Who would it be? Why that person? What is it you would want to glean from an hour-long interview with anyone you choose who is alive today? What would you ask them? How would you prepare? Where would you like to meet them for this interview?
What I just outlined above is a standard exercise for our Crossroads Career small groups when we get to the interviewing phase of our 7 step process for Getting the Right Job. The purpose of the exercise is to encourage participants to dream a bit, get the interviewee to be in the shoes of the interviewer, and free up people’s minds to imagine a few things.
Would Have, Should Have, Could Have
Typically, most people dread the idea, thought, and process of interviewing. They kind of freeze up, their palms sweat, nervousness is palpable, and their words don’t come out the way they’d like to think they should come out. Inevitably there is a “would have, should have, could have” post mortem playing an endless loop in their minds if they don’t end up moving forward in the interview process.
I believe people do what makes sense to them (yes, even when idiotic things occur, it made sense to me at the time 🙁 ) , and I’m not holding what I described above in judgment. It’s a very real scenario, and I’ve experienced it personally. Despite interviewing thousands of people in my Human Resources and Culture Shaping career, when I was on the other side of the interviewing desk as the interviewee, the process that seems smooth and effortless to me becomes significantly more challenging!
BUT, if I can shift my thinking to a different place, then my behavior follows, and results change. If I can shift thoughts away from the interview as a type of interrogation, challenge, or at a minimum, I just “know” the interview is trying to trip me up, to a place where I’m having a conversation with someone who merely wants to know more about me, THEN my behaviors and results follow suit. My nerves settle, conversation flows, and what I want to convey to the interviewer is much more likely to take place.
Why Do People Interview?
Let’s pause for a minute to think about the purpose of an interview. At its most basic level. I believe people interview others for this reason:
To find the best possible person to do what the interviewer needs most.
The interviewer isn’t there to help the interviewee with any of the following possible areas (although some interviewers blend these quite well):
- Career direction
- Get the job
- Encourage
- Discover if the job is the right fit for you
Bottom line: Do you do best what I need most? Yes or no.
Ok, that’s abrupt, but if we can shift our thinking away from interviewers as interrogators and position them simply as people trying to go through a process to get an outcome, then we can plan, prepare, and perform the interview in a much more confident and healthy way.
Go back to your own thinking about interviewing anyone in the world today:
- Why did you select that person?
- What do you hope to learn?
- Are you hoping the interview gives you information or turns into a friendship?
- What would you wear for the interview?
- What questions would you ask?
- Where would you meet?
- How would you approach the process and person?
Let’s go deeper with #4, because we know all interviews are filled with questions. And let’s pick questions that are similar to one’s used by many interviewers in a job interview conversation to see what parallels might be there. I’ll go with a few I personally like to use in interviews:
- Could you please tell me a little about yourself?
- What would you consider to be your most significant accomplishment?
- Tell me about a time you worked outside your comfort zone. What happened?
- What are your goals for the future?
- How do you find yourself making priorities?
- How do you keep yourself sharp professionally?
- How did you get involved in your profession?
- What is one of your biggest learnings in life so far?
- What are some of your interests outside of your profession?
- Could you tell me about a time where you felt you went above and beyond?
Hopefully you’ve seen some parallels and are already thinking about other questions you’d want to ask. But let’s pause again: Do you think the person you’re interviewing could answer the 10 questions I just posed?
If your answer is “Of course!”, that’s correct! The interviewee might have to reflect a bit, but odds are he or she knows the answer because (drum roll please), the answers are PERSONAL! The interviewer doesn’t know the answers, so that is why the questions are being asked. Every one of those questions relate directly to what the interviewee thinks, did, or is planning. And, just like the interviews with you as the interviewee, with a little planning and preparation, no question will take you off guard. Because you know the topic of the interview (yourself) better than anyone else on the planet!
So What IS an Interview?
Bottom line, an interview is simply a conversation between two people who are trying to solve problems:
- Interviewee – – Wants fulfilling employment doing something he or she is skilled at and enjoys.
- Interviewer – – Wants to find a person who can do the job…just like described above!
In my experience, over half of the small group participants I’ve done this exercise with don’t pick the most widely-known, famous people in the world. They pick someone they’ve known and admired, someone they’ve read about or learned from, or a parent, grandparent, or relative they’d like to gain more familial insight from. Most of them would like to understand more, figure out something, or are just curious about the nuts and bolts of what made that person “that person.”
But even if we have an amazing interview with the person we selected, we still won’t know everything we might want to know (or should know) about that person. Just like a job interview. We do the best we can to decipher if there is a match, but no interview process gives out all the information one would like.
Because we are humans, and no one of us truly knows everything about another person.
But our incredible God actually does know everything about us, and He still loves us more than anyone else ever could! He doesn’t even have to interview us! 🙂
Hebrews 4:12-13 tells us, “For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, cutting between the soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes. And He is the one to whom we are accountable.”
Thankfully, He merely expects us to come as we are, repent of our sins, and turn to follow Him as Savior and Lord. No trick questions. No big planning, preparing, or performing. Just accepting our Creator’s gift of salvation!
I’m sure grateful for that, and I pray you are or will be yourself! Blessings!
Dave Sparkman currently serves as the volunteer Crossroads Career board chair and local ministry leader. He is also the founder and managing director of Spark Your Culture, a corporate culture consulting firm. Prior to that he worked at UnitedHealth Group, a Fortune #5 public company, serving in the role of Chief Culture Officer. His unemployment experience came from the implosion of Arthur Andersen, where he served as the West Region Managing Partner, People.
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