Assessing Interviewer Mentality

Everyone is good at something

This sentiment is very true. When it comes to jobhunting, the interview is the most crucial part of that process. In order to make an impression on the people who make the hiring decisions, you have to convince them not only that you are competent enough to perform the duties required for the role, but that you can indeed excel in performing them, and in the process convince them you’re a great fit for the company

The first and most effective strategy as far as achieving this goes is to conduct thorough and proper preparation before the interview. However, an altogether more basic element to ensuring a successful interview is to go there with an insight into the mindset of your interviewer. Understanding your interviewer’s mentality can be very helpful, not only as it involves strategizing an effective approach for your interview, but also as an incredibly effective means of helping to control your nerves both before and during the interview itself

Most candidates don’t ever consider what it’s like from the interviewer’s perspective, simply because it never occurs to them. As an interview candidate, before the interview you may think about things like the job itself, and about the changes and benefits it could bring to your life. You will also think about the interview, and will probably consider the questions and challenges it could pose, and might also worry about what perceptions the interviewer may have of you, as well as thinking about what you might say to impress them. However, when it comes to the interviewers themselves, most people only ever see an imposing and intimidating figure, a person who has the power to grant them the financial and career opportunity they desire. Consequently, they go into the interview without ever fully realising there’s a lot more to an interviewer’s role than this

First of all, you can expect your interviewer to use an interview schedule, or some type of interview outline. An interview schedule is a list of questions and areas that the interviewer is instructed to cover during the course of your interview. The more formal the interview, the more detailed the interviewers interview schedule will be and the closer they will follow it. Even most ‘unstructured’ interviews will have some form of basic outline the interviewer will follow

Next, try to keep in mind that interviewers have a job to do 

Being an interviewer is challenging. When asking you questions, or when clarifying questions for you, or even when conversing with you, they need to ensure that what they are saying to you is appropriate, and non-discriminatory, at all times. It’s also the interviewer’s job to make sure they word everything in a neutral way so it doesn’t lead you into a specific way of answering

Not only do they have to pay attention to what you are saying, they also need to pay attention to the overall direction of the interview and ensure that it’s not going off-topic. On top of this, it’s their job to assess not only your verbal responses, but also other important things about you like your appearance and your body language. Their primary job is to ask questions and probe your responses in a way that will gain them the best insight into your skills, character, and experience, for the purposes of evaluating how good a fit you are for the role. This is something that the majority of recruitment professionals train for, and it’s considered a core part of their dedicated job duties

It’s important to consider that being an interviewer is not as straightforward as just asking questions from a position of authority. It is a job, and as such, it comes with rules and responsibilities that an interviewer must follow.
Although it may not seem like it to you at the time, interviewers have specific instructions in regards to what they need to assess, what areas to focus on, and what areas to follow thru-on, during their conversation with you. For example, they may be instructed to pick up on areas where a candidate mentions they have previous supervisory experience, or ask follow-up questions around any points in the interview where you’ve indicated you’ve exceeded monthly performance targets. In this way, they are tasked by an employer to look for specific things throughout the interview, to pick up on these things, and to assess you on them accordingly

An interviewer has the scope to assess you, and to make an individual evaluation of you based on the responses you give to the questions they’ve asked. This is not only a responsibility, but a duty that your interviewer must perform competently

Here is an occurrence you may be familiar with, as it is one that happens on a regular basis.
A jobseeker will see a job posted with a good salary, and will eagerly go to apply for it – fully confident that they can do the duties described within, only to be disappointed when they read the requirements in more detail to find out they don’t have the necessary qualifications or experience the employer is looking for. To this extent, while its true most candidates are fully capable of doing many of the roles you’ll see advertised, hiring to some extent is an exercise in box ticking as far interviewing is concerned. This largely has to do with the legal implications and regulations prevalent throughout the various industries that comprise the many different areas of the economy. It is also influenced by the various standards and recommendations set by the companies employers use to help them construct interviewing guidelines for their business needs. Insofar as that where hiring is concerned, a degree of liability is always involved. If you are at fault or negligent in your duties, this can sometimes have serious consequences. Primarily, this liability affects a business as a whole, but as such, a degree of responsibility is put back onto the interviewer themselves. For that reason, remember then that in much the same way you are interviewing for a job, the interviewer is there doing a job too. As such, they have a responsibility for the hires they make, and they are accountable as soon as they make the decision to hire you

So remember that when you go for your next interview, even though you’ll have concerns about how it will go, your interviewer will also have their own concerns too. Not only will they be concerned with doing their job to the best of their ability, they’ll be concerned about asking you the right questions, and about listening to you and assessing you properly. While this might not equate to the same level of nervousness that you might feel, it is still a challenge the interviewer must get right, remember that they are accountable for the hires they make; that’s why their main focuses will be on following the correct processes, and on making sure they choose the right candidate for the role…