Interview Tips

Interview Tips

David Boege

I am currently a quality engineering supervisor at John Deere. During the nine years that I have been in the working world I have had many opportunities to sit on both sides of the interview table. I have interviewed people that were coming out of their freshmen year of college and some that have been in the working world for more than 30 years. This has allowed me to see some people that did a great job and some that were absolutely terrible at interviewing. In the following few paragraphs I will try to summarize some of the things that make a person a great interviewee.

First Impressions

The first impression that a person has of you is extremely important. I will not hire someone in the first minute of an interview, but I may rule someone out. Start with a firm handshake and look the interviewer straight in the eye and introduce yourself. Everyone gets nervous at the start of an interview, so take your time and collect your thoughts before beginning to answer the first questions. If you do not believe that you deserve the job, then the interviewer will not believe it either.

Be Prepared

While there are different types of interviews, the one thing that you need for all of them is a variety of answers so as to not repeat yourself all day. First, make sure that you know a little something about the company and if you know who you are interviewing with feel free to “Google” them. Now you do not need to come out and tell them you did this as they might think you are a stalker, but having a little additional information about the interviewer can be helpful. For example if you know that they wrote a paper on a certain topic, you may want to try to incorporate that into the conversation. There is nothing wrong with kissing up a little and it shows that you are genuinely interested in the job.

Prepare for questions on a variety of topics that you think could be asked. Common topics include the following:

• A team working on a project, possibly with poor performers
• Complex projects that require skills you do not have and how you handle that
• Project tracking and keeping to a budget or schedule
• How you define “good” performance and how you strive toward that
• How to handle disagreements with professors, coworkers
• Decision making and what you considered before deciding

In general I would recommend having 5-10 different projects or situations that you have been a part of that are good at showcasing a variety of your skills. If you have good examples, the same one could answer 3 or 4 of the above questions.

Be specific

At least within Deere and I believe in most company, we are looking for people that can execute and drive real improvement. In an interview the way to find such people is to see who can talk about some very specific projects that they have done and the good that came from those projects.

Anyone can get up and say I am a people person, I am hard-working, and I am wonderful.

What interviewers want to hear are the specifics of what makes you special. What did you do on the projects to make them successful? How did you work with your teammates to improve their performance? What was your role on the team that led to that success? Giving generalizations gives the impression that you were not intimately involved in a project and did not do much of the work.

There is nothing wrong with bringing some of the information from some of your projects to show the interviewer. This information backs up your case that you have done a lot of work on the projects.

For those of you that are early in your education the examples will be more difficult to come up with. If you have been a part of high school teams or even worked at temporary jobs, do not hesitate to use those as examples too. Most interviewers understand that you have not been through as much, but they still want to see that you have done something with the opportunities that you have had.

Summary

Remember to come prepared for the interview as the interview really starts long before you walk into the room. Once you are in the room give a good first impression by being (or at least acting) confident. And lastly make sure that you are specific with your examples as it is pretty easy to see through someone if the interviewer digs into the details. Sell yourself and good luck with you future interviews.