How Not To Answer The Interview

Question Why Are You Looking

For A Job Change?
by Vaibhav Gupta October 17, 2013

The most common answer to this interview question Why are you
looking for a job change? is,
I am not really looking for a job change as I am happy with
my current job. However, one of my friends told me about this
job, and I thought about exploring it in case, it offers
something better.
To start with, lets accept the fact that a happy employee never
quits, and a recruiter is not a fool to believe this statement. Every
employee changes job for a reason. The reason can range from a
variety of issues issues pertaining to salary; supervisor;
colleagues; management; company policies; market performance;
branding; and many more that are, sometimes, personal and
circumstantial.
Most candidates think that if they tell the correct reason, they could
get rejected; hence resort to lying. However, lies dont help. The
recruiters are trained to catch, and weed such candidates out of
the selection process. Most people are perplexed as to why such a
question is asked, because they dont understand the perspective
that a recruiter wishes to gain by the answer to this question.
Recruiters aim to hire employees, motivated by goals that are
logical, long term, and mutually fulfilling. They also wish to
understand the psychology and environment within which the
employee must have been working. Environment and psychology
have lately attracted a lot of attention with in job market as people
have savored the consequences of not paying heed to them.
Unfortunately, most of the candidates look for a job change for
all the wrong reasons. Listed below are all those wrong reasons,
along with the explanation as to why they are considered wrong.
For better Salary



The biggest reason behind changing the job is dissatisfaction
from the current salary. Quoting Salary as the sole reason for
changing the job is never considered healthy. This shows that the
candidate is not concerned with the job profile, and is greedy for
only the short term desires. Such candidates reflect the tendency
to hop, every time a better offer is thrown at them. Stability is a big
issue with them. Most people are dissatisfied with respect to salary
not because of their own lower salaries, but for the higher salaries
of other people that they know of. Its the comparison, which
creates the problems. No recruiter would consider salary as a valid
reason if a candidates salary is at par with the market standards,
with respect to the industry, profile, and designation, the person is
currently associated with. However, if in your case salary really is
an issue, then you must frame your answers in way given below: I
am extremely satisfied with my role, and the company.
Working with this organization has been a great learning
experience. As evident from my resume, I am a very stable
person, and for me, profile and the learning hold a great
importance. However, given the market standards, my current
salary is much lesser, and it has caused a little
dissatisfaction. I have spoken with my company HR about this
issue, and I am sure that they must have tried hard, but
unfortunately, despite my consistent good performance and
repeated reminders, they have not considered the possibility
of giving me a raise. I am sure that they must have had their
own valid reasons. However, I believe that I am ready for a
salary raise. I applied with your organization, because the
working environment and the learning process is the same in
this company as well, along with the possibility of getting a
better compensation, which would be as per the market
norms. In this answer, you have actually addressed to a host of
issues. You told the recruiter positive things about your current role
and company, your expectations related to salary, your awareness
and research about current market standards, and a valid reason
for applying to this company. You have also justified your demand
through research, while not demeaning the importance of long
term goals, profile, and learning. This will definitely be
considered.
Because you dont get along with
your manager or team


Another major reason to look for a change is, when an employee
doesnt get along well with the manager or the team members.
Now, as a rule, an interviewee cant gripe about the current
company, manager or the team members, because that would
make recruiter suspicious about the candidates own behavior, and
ability to gel with people around. Even if you are the only right
person in the entire company, a recruiter cant promise you a
favorable environment in the new organization, and I believe
neither can candidate himself. It also negatively highlights the
people handling skills of the employee. An ideal advice to such a
candidate should be to go back, and stop applying. Sit back, and
think; analyze the situation. Realign the focus from Whos
wrong? to Whats wrong? If there is a problem with the
manager, fix up a one-to-one meeting. Take feedback, and
understand the expectations. Sometimes, rather most of the times,
no one is culprit, except the differences in perspectives and
expectations. Make the notes or the minutes of the meeting, and
assure your manager that you would work on the shortcomings.
Once both of you will be on the same page, I am sure that you
wont have to look for another job.

