A job interview. FILE PHOTO | NMG
You’re straight out of college, all those brilliant
qualifications in hand and your best suit on. Your recruiting agent has
adequately prepared you for yet another interview.
A
few weeks later, it is yet another interview you didn’t succeed at. One
of the better kept secrets is that as a qualified professional,
employers get attracted to you because of what they want.
While
this may sound strange and border on nullifying the need for your
education and your experience, anyone looking to hire you isn’t
interested in how much you know and how many As are printed on your
transcripts.
The challenge with interviews is that the average job-seeker transforms into a self-centred salesperson.
“I have a bachelor of arts degree in communication, a diplôme in
French and 2 years’ experience as a journalist. My salary expectation
is a net of errr mmmm… Sh 200,000 ahem ummm because that is what it
would take from me to live comfortably and function well”. Wow. Besides
tranquillizers, there is no faster way to send your interviewing panel
to sleep than speak these words.
Look, if the raison
d’être of any organisation was to make you comfortable for whatever
reason, the words commerce and profitability would not exist. You want
to make a moment to wrap your mind around the fact that organisations
exist for their reasons, not yours.
As a potential
employer at whatever level, you, your education and skills are only a
means to the achievement of their goals. Not exactly a tasty pill but a
vital one to take. If organisations existed to ensure your well-being,
they wouldn’t bother interviewing because there is no shortage of those
who want to be comfortable.
Think of the last time you
rode in a taxi. Companies are like taxi clients. You and all that you
have to offer are the taxi and driver. The employer is your client. The
client could be polite and professional.
The
client may even ask how you’re doing, how you get by, where you see
yourself in the next five years, how you feel about this, that or the
other. Sounds caring enough but you’ll be well-advised to take that as
basic common courtesy. The truth is that the client doesn’t really care
about you or your life challenges.
All client cares
about is getting to their destination, how much and how efficiently and
reliably you contribute to their safe and stress-free arrival. Period.
Your
job at an interview is to make them understand where they are at
without you, to make it clear that you understand where they want to go
and to build enough credibility and trust in them so they sit back left
confident that your are the right cab to take them there.
Yes,
they really are that selfish. Contrary to your training, talk more
about how you help them, achieve their goals, not yours.
The remuneration part becomes a non-issue once you’ve won them over with benefits that await them by hiring you.
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