracted from effectiveness?
I What could you have done differently?

Q Think of someone who’s a particularly effective
team player – what do they do exactly?
Q What makes a supportive team?
I Why do you think this is important?
I What can be done to encourage people to work together more
supportively?
I What gets in the way of successful teamworking?


SPECIALIST KNOWLEDGE
Has the appropriate background knowledge and expertise and
understands technical or professional aspects of work.

Q How do you keep up with advances in your
profession?
I How much time do you spend doing this?
I Which specialist or technical magazines or journals do you read?
I How do your efforts to keep up with developments compare with
those of your peers?

Q Tell me about a time when colleagues sought
your technical advice or experience.
I Why do you think they sought your advice?
I How accurate was your advice?
I What have you done since to acquire extra knowledge?

Q Which technical problems are the most
challenging for you?
I What are your strengths and weaknesses technically?
I How does your level of knowledge compare with that of your peers?
I What feedback have you received about it?

Q What methods do you choose to learn by and
why do you prefer these?

Q Give an example of when your
technical/specialist knowledge helped you to
solve a problem.
I What brought this issue to light?
I What did you do?
I What was the result of your efforts?


Q Describe a recent occasion when you felt that
your level of specialist knowledge was
insufficient.
I What made you think this?
I What action did you take?
I What are your current strengths and weaknesses in this area?

Q It can sometimes be difficult to apply the
knowledge gained in specialised courses to the
workplace. What opportunities have you had to
do this?
I How did you adapt the knowledge?

Q What steps do you take to apply your specialist
knowledge to a commercial environment?
I How useful is that approach?
I What are the limitations of that approach?

Q Give an example of an area where you would
consider yourself to have detailed knowledge
or expertise.
I Tell me what important changes are taking place in this field.
I What are the implications of this?

Q What sort of professional standards have you
had to adhere to in the past?
I Why were they important?
I What difficulties did you encounter maintaining them?
I How did you ensure that others also complied with these standards?

APPENDIX: THE JOKE’S
ON HR
As a member of a minority group (HR professionals) I feel I can relate to
you some funny stories where HR is the butt of the joke without fear of
reprisal from the politically correct brigade. These are just a few jokes I
have picked up along the way. Enjoy.

Q: How many HR managers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but he reserves the right to take his time about it as the
company would need to be aware of the light bulb’s view on change
and also the view of the other stakeholders involved.

Once upon a time there was a shepherd looking after his flock of sheep
on a back road in deepest Wales. Just then, a shiny BMW screeched to a
halt beside him and the passenger leans out the window and says to the
shepherd: ‘If I can guess how many sheep you have, can I keep one?’

The shepherd says, ‘Right you are then.’

The woman in the car connects her laptop to a mobile phone, logs into
the NASA website, scans the field using a satellite, opens a database
linked to 142 Excel files filled with formulae, logarithms, pivot and look-
up tables, then prints out a 100-page report on a 12-volt DC-powered
micro printer. She says to the shepherd ‘You have 1398 sheep exactly’.

‘That’s right. You can take your pick of my flock’ says the shepherd.

The woman packs all her gear up, looks at the flock, picks one up and
shoves it in the boot. As she is about to leave the shepherd says, ‘If I can
guess what you do for a living, will you give my animal back to me?’

159


The woman agrees and the shepherd says ‘You’re an HR manager’.

‘That’s amazing,’ cried the woman. ‘How did you know?’

‘First of all, you came here without being invited. Second of all you
spent ages telling me what I already knew. And finally you don’t
understand a thing about what I do, but interfered anyway. Now, can I
have my bloody dog back?’

An HR manager sadly passed away and her soul drifted up to the Pearly
Gates where St Peter stood to welcome her.

‘We’ve never had an HR manager make it this far before. We’re not
really sure what to do with you, so the Boss has said we’ve to give you
one day in Hell and one day in Heaven and then let you choose where
you want to stay for eternity.’

‘Oh then, I choose Heaven’ said the woman.

‘Not so fast,’ said St Peter. ‘You must experience both before you make
your choice,’ and puts the woman on the downward escalator to Hell.