Lets talk about the differences with team members. I understand
that the problem is bigger, because the biggest hindrance is your
ego. The first and the most difficult task, is to put your ego aside.
Once it is done, go and speak to them, but only in separate
meetings. Try, and explore if everyone thinks alike about you. Find
out the reasons, but dont talk about the issues that you face
because of them. The key is to change your own behavior,
reasonably of course, and starting a spiral of behavior change in
the rest for you. As an interview coach and a soft skills trainer, I
have mostly observed that team issues vanish very soon if there is
leadership support. Leader must always be kept in loop while
doing all this so that he or she knows, and recognizes your steps
and efforts. At the end of the day, the leader will garner the credits
for entire teams coordination and performance. Ideas proposed
above, were for people, who have a long term career approach,
and wish to make things better through right channels. For others,
however, the best way is to keep lying until someone believes you.
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When your current company is not
performing well


Times are turbulent, and any company may face such a situation,
any day. People, especially the recruiters, are aware about every
companys performance within their industries. A highly foolish
thing that most candidates do is to keep avoiding the truth. I have
even faced candidates, who insisted that their companies were
performing greatly, and they were changing only because of the
better opportunities. Such candidates never make it through,
because from the recruiters perspective, either they are lying or
living in oblivion.
There are candidates, who openly criticize the company policies,
and management decisions. Now, they might be technically right,
but an employee is not supposed to be judgmental. What
happened with one company may become the fate of another.
Judgmental employees spend most of the time in analyzing things
beyond their scope, and view every management process and
decision with suspicion. Suspicions cause arguments, debates,
and battles, and no one wants any of that.
A recruiter expects the candidate to first accept the situation at
hand, while maintaining a non-judgmental attitude. The ideal way
of handling this is by saying, As you know that the company, I
am currently working with, is facing a turbulent time, and the
employees have got a clear indication from the management;
hence, I am looking for a job change in order to secure my
future. But dont think that this matter would end like this. The
trail of questions would be more difficult, however, can be made
easier by rational thinking and preparation. Candidates should be
prepared for questions like,
Where do you think your companys decisions went wrong,
because of which such a situation came up?
Do you think you could have done things differently, if you were
the CEO? What were those things?
What if, God forbids, something like this happens to this company
tomorrow? Would you leave us too?
I will surely tell you how to answer the above questions, but some
other day.
For an onsite opportunity (in case
of IT companies)


There are two phases of IT recruitment a desperate one and a
non-desperate one. These times are largely governed by the
requirements of particular skill sets, and the number of such
requirements. During desperate times, IT companies do
compromise on this term, in order to fulfill their project
requirements. Candidates even have the courage to negotiate on
the basis of onsite opportunity with some companies. However,
during the other times, when no such desperation exists, such
candidates are rejected outright. The simple reason being that if
the company you are working with, doesnt think of you as a
deserving candidate to be deployed onsite, how can they? It
simply implies that for you, role, responsibilities, project quality,
learning and development or any such organizational virtues weigh
lesser than a simple onsite opportunity, which is more of a short-
term wealth accumulation mechanism. The verdict is simple you
dont understand business. While some may disagree, I have
never shown a green signal to any such candidate. Change is a
highly welcomed phenomenon, but only for the right reasons.
For an opportunity to work with a
better brand


This answer is like a swamp; once you jump into it, you slide down
with no comeback. Harder you try to come out of it, deeper you
sink. The recruiter of a bigger company knows that he represents a
bigger brand for which, there are valid reasons. However, he
would be keen to know your definition and parameters of big
brand. The term bigger brand has different meanings for
different people. For most, it is fatter pay packages. Some other
shallow perceptions include larger teams, big market presence or
share, swanky offices, and happening crowd. However, interviewer
is searching for a person, who identifies and values true reasons
like, well defined processes and systems, opportunity to work in
cross functional teams, strong training and development platform,
multifaceted learning opportunities, a bigger platform to showcase
the performance, to gain enormous recognition, and finally, to
achieve a comprehensive development as a professional human
being. I hope you must have checked by now what factors you had
included in the definition of bigger brand. Remember one thing,
though. No matter how strongly you establish the new company as
a bigger and better brand, never ever demean your current
organization.
Always start your answer with praises for your current company,
and the way it helped in your evolution as a professional. Being
ungrateful is never appreciated. I once encountered an aspirant,
who devoted 10 minutes to disgrace his first organization, and the
many ways, in which it pulled his career down. My next question
was, But dont you think that this was the only company that
gave you the first chance, and that too during recession,
when most of the people were not offered jobs? Dont you
think that, if not for that company, you, like many others,
would have become a lecturer in some small engineering
college in an inconspicuous town? I know my questions carry
a glimpse of my anger, however, the point to be noted is that he
did not have any answer, and all he could come up with, was a
sheepish smile.
There are weirder reasons like, the present company not allowing
the pets inside the company premises, and this article wont be of
much use to such candidates. But I am sure that this article will be
circulated among those, who are truly trying to find the right
answer to this inevitable question. In my next articles, I will discuss
about the right reasons, which should instigate the job change. Till
then, remember what not to say as an answer to this question.
Good Luck!
If you like this article, press Like Button. Also I
would love to know if you liked this article or not.
Dont hesitate to leave your comments.
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MOTIVATIONAL STORIES
Fear the Failure so You Get the
Courage to Succeed! Shah Rukh
Khan
by Vaibhav Gupta October 1, 2013
Shah Rukh Khan at Management Convention in Delhi.

