It only seems yesterday that I was nervous about giving interviews at various places for a job, and look at me now, a veteran of conducting about 20 of the same interviews. Back when I was interviewing, I had no idea what people look for, and how to behave in an interview. Of course there were a lot of resources on the web giving advice, but most of it seemed too simplistic. Most people would say, "Always say good morning" or "Dress well for the interview" or such things. And I used to think "Who are these idiots who dont do all these things?". But, after conducting many interviews, I think I may have some advice of my own. I will first chalk out some of the most hilarious ones I've done so far and then I will jump right into people I 'felt' like selecting for a job. There is no other word to describe it. "FELT LIKE IT". There, in capitals. Explains all the randomness, frustrations and everything else that symbolizes the interview process. You need to make the other guys "FEEL LIKE" taking you in, that is all. Of course, knowing that does not make me any better at giving interviews, but I do see a few pointers. But, first as promised, lets start with some laughs.
One of the guys I interviewed came from a good institute and I thought he would know the basics of Skype interviews. One of these is "sit in a professional looking environment". What do people mean by it? What it means, simply is sit before a blank wall. Could be the wall of your room, or anything that would not distract. The color, texture, age etc do not matter. What matters is, your background should not distract the interviewer. Cardinal rule, but surprising number of people do not follow it. So, we had a few guys we lined up for skype interviews. Interview starts, and the screen is blank. We wonder why, and ask the candidate to please switch on the camera. The candidate comes into view with a sheepish grin. And what do we find behind him? His roommate, showing his balls and scratching them. Not joking. We had to mute our mics for a full 3 minutes before we could stop our laughter. And still we could not look at the candidate or the scratched balls without bursting into laughter. Needless to say, we have no idea what happened in the interview, since the whole time we were fighting hard not to laugh out loud. Another guy had his roommate in the background, and all we could see were his naked legs on the sofa (except the groin area). And the guy himself was naked from the waist up (which was all we could see in any case). We have no idea what was going on in the room. Needless to say, it was hard to interview these guys with a straight face. They may be brilliant, but we never took them seriously from the second they switched on their cameras. So, remember the cardinal rule and dress appropriately, and keep a blank wall behind you, or something boring, and absolutely NO to naked people or ball-scratchers in the background.
Another specimen was a lady we interviewed who seemed quite qualified. We were eager to interview her, and we logged on to skype. Lady was not there. And its quite annoying. We were interviewing about 10-12 people that day and minutes count in such situations. Anyway, we had her phone number, so we call her and SHE WAS SLEEPING. Asked us to call her ten minutes later after she washed her face. OK. Not a good start, but maybe she was not well, so we gave her a second chance. Called her after ten minutes. Technical stuff went quite well. And at the end, we ask her as is customary "Any questions for us?". And she replies, "Yeah, what would be the work profile at the company?". Fair question, but before we could answer "I am asking because I know your company is not so well known and I dont want to end up doing meaningless work. I want to do really big stuff, and you should give me a big position". Hmmm... any guesses on whether we took her or not?
So, these are some of the bad examples. I could go on, but you get the idea. These are so bad, they dont help anyone. Almost everyone we have interviewed followed the basics right. But some get selected, and some others dont. So, what is the difference? I still dont know exactly, but if there is one thing I can say it would be "Make it a conversation". What do I mean? Lets look at it this way. If I am interviewing someone for a job that can mean two things. One, I have a vague idea about doing the job, and I am looking for someone who has a better idea than I have. Or, I have a very good idea, but due to constraints of time, I would like to hire someone to do a good job (as good as I can or better). In both cases, the interviewee has initially no idea what the job is really about. So, the natural thing expected from the interviewee is a curiosity to know about the job. But, in most cases, that never shows in the interview. It typically goes in a question and answer type format, where we ask "How did you do this? What were the parameters in that work?" and the candidate answers the question. Then silence. And that makes everyone uncomfortable. And in the end, all that I remember is "the candidate made me uncomfortable". So, don't let that happen. Don't be in a frame of mind, where you are in a response only mode. Ask questions. Ask about the job, ask about the interviewer. Make them talk. More than anything else make it a conversation about the job. Remember that the interview is a microcosm of your working relationships. Would you like to hire a person who is just sitting there waiting for work? Or, would you rather hire a guy who comes up to you, and takes work? They may both be equally brilliant, but which one would you prefer and trust to do a superlative job? So, cardinal rule is "Make it a conversation".
Of course, you need to be a good fit for the job too. What is this "fit" though? One of the things is you shoul dbe qualified for the job, and you should be thorough. For instance, one of the persons I interviewed wrote that she is good at Python programming. Since we are grappling with Python 2.7 to Python 3.0 migration, we asked, which version of Python are you comfortable? She said "Python 6.1"! To the non-programmers out there, the latest version is Python 3.4, so no idea where she got that Python 6.1 from. There are others, for instance the guy who rated himself a 9/10 in Perl programming and had no idea about hashes or regular expressions which are a few hallmarks of Perl programming. So, you clearly have to know your stuff before interview, but the opposite is not true. You need not prove your superiority to the people interviewing you. For instance, we do drug repurposing and we use a few well chosen algorithms. And we restrict ourselves to those since there is a whole lot of literature about them and more importantly, FDA would accept these as good evidence. Given a free rein, we would use thousands of different algorithms. But whats the use? So, if a guy comes over and tries to tell me that he can do a better job than me as he knows a few more algorithms or two, I would not like the guy. Nobody likes that guy. Instead, I would take a guy who asks me what are the roadblocks in implementing new algorithms. Then, I know he is thinking beyond himself/herself, and can fit in very well. So another cardinal rule is "try to fit in" and not give the impression that you are "squeezing in".
The last thing which is most important and above everything else I have said is, be genuinely interested in working for the company. If you are genuinely interested, it will show in your conversation. You would have questions in your head before going for the interview. If you are not, you end up asking lame questions like "Do you have a 5 day week?" Or, "What is working in the company really like?" Or maybe even "Are the toilets in your company clean?" Useless questions. All relevant, but ultimately useless. So, choose a few companies you would really really want to work for, evaluate if you are at par with other employees there, and approach the company. And when you do, show an interest in them. It feels a bit lonely interviewing strangers. And everyone enters being a stranger, but try and avoid exiting a stranger too...
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