lifehacker.com: You can’t jump into the mind of the person sitting across from you in an interview and know exactly what they’re looking for. But there are, fortunately, some basic qualities most hiring managers think are pretty important across the board.
7 comments:
One of the things I would like to pull out in this article is the side note about “dream jobs.” I do not think that anyone has ever asked me, in an interview setting, about my dream job, nor have I myself ever asked an interviewee that. However, if I am interviewing for a position with a vendor, or some sort of well-established institution, they frequently ask me what my 5 (and sometimes 10) year goals are. I think that question is closely related to the dream job question--ideally, where do you see yourself in your future? From the employer’s perspective, they’re trying to get a handle on whether they are an important part of your career or just a blip on your radar. It can help them get an idea of how much you might invest yourself in the job, and how long you might stay there. I suppose I can’t argue with the data, but I think the employers surveyed are tripping on the phrase “dream job,” specifically, not the general idea.
I was somewhat happy to see that soft skills are valued by hiring managers. I have been told by a few people that my soft skills are very strong, this is usually after I am stressing about not having enough hard skills under my belt. So to see that that is something hiring managers look for is re-assuring but I’m also aware that I am trying very hard to improve and expand my hard skills. I also am not quite sure how accurate I find their rating of soft skills either. Largely because I feel that soft skills largely feed into one another. Like the top skill of problem solving feeds into the least ranked skill versatility, the top skill of time management feeds into the low ranking skill organization, and the top skill communication feeds into the low ranking skill of patience. Maybe these skills aren’t always connected but frequently they can be found together and having both makes a person more effective in whatever there doing.
This article raises a lot of good points to a lot of questions I have had when going on interviews. when I first started doing interviews I was always nervous but I got advice to google interview questions and have a response ready for a myriad of different questions. Over the course of my interviews the number question always involved conflict. This is a very important question an employer can ask as it shows your problem solving skills along with your communication skills. Another important aspect jobs are interested in are soft skills. Like the article said it can be hard to measure. I think its important to recognize the fact that the article said that soft skills are at a person’s core and hard skills can be taught. More and more employers rather work with fun and cool people since they can usually teach a person a skill but they can’t teach someone how to be a good person.
None of this surprises me, but it is all interesting and good to know. I think it makes sense that they don’t care about your “dream job” since I doubt anyone answers that questions honestly. You don’t want to make it seem like you are in it for the short term, but honestly, if it is your dream job (or one of your dream jobs) you don’t want to seem childish or like you are being over-idealistic about the position. If I were hiring someone I wouldn’t bother to ask that because it is an awkward question and I’d never trust the answer. I think the managing conflict being important makes a lot of sense, and soft skills in general, since you can get info about hard skills from a resume, so by the time you’ve reached the interview it is established that the hard skills are good enough. Then again, on the last two positions I interviewed for I was mostly asked about my general approach to budgeting, which did seem like they were trying to get an idea of my hard skills, but a type of hard skill that isn’t something you can really list on a resume. On second thought, is budgeting/ estimating a hard skill or a soft skill? Also, now that I think about it, I wonder if both of those positions happened to ask about it a lot or if that is just a result of me really liking to talk about budgeting methodology… Regardless, I think questions about managing conflict and other soft skills really come down to being able to intelligently talk about past experience and prove that you have actually done things to back what you’ve claimed on paper, which I think is always going to be the core of what a hiring manager is looking for.
This is an interesting article with quite a few useful pieces of information. I found that some of the points brought up could be extremely useful for me, especially because the answers come from the hiring perspective. As much as it is an annoying question to answer, I think this is one of the few articles that specifically mentioned that the question about your greatest strength is not a throwaway question but a chance to show off your soft skills. I will need to prepare a new answer with the recommended soft skills, such as problem-solving, communication and time management because my usual answer is more of the bottom three skills—organization, versatility and patience. Maybe those can be turned into my weaknesses that are actually strength. Interviews are nerve wrecking process no matter what but preparation, having a strategy and knowing what the other side wants to know about you, can really make a difference.
“Hard skills can be learned and improved, but soft skills are the root of one’s character and can be harder to learn.“ This sentence stuck with me the most. It goes to show that soft skills are of huge value to a company and the culture of that company. Not neglecting the importance of hard skills but like it is stated above those can be learned and improved upon. Hard skills tend to change over time but soft skill mostly stay constant. When I first started going for interviews, I found it really hard to ask questions at the end of the interview. I agree that it is important to ask questions because it shows that you’re listening but at the same time you can have questions prepared and have follow up questions for to their responses. It is also good to have the reiteration that previous salary doesn’t matter. One should not be applying to a job they don’t feel the salary befits them.
Wow. I don’t know how I feel about this article. In Production Personnel Management, we have a whole session on how to hire staff and Molly walks us through the whole hiring process. The part of this article with which I disagree the most is when it says “hiring managers don’t really care about your interests”. I think finding out about future staffs dreams, goals and interests its so important. You will know before hand if your open position, your company and even the city are a good fit for them. On the other hand, I find this article to be useful, to a certain extent, for people who are interviewing. The portion about the resume, and soft skills is fairly decent. But overall I feel like the article is written with a very alarming tone. This is not helpful for people who are looking for tips on how to improve their application process.
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