Heres what he said (copied from Delhi Times The Times of
India)
Iam going to say good evening again, because thats how I started
the speech. First of all, its really scary here. Some of the biggest
managers of the biggest corporations in the biggest convention for
management AIMA.

Its very sad that in such an august company of people, big
business houses and managers, all you could manage was to get
a speaker from Bollywood to speak at the convention. The
economy must be really bad.
Well,who am I to speak about the economic downtrend across the
globe etc, or anything, for that matter? Just reading the topics
being discussed before I came on stage, I was frightened. And if
Im allowed to say so,shit scared.I couldnt understand a word. Let
me tell you one of the discussions they had earlier on in the day
Could financialisation of commodities be used to incentivise
supply growth without inflating prices?
Okay, if you say so. Or no, if you guys are in a bad mood,
whatever you say.
The other one Managing liquidity supply crunch risk of NPA
CSR mandate CEOs COOs CFOs UFOs! mindboggling and
numbing for a person like me who can just about say, k-k-k-k-
corporation management. And the topic that my friend Shiv (D
Shivakumar,president, AIMA) told me is, I have to speak about
courage, in this scared state and ill-informed mindset.But here I
am,and so are all of you wonderful people.I wish you a great
convention and a happy economy, and I want to thank my friend
Shiv for giving me this opportunity to speak in front of such an
extraordinary amazement of grey matter all of you highly
successful, perhaps the most successful people in the world and
he chose me to give you a speech on success. Am I the only one
seeing the irony here? Or are you all too busy holding back your
laughter on what Im going to say?
Apart from my lack of knowledge and fear, the only other thing is
that Im not good at giving discourses on how to succeed. I dont
know what Im going to say to you highly motivated people that you
dont already know about life.So Ill bore you with a few details of
my life. But let me warn you, this is a recycled speech. Its generic
and its simple.
Successful people are almost never able to pinpoint what it was
that made them so. Take Warren Buffet. Heres a guy who must
get asked five times a day how he became the most successful
investor of his era.His answers? Reinvest your profits, limit what
you borrow are no different from what any fool could tell you. But
hes not being cagey he simply doesnt know. Success is a
wonderful thing, but it tends not to be the sort of experience that
we learn from. We enjoy it, perhaps we even deserve it, but we
dont acquire anything from it. And maybe thats why,it cannot be
passed on either.Being successful does not mean my children will
also be so, however much I teach them what all did in my life, and
they follow it to the letter.
Success just happens, really.
So, talking about how to become successful is a waste of time. So
let me tell you, very honestly, whatever happened to me,
happened because Im really scared of failure. I dont want as
much to succeed, as much I dont want to fail. I come from a very
normal middle/lower middle-class family, and I saw a lot of failure.
My father was a beautiful man, and the most successful failure in
the world. My mom also failed to stay with me long enough to see
me become a movie star. We were quite poor, actually at certain
junctures of our lives, I had even experienced what we call in Delhi
a kudki how many of you know about it? This is a thing that the
government does when you dont pay the rent of your house, and
they throw you and your stuff on the roads.

