本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛PART II: PRESENT YOURSELF WITH A PURPOSE AT INTERVIEW

There typically 4 phases in an interview, ENTRY, BUILDING-UP, CHALLENGING PEAK, and EXIT.

ENTRY

In principle, four important reminders:

1. Communicate with your upper front body;
2. Shake hands with confidence and attention;
3. Break the ice in style;
4. Personalize your self-introduction.

Making a confident entry and break the ice

“Hello, how are you? I am Amy Wu. (Go up and shake hands). It is a great pleasure for me to be here and have the opportunity to let you know more about myself”
Comment on weather? Nice office? Briefly about your vacation? What is an interesting thing to notice in your travel?

Introduce yourself with a character and tell your life story in timeline

- Focus on individual traits of yourself. Tell in time sequence.
- “I was born and raised in China. I was originally trained as an industrial designer for @@@ and had extensive experience working in the @@@ industry (hopefully this industry is similar to the recruiting company’s industry).
- I moved to Canada with my family in 2003 and decided to become a professional accountant.
- I first worked with @@@ company as @@@ and then as @@@ with @@@ company. These companies are specialized in the @@@ industry and good accounting management to provide financial data for management decision has always been critical. These 4 years of accounting experience gave me good opportunity to familiarize myself with daily work in the full accounting cycle.
- In addition, I enrolled in the CGA program and now I have completed 90% of the process. I look for the next level of challenge in maturing as a professional accountant.
- In my spare time, I enjoy organizing my home, exercising at the gym, and play games with friends. (I picked these three things because it can show the quality this job calls for: organized, energy to distress, and team work)

It is worth your while practicing making a great entry. The first 3 minutes is the critical time when the interviewer decides whether he/she will hire you or not.


BUILDING-UP

Use STAR Approach to describe your experience

Step 1: overview statement
Step 2: STAR (Situation/environment/background, Task, Action, Results)
Or GAP (how should it be done, what I did, that was the gap, what did I do about the gap, and the results and my lessons learned?)
Step 3 (optional): Tell a story if you can, be brief and clear, do not digress too much.
Start with “For example….”
Step 4: Conclude and tie back to JD. (Never forget to conclude/emphasize/connect with your target job requirement)
Step 5 (optional) lessons learned/ personal reflection


I. Technical Questions

A/P and A/R experience
- From @@@ to @@@, I worked as an A/P clerk with @@@ company.
- @@@ company is in the @@@ industry. A/P work can be very detailed and complicated since it depends on a wide network of suppliers.
- A typical work process at my desk include: @@@
- The key in this process is the three-way match of invoice, PO and receiving documents. At @@@ company, in particular, ……
- Same structure in talking about your AR experience.

Information System
- I used @@@ accounting system when I was with @@@ company.
- I find it a very user-friendly application because….
- The challenge was….
- What I did was….
- Through daily problem solving like this, I gradually became proficient in this system and was able to coach new staff as well.

CGA Experience
- Enrolling in the CGA program was one biggest and best decision I have made. So far, I am very proud of myself that I have successfully moved onto level 4, which means I am about 90% complete in this process towards my final designation.
- I have completed courses including….
- My biggest benefit from this process is….. because it helps me to put together everything I have done at work into a bigger picture of a general accounting cycle. Not only have I learned about journal entries of key transactions, but also broadened my knowledge in key accounting controls, financial reporting and tax planning for small business corporations.
- What I still need to do is…..I have made my plans to utilize my spare time to complete them by @@@. Hopefully, all my knowledge will make a significant contribution to my new role with your company.


II. Behavioral Questions

Career Goal

- I see myself working as a senior accountant in 5 years, having sufficient knowledge and experience to assist the controller, not only in daily accounting procedures, but also in assisting her/him preparing financial reporting and management reporting information to support management decision.
- Compared with others, I am particularly strong in @@@ so I am confident that I will be reaching this goal and making significant contribution to my employer.


Why do you want to work here?

- I have read about your company on the website and talked to my friends who know about your company more than I do. (It is important to show that you have done some research.)

- I am very passionate about starting a new phase in my career with your company because I believe it will give me the best opportunity to apply my skills and experience in accounting.