As the doors opened in Hell, the woman stepped out into a beautiful
garden. In the distance was a rose-framed cottage; around her were
many friends, all with smiling faces. They ran up to her and kissed and
hugged her and welcomed her and they chatted about old times. They
had a lovely afternoon together and rounded off their day with a
beautiful a la carte dinner washed down with the finest champagne.
Just as she was getting really into the swing of things it was time to
leave. Everyone hugged her and waved her off as she set off up the
escalator towards the Pearly Gates.

APPENDIX: THE JOKE’S ON HR • 161

St Peter was waiting for her once more and said, ‘Now its time to spend
a day in Heaven,’ and off she went on the up escalator to Heaven.

For the next 24 hours the HR manager spent all her time lolling around
on clouds, plucking her harp and preening her wings and singing
sweetly, all of which was just about as pleasant as her time in Hell.

At the end of her day, St Peter returned and said to her, ‘You’ve spent a
day in Heaven and a day in Hell. Now you must choose which one
where you will spend eternity.’

The woman thought for a bit then said, ‘Well Heaven’s nice, of course,
but actually I had a better time in Hell, so I think I’ll choose Hell.’

The woman was dispatched down the escalator to Hell but when she
got there this time there before her stood a desolate wasteland, with
stinking piles of rubbish and the people were wailing and full of sorrow.

At that, the devil popped up and put his arm round her shoulder.
‘Everything OK?’ he said.

‘I don’t understand,’ the HR manager stammered. ‘When I was here
before everything was wonderful, we ate fantastic food and everyone
was happy.’

‘Ahh’ said the Devil ‘When you were here before we were recruiting.
Now you are staff...’

The following represents (allegedly) true comments made by line
managers on employees’ annual appraisal forms:

I Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has
started to dig.


I I would not allow this employee to breed.
I This employee is really not so much of a has-been but more of a
definite won't-be.
I Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat
in a trap.
I When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change feet.
I He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle.
I This young lady has delusions of adequacy.
I He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to
achieve them.
I This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.
I This employee should go far, and the sooner he starts, the better.
I Got a full six-pack but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together.
I A gross ignoramus – 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus.
I He does not have ulcers, but he is a carrier.
I I would like to go hunting with him sometime.
I He has been working with glue too much.
I He would argue with a signpost.
I He brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room.
I When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell.
I If you see two people talking, and one looks bored, he is the
other one.
I A photographic memory but with the lens covered glued on.
I A prime candidate for natural de-selection.
I Donated his brain to science before he was done using it.
I Gates are down, the lights are flashing but the train is not coming.
I Has two brains: one is lost and the other is out looking for it.
I If he were any more stupid, he would have to be watered twice
a week.
I If you gave him a penny for his thoughts, you would get change.
I If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean.
I It is hard to believe that he beat out 1,000,000 other sperm.
I One neuron short of a synapse.

APPENDIX: THE JOKE’S ON HR • 163

I Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; he only gargled.
I Takes him two hours to watch 60 minutes.
I The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.

INDEX OF QUESTIONS

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR DRIVE FOR ACHIEVEMENT
Tell me what you know about our business?

Give an example of when you’ve experienced a setback.

What have you done to progress your education to date?

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR STRATEGIC THINKING
In what past situations have you shown most evidence of
visionary/strategic thinking?

What do you see as the main threats to our business in the long-term?
What can we do to ensure long-term success?

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
Tell me about a recent situation when you had to build a relationship
with a new colleague. Why was the relationship important?

Think of someone who’s particularly effective at building and
maintaining relationships with others. What do they do exactly?

How do you behave when you meet new people?

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Tell us about a time when you initiated an improvement at work.

Tell us about how you normally cope with a lot of work.

165


I Where do you start?
I What do you do to ensure it all gets done?
I What prevents you from getting it all done?

QUESTIONS ON YOUR LEADERSHIP OF CHANGE
Tell us about a recent time when you had to adapt to a major change

I How did you adapt?
I What was difficult about the transition?

Tell us about a time when you questioned or challenged a way
of working.

I Why did you question it?
I What alternative did you suggest?
I To what extent were your ideas used?

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR LEADERSHIP SKILLS
Describe a time when you had to coordinate the work of other people.