Let me tell you, poverty is not an ennobling experience at all.
Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes, depression. Ive
seen my parents go through it many times it means a thousand
petty humiliations and hardships. At an early age after my parents
died, I equated poverty with failure. I just didnt want to be poor. So
when I got a chance to act in films, it wasnt out of any creative
desire that I signed my films it was just purely out of the fear of
failure and poverty. Most of them were discards of other actors and
the producers could not find anyone else to do them. Deewana,
which was my first hit, was actually discarded by an actor called
Arman Kohli.Baazigarwas rejected by Mr Salman Khan,and
Darrwas negated by Mr Aamir Khan. I did them all just to make
sure I was working. The timing or something was right, and that
made it happen that I became a big star. I asked Dilip Kumar saab
one day we were watching Devdas together and I said, Sir,
yeh joh picture aapne ki hai, itni achhi acting! I had made my
own version of Devdas, and I was sitting next to him, and I said,
Sir, yeh picture jo aapne ki hai, bahut achhi hai. Kyun ki aapne?
Aapko yeh character kyun achha laga? And he looked at me and
he said, Pata nahin yaar, bas thoda sa! kya thaa woh! Bimalda
ek lakh rupaye de rahe the mujhko! That was the only reason he
did Devdas at that point of time. Of course hes the greatest actor
the world will ever see, but at that point of time, thats all he
wanted. That sometimes, our success is not the direct result of our
actions. It just happens on its own, and we take the credit for it, out
of embarrassment sometimes.
So I believe the true road to success is not the desire for success,
but the fear of failure. I tell everyone, if you dont enjoy and be
afraid of your failure hard enough, you will never succeed. Im not
going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun, but I will insist
and hope that all of us will experience it in some measure. The
extent of what each one of us perceives as failure must differ, as it
should, but I believe that everyone should pass through some
stages of failure before they succeed. So how does one fail?
Im sorry, this is what I teach my kids, so if it sounds a little novice
and silly, please excuse me. First and foremost, its not the
absence of failure that makes you a success, it is your response to
failure that actually helps to buffer the reverses you experience. I
myself have two responses to failure. First is pragmatism. I believe
that if one approach does not work, another one might, as in
business, too. The second response is fatalism. I fool myself that it
was bound to happen, and that I need to move on, and not get
caught up in the oft-repeated question God, why does it happen
to me? It happened, move on.
Failure also gives me an incentive to greater exertion, harder work,
which invariably leads to greater success in most cases. Failure is
an amazing teacher. If you dont fail, you will never learn. And if
you dont learn, you will never grow. There is a well-known story of
a bank president who was asked the secret of his success, and he
said, Right decisions. How do you get to know how to make the
right decisions, came the follow-up question. Experience, was the
answer. Well, how do you get experience, asked his interrogator.
Wrong decisions, he replied.
Sometimes, it has also taught me to stop pretending that Im
someone other than what Im supposed to be. It gives me a clear-
cut direction that Hey, maybe Im not supposed to be doing this.
Let me just concentrate on doing and finishing things that really
matter to me that really define me, instead of following a particular
course thats actually taking me away from what my core liking is.
KKR, my cricket team and Shiv knows this is one such
example. Till friends like him gave me advice, I was doing
everything. Then I got myself a COO, set up a whole new
department, and the job I think has been handled much better than
what I think I was (doing). And Im willing to accept that.
Failure also gets you to find out who your real friends are. The true
strength of your relationships only gets tested in the face of strong
adversity. I lost a lot of friends post-Ra.One, apart from losing a lot
of audience too. And post-Chennai Express, even though Ive
made no new friends, I have a whole new set of enemies, which is
also interesting to know.
Regular failures have also taught me empathy towards others.
Being a star, it is easy for me to be prone to the notion that Im
superior, self-sufficient and fantastic, instead of realising that I was
just plain lucky or got some lucky breaks. Overcoming some of my
failures has made me discover that I have a strong will, and (am)
more disciplined than I suspected. It has helped me have
confidence in my ability to survive. So, all in all, I think failure is a
good thing.
I wont bore you with more details of how failure is a good thing
because you wont call me back for a talk on success. But Id like
to tell you all that life is not just a checklist of acquisitions,
attainments and fulfilments. Your qualifications and CVs dont
matter, your jobs dont matter. Instead, life is difficult and
complicated and beyond your control, and to know that with
humility, respecting your failures will help you survive its
vicissitudes. There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few
failures in life. I say making because I believe failure is not an
exterior force. I believe it happens due to our own actions, our own
reactions, in such convoluted ways sometimes that we may not
understand, but we are the reason for it. So dont be weighed
down by it relish it, cherish it, the experience, and learn from it.
By accepting it all and experiencing it will you experience success,
not in isolation of lifes full offerings.
Let me conclude by saying that my hope for you is a lifelong love
of learning, exciting and inspiring projects, dreams, businesses,
profits, power lunches or whatever turns you guys and girls on. But
alongside, I wish you a fair number of moderate failures. By
experiencing all, I hope that you will experience success. Success
is never final, just like failure is never fatal. Courage is ill-defined if
you think it means doing something macho, risky or chancy. If that
happens at somebody elses cost, its even less courageous.
Courage is doing whatever you are afraid to do personally
scared to do in whichever capacity you work. There can be no
courage unless you are scared. So be scared to feel courage, be
fearful.
I believe one has to have the fear of failure so much that you get
the courage to succeed.And that, my friends,is my learned piece of
courage in success or what I call the success of failure, and being
scared enough to be courageous, to make it so. Or if I were to put
it into words that surround me, when I entered here and I was
scared of all this corporate jargon that I heard, This is my theory of
the management of high-rising failure to convert it into success by
growth index of 100%, while understanding the indices of fear and
not compromising the syntax of our courage globally while keeping
a holistic 360 degree view of our domestic market through rigorous
system and processes.
In simple terms or film language, which is what I do If at first you
dont succeed, reload and try again. Shoot fast, shoot first and be
ready to take a bullet too. And remember what Don said Iss
company ke management ke dushman ki sabse badi galti yeh hai,
ki woh is company ka dushman hai. Kyunki jab tak dushman apni
pehli chaal chalta hai, yeh company apni agli chaal chaal chuki
hoti hai.
Speech transcribed by Chandna Arora
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EXPERT INTERVIEW TIPS
Expert Interview Tips When I
Didnt Know the Answer to an
Interview Question! (7 Expert Tips
to Handle Such Situation)
by Vaibhav Gupta September 19, 2013
O my God!
What? I am rejected!
That was Harrys instant reaction, when he got the rejection verdict
in one of the interviews that he had faced. He couldnt believe his
ears when the news broke out to him. His first reaction was to sink
in his sofa engendered with dejection! The memories of the day
when he faced this interview resurfaced, and he started recounting
the events of that day. His mind was grappled with astonishment,
when he realized that it was just one question that he couldnt
answer. Gosh! But my interview went fine, except for a question
that I could not answer.
Damn the Interviewer! What does she think of herself?
Does she know the answers to all the questions?
Does she wish to hire a human or God?
How can she reject someone for just one wrong answer?