I What were you trying to achieve?
I How did you go about organising the work?

Think of someone who is particularly effective in providing leadership.
What do you think they do successfully?

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMER AWARENESS
What, in your view, makes it difficult to relate well to certain customers?

Tell me about a recent situation when you had to build a relationship
with a new customer.

Give me an example when you have given excellent customer service.

INDEX OF QUESTIONS • 167

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR INFLUENCING SKILLS
What are your strengths in terms of influencing people?

I What’s your approach in influencing others?
I What could you do to make yourself more effective in influencing
others?

Give an example of when you had to settle a dispute between
two people.

Have you ever had a conflict with a superior? How was it resolved?

Some people are easier to persuade than others. Which people do you
find it hard to persuade?

I What is it that makes persuading them so difficult?

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR DEVELOPMENT OF SELF
AND OTHERS
What do you consider to be your weaknesses?

What would you consider to be your development needs?

In what past situations have you been most effective in developing
others?

What did you do specifically that was effective?

What was the last piece of learning you undertook?

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR TEAM WORKING SKILLS
Tell us about the last time you worked as part of a team.


I What did you like about working in the group?
I What did you dislike?

Tell me about a time when you had to get people to work together more
supportively.

I What caused the original difficulties?
I How did the others respond to you?
I What would you do differently next time?

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR DECISION-MAKING SKILLS
AND JUDGEMENT
Tell us about a recent situation in which you had to reach a decision
without having all the facts.

How do you usually go about solving a problem?

Would you say you are good at making decisions?

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR COMMERCIAL AWARENESS
Why, in your opinion, do customers choose our products and services?

How could we make them more competitive?

What are the market trends that affect us?

What opportunities have you had to identify cost savings in the past?
Give an example.

How did you choose where to make the savings?

How much money do you think you saved?

INDEX

achievement drive 6, 11–13, 60–4, feedback 84, 131, 132
133–4
annual reports 61 humour 58, 109
application form 2
assessment, self 6 influencing skills 8, 26–7, 97–100,
Asylum & Immigration Act 1996 151–3
48–50 internal politics 12, 15
intervention 81
Blair, Tony 82 interview, afterwards 122–9
body language 59 interview, competency based 6
interview, conducting self 57–9
Callaghan, James 82 interview, preparation 5, 54
clothes 34–7 interviews, conducting 55
commercial awareness 7, 16–17, interviews, structure 55
75–8, 138–9 interviews, telephone 130–2
competence, level of 9, 58
competencies 2, 6, 7 kaizen 86
competency profiles 81
competitors 12, 16 leadership of change 7, 17–19, 79–82,
conflict 84, 99 140–1
continuous improvement 7, 22–4, 68, leadership skills 7, 19–20, 82–5,
79, 86–90, 144–6 142–3
curriculum vitae (CV) 2, 3, 38, 58, 124 legislation, employment 40–53
customer awareness 7, 22–4, 92–6,
149–51 management, mushroom 83

Data Protection Act 51, 56 Neuro Linguistic Programming 59
decision making 8, 24–5 notes 56
development, self and others 8, 27–8,
101–4, 114, 154–5 objectives 12
diplomacy 84 offers 56
Disability Discrimination Act 1995
45–8 Police Act 1997 50–1
dispute 99 problem solving 63, 96
Dragon’s Den 39
Race Relations Act 1976 44
Eisenhower, Dwight D 82 registration 127
employers’ perspective 54–6 Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
Employment Equality Regulations 41
2003 51 rejection 122–3, 125
employment tribunal 51–3 relationship building 6, 14–15, 20,
eye contact 56 71–4

169


researching the organisation 31–3, 60, taking to interview 37
69, 76 teamworking 8, 29–30, 68, 105–9, 156
timing 34, 76
salary 120 Trade Union & Labour Relations Act
setbacks, dealing with 61–3 1992 45
Sex Discrimination Act 1975 41–4
Shaw, George Bernard 6 vacancies, hidden 1
specialist knowledge 157–8
spell-check 119 Wattleton, Faye 82
strategic thinking 6, 13–14, 18,
67–70, 136–7

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