Who knows how much time he spent, sunk deeply in the sofa and
thoughts, simultaneously, cursing the interviewer. Finally, he
accepted the reality, and went to the bathroom. Once the cold
splash of water had rinsed his face thoroughly, he looked up in the
mirror. He asked himself, Was it really just one wrong answer! or
something else?
Now was the time for introspection. Upon carefully parsing the
entire interview process that ensued the other day, he realized that
it, probably, was not the wrong answer that got him rejected, but
something else. To confirm his suspicion, he met with me the next
day expecting that I, being an interview expert, would be able to
give him a fresh perspective.

Next day, our meeting started with his narration of the entire
interview process. Bingo, there it was! After 15 minutes of verbatim
narration, problem was spotted. Problem, certainly, was related to
that one question that he could not answer. But it was not related
to his inability to comprehend or answer that question; it was the
way he handled the situation or mishandled it. It finally dawned
on us that he actually banged the table the moment he realized
that he did not have the answer to that question. A stare into
oblivion followed the banging, causing an awkward silence, before
finally admitting to the fact that he did not have an answer. He
banged the table; however, others may resort to reactions like,
banging forehead, fidgeting fingers, lint picking, biting lips,
blabbering gibberish, awkwardly stammering or any other signs to
show resentment or nervousness.

The important question that followed the process of narration and
recollection was, Can there be a better way of handling the
situation, when a candidate does not have an answer to a question
asked during interview?
Now, there may not be an infallible strategy to encounter such a
situation, but I can suggest a few ways which can act as a graceful
mechanism to manage such disaster. However, it would be wiser if
we start by identifying the situations that may arise and devise the
strategies apropos to the respective situations. Following are the
instances in which a candidate may be dumb-founded:
1. When the interviewee didnt understand the meaning
of a question or a word Strong communication
skills, and an ability to comprehend the conversation
are among the greatest demands of current business
environment. Emphatically, a candidate must possess
strong communication skills that include a strong
vocabulary too so that one doesnt stagger at any
question asked by interviewer. However, no person in
this world may attain an exhaustive vocabulary. A
situation may still arise as it happened with one of the
candidates, when interviewer asked, What are your
pet peeves? Unfortunately, the candidate, though well
spoken, didnt know the meaning of the word peeves.
But did the candidate panic? No! Or did she say,
sorry, but I dont know the meaning of that word, or I
didnt understand the question, or I dont know the
answer. Candidate could have said any of the above,
but she did not. Instead, she politely requested, Could
you please rephrase the question? Implication is the
same, but it was an extremely positive way of saying
the same thing. An interviewer deals with several
candidates daily, and is aware that candidates are not
expected to know every word. Interviewer is trying to
find out if you have the ability to choose positive or
smart words to say the same thing. Having said that,
its imperative to build strong language skills, because
you cant ask an interviewer to rephrase every
question. However, for an instance or two, use the
strategy discussed above. First advice: Request the
recruiter, choosing a positive set of words, to
rephrase the question.
2.
3. When a question asked was out of a topic that was
never covered in your curriculum or was not a part
of your job profile - Ideally, a recruiter would never
ask you about something unless he doesnt expect you
to have learned or experienced it as a part of your
education or work profile. But, what can you possibly
do in a situation, when you never did or studied what
recruiter asked about? You couldve simply told the
recruiter that you never did what he was asking for,
and interviewer should stick to whats mentioned in the
resume. But wait! Lets rephrase the same thing to
your maximum advantage. You could simply present
the same thing in much stronger way by saying,
During my education and experience, I have garnered
strong technical know-how and expertise. I can
understand that the skill that you mentioned must be of
great importance to this role, and I would love to learn
that new skill through training and guidance. I am sure
that my existing knowledge combined with this new
skill will enable me to deliver a performance beyond
expectations. However, I would like to know from you
the importance of this skill in this role Through this
answer, you stressed on your current capabilities,
because of which you were invited for this interview;
you also showed your openness towards developing
new skills; you gave recruiter a thought that this skill
could simply be learned through training and guidance;
finally, you made recruiter re-think whether this skill
was actually required in this role or not. Most
importantly, you told the recruiter that you didnt know it
without actually saying it. But you cant keep answering
I will learn to every question asked. It is strictly for
something out of the blue. Second advice: Never say
you dont know it. Say you can learn it.
4. When, in a behavioral question, you actually had never
faced the situation given by recruiter - One thing
must always be kept in mind that recruiter is highly
aware of what he or she is asking for. Your answer to a
situational or behavioral question demonstrates your
ability to cope with the pressure of working in teams,
and dealing with a large pool of people with various
mind sets, especially in case of large cross-functional
teams. So how would you tell your interviewer that you
had never faced a disagreement with another team
member, or supervisor, or the management? Actually,
you dont! Never say that you dont have an idea
because you never came across such a situation for
any of the situational or behavioral questions.
However, you can start by saying, Apologies for not
being able to share a real experience since it hasnt
happened yet, but if such a situation comes, I believe
that I am going to! The idea is to think about the
situation, and tell recruiter how rational your thought
and strategy would be, to deal with any given crisis.
Your inexperience with a situation so far doesnt
guarantee that you will never have to face it. It may
surface anytime, while working in a team. Recruiter
wants to know if you would be able to handle. Third
advice: Never duck from a situational question,
even if you havent faced it yet; imagine, think and
answer.
5. When you are asked to measure the weight of an
airplane without using any scale or to tell the
number of light bulbs, recruiters office building has?
Questions can be many with varied answers. However,
way to reckon your answer is just one presence of
mind! Global corporations, in a race to emerge as the
best and most favored brand in their industry, are
banking on the innovative products, services, and
operational ideas. The company that comes up with a
unique product or idea reaps the advantages of being
an early bird. This has significantly altered the
recruitment strategies; hence the recruiters question
banks too have changed, accordingly. Most candidates
feel flabbergasted, when challenged by one of such
weird questions. Remember that a recruiter is not a
fool to have asked such a question. Through your
reaction or answer, the inability or capability to think
out of the box, perform in a high pressure environment,
and ability to come up with an answer with trouble
shooting attitude, are adjudged. Whatever your answer
may be, recruiter is more focused on the way you
derive the answer; the logical route that you treaded to
reach that answer. Dont hesitate to request a minute
to think, ask questions from recruiter to collect
necessary data, and formulate your answer using a
pen and a piece paper. Fourth advice: Do whatever
you can to find a logical answer, but dont panic!
6. A personal question, especially a non-relevant or
illegal one, which you dont wish to answer - There
is a whole list of questions that an interviewer has no
right to ask, however, this doesnt proscribe some
interviewers from asking such questions, intentionally
or unintentionally. You could say, Hey, you cant ask
me that. Thats illegal., and that would succeed as well
in refraining the interviewer from asking such
questions, but at the end of the day, it might result in
losing that job opportunity if the recruiter was
pompous. So we have to adopt a way that gets us a
safe exit. You can start by saying, I dont mind
answering that question, however, I would first like to
understand the objective behind asking this question,
and perspective that the organization stands to gain
through my answer. In all probabilities, the interviewer
will understand what you intend to say, and revoke his
question. Otherwise too, interviewer will have to give
you a justification behind asking such question. Fifth
advice: Object to an illegal question, but in a way
that interviewer feels neither offended, nor should
be able to hold anything against you.
7. When we are doubtful regarding the correctness of our
answer - Dilemma is to human mind may not be a
famous quote by someone big and well-known,
however, it is a stark human reality. Usually, it happens
because of incomplete information about a subject. It
may also happen, when there is more than one school
of thoughts existing for a subject. In case of an
interview, there is a strong possibility that interviewer
may not ratify the idea that we behold. Every interview
has two aspects technical and behavioral. There is
no remedy for technical incompetence, however, for a
behavioral ambiguity; it is always advisable to present
your opinion, while simultaneously showing respect
towards alternate theories. You can say, The way I
think is! , however, I am open for a heart to heart
discussion with someone who believes otherwise.
There you go! You told your perspective frankly, while
showing your respect and acceptance for others
thoughts as well. Sixth advice: Always present your
opinion only. Dont give a verdict; respect other
theories too.
8. When we contradict one of our previous answers and
get caught - A candidate applying for a sales job
(which demanded a great deal of networking), when
asked about his weakness, said, I am a reserved kind
of a person. Immediately, the next question catapulted
at him was, How do you do networking then? Cat
caught his tongue! The next step that he took,
eliminated any chance for him to land in that job. He
defended himself vehemently, and the interviewer, as
his job demanded, kept digging. Soon, it became a
heated argument, and you can all guess the outcome.
What could he have done differently? First thing first!
Accept that you made a blunder. To find an escape
route is a rare opportunity in such situations. However,
one can try to soothe the situation by presenting a
different perspective, and smartly divert the topic. One
could say, I prefer to stay alone during my spare time,
however, as far as professional networking is
concerned, I am an adroit networker, with strong
business links in this industry. My networking with over
500 industry professionals can easily be transformed
into big business opportunity for the organization that I
work for. Now, the interviewer would be more
interested in exploring your contacts, and probable
business avenues for the company. But the moment
you start arguing and fighting, the games over. In any
situation, no matter what strategy you deploy,
maintaining the poise in an awkward situation, and
handling it with utmost diplomacy and presence of
mind are the keys to success. Seventh advice: If
youve made a mistake, dont argue. It only makes
matter worse.
If you believe that you handled the situation well, and still got
rejected; dont hold up. Prepare for the next interview, because its
not the end of the journey.
Good Luck!
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EXPERT INTERVIEW TIPS
Expert Interview Tips Rejected
in Interviews or was it just a Lack
of Consensus? (5 Top Reasons for
Interview Rejections).
by Vaibhav Gupta September 17, 2013
We must have heard several times from those around us that
someone attended interview in an organization, and got rejected.
That engendered a feeling of dejection in the candidate. While the
candidate was still trying to figure out the interview questions,
which he might have answered wrongly, the people close to him
were trying their level best to console him using most soothing and
encouraging words. However, no one ever thought of jolting the
candidate out of this astonishment by saying, its not a rejection
but just a lack of consensus. Being a recruiter, I observed that
the unsuccessful interview cases has been higher in number than
the successful ones. My experience increased, and with that
strengthened the notion that except in a few cases, most of so-
called rejected cases should actually be termed as cases with
lack of consensus. I really despise the term rejected because
using that word demeans the candidates qualities and skills.
The mutual questions and answers round that ensue between the
recruiter and candidate has only one aim that is, to explore if they
can work together as a team by fulfilling each others professional
and personal requirements. If they both can reach a consensus (or
agreement), its a done deal. In other cases, all we can say is that
it just didnt work out. Even if it could not be worked out due to the
candidates inferior technical or communication skills, it simply
meant that the candidate is needed to hone the skills so he or she
can re-apply to this organization.
Having said all that, there are a few situations in which the
candidate actually gets rejected. Rejections always happen for
the acts of interviewees, which are unacceptable by professional
or personal standards. Most of such actions can be
comprehensively distributed among the top 5 categories listed
below:
Misconduct or misbehavior: I remember a candidate, who
reached earlier than the allotted interview time, and started
badgering the receptionist to arrange his interview earlier
than the given time, because he had to leave urgently. All
the candidates were already informed that there could be
delays. I did interview him, but for me it was actually over
even before it started. There are more cases where
candidate misbehaved with receptionist, recruiter,
cordinator, or in most daring cases, even with the hiring
authority. The reasons varied; ranging from time issues to
candidate ending up using cuss words during interview.
Misbehavior demonstrates and reflects on bad upbringing
and negative attitude, which can never be acceptable in any
interview.
Negative body language: In most of the interview processes,
several questions are repeated in various forms by different
interviewers to make sure that the candidate answered all
the questions truthfully. Some of the candidates get piqued
by this process, and a few even start banging the tables out
of sheer displeasure. Hiring is associated with big risks. A
recruiter, like a cautious buyer, has the right to repeatedly
confirm the products quality, before he finally makes up the
mind to buy it. Other negative body gestures include
gestures that show lack of; energy and positive aggression;
empathy; confidence; understanding; calmness; and
politeness.
Lies or fraudulent behavior: Lies and frauds are criminal
offenses that can never be spared, and may end up ruining a
candidates career. Once a candidate forged the salary
details to get a better offer from the recruiting organization.
However, he wrongly assumed that the recruiter did not have
any link with the HR of his present company. In reality, the
recruiter previously worked with his current organization, and
was well aware that no such letter could ever be issued by
that company. The candidate lost the offer, of course, but
also lost his present job, . Forging the employment tenures,
profile descriptions, education details, and salary certificates,
are all included in fraudulent activities.
Boastfulness: Some candidates think that if they boast about
their personal relationship with the CEO of the company, it
will help them to get selected. However, they fail to realize
that once a CEO steps into his company premises, he
means only business, and every decision that he makes
must be profit-oriented. Secondly, boasting about
performance, while it was just average or above average,
does not help either. Boasting may impress the recruiter, but
the impression would be ephemeral as the reality will come
out in a reference check.
Greed or being unreasonable: Last but the most important
reason of rejection is being too greedy or unreasonable. Its
a fact that candidate wants to extract the most, while
recruiter aims to save most. Between this tug of war, there
exists a line of reality, where both must coincide. This could
never happen if either of them was unreasonably far from
this line of reality. Recruiters are largely driven by the
organizational benchmarks. They are aware about the
prevailing market standards. Usually the job aspirants, when
it comes to salary expectations, are unreasonable. Salary
expectations beyond reasonable limits, coupled with rigidity,
causes rejection.
Reasons could be more, however, upon closer analysis, most
would fall under one of the above mentioned categories. If nothing
mentioned above happened during your interview, then you can be
rest assured that the interviewer carried a pleasant image of you,
and might call when something more suitable as per your profile
and skill set comes up.
If rejection was the verdict in any of the interviews that you
appeared for, just check the list above to ensure that you did not
make any mistake listed above. If not, then be confident that you
were not rejected; it could not be worked out just because of lack
of consensus.
Good Luck!
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would love to know if you liked this article or not.
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