- From your job posting, I can also clearly see development opportunity to become @@@ in future. That is what I want to do in future. (Be careful whether you need to say this or not)

- Another personal reason is that I would feel proud to work as @@@ in the @@@ indusry and I look forward to good balance in life and work that help me to develop professional skills and spirits better.


Strengths

- Although I think I still need to work a lot to refine my language skills, my friends and co-workers tell me I am like a central server that connects all kinds of friends really well. At work, I keep an open mind and learning spirit. I complete my tasks always with best efforts and teamwork with colleagues well. At home with family and friends, I am all ears and I care for them sincerely.

- Another thing I am very proud of myself is that I can handle pressure well. For me the secret to do things well is that I do need to feel moderate pressure and use it to motive myself. I think it is important to plan for work well and break a big goal into some smaller goals. In this way, it will be easier to assess my progress. Overall, pressure works for me, not against me, I am very proud to say.


Dealing with Deadline

- I have always worked in a deadline-driven environment and I think a few things have helped me work well under deadline.
- First, I think it is critical is understand the reason for deadline. If I do not understand, I talked with my supervisor or colleagues. I think it is important that every team member understands the importance of meeting the deadline. In this way, we can hand over work to the next hand not only on a timely basis but also with good quality.
- Another thing that has helped me is to plan my work well and prioritize tasks. What is urgent and what is important can sometimes rank tasks differently. I make sure I consult my supervisor on what should be my top priority and understand why it should be so. Then I proceed with a clear plan and keep communicating with teammates and my supervisor.
- Overall, I think these two important habits have helped me deal with deadlines very well.


Customer Service
- Describe the environment, who are your customers? What do they need?
- What is one particular challenge? (Give example)
- How did you handle it?
- Any positive feedback from customer/boss/colleagues? Achievements?
- Looking back, I think, in a manufacturing environment, key in customer service is…


What motivates you?

I enjoy my life very much. I accept it as a formula that “if you smile at life, life smiles upon you”. Another sayings that motivates me is “Knowledge is Power”. No matter what difficulty confronts me, I will treat it with all my enthusiasm as well as my smile. So I think this passion for life motivates me in doing everything as well as I can and never stop learning.


What is the most important thing you are looking for in an employer?

I wish I could work for an employer who is doing a great cause, dynamic, has a fair performance evaluation system, and good development opportunities for every employee. This is the reason I am applying to your company as my top-listed organization to work for. Within such a good system and hopefully guidance from your supervision, I believe there is a lot I can contribute to and learn from, and most important, I will feel happy and achieving at work.

What skills have you developed in your previous jobs?

- I have obtained a lot of hands-on experience in applying accounting knowledge and administrative skills. I think the most important skills I developed is the ability to think critically when faced with numbers and data and know more about the story behind the number and link them to business development of the organization.

- My previous manager taught me a lot. I learned from him lots of best practice in the accounting and administrative work. I listened to him proactively and provided comments and feedback whenever he needed me to do so. Before I start on a major task, I talked to him about how I would like to approach the task and ask for his advice so that I can be most efficient. I let him know my progress on a daily basis. This trained me in building better communication skills at work.


What supervisory or leadership roles have you held? (Are you more of a leader or a follower?)

- I see myself as a good leader in my own understanding. I think I have good potential in becoming a good leader because I connect people well, I have an open-mind to listen first and judge later, and I am willing to learn a lot more to have a good vision in what I do professionally.

- I have not the opportunity to work as a leader so far. I am comfortable in working in a team environment always. I exercise leadership in managing myself at work. At present, I think the most important thing I want to practice about leadership is the capacity and attitude to support other people on my team.


You mentioned you possess strong organizational skills. Can you give me an example, in a work setting, where you would have used those skills?

- I think what helps me to organize well is to prioritize tasks and keep good audit trails in writing when I do my work. There are things that are urgent and I do them right away. There are things that are not urgent but important; there are things that are urgent but not most important. So I do them as soon as I can after I finish the most urgent task. There are things that are neither urgent nor important. I leave them for later if I cannot finish them the same day. I check my task list on a weekly basis and make sure all things are done on a weekly basis. I arrange tasks in terms of urgency and importance and then I assign deadlines to each task.

- I usually double-check with my manager to make sure he agrees or if he has suggestions otherwise. In this way, I am able to always finish task before deadline and I seldom run into panic.


CHALLENGING PEAK

Weakness

The key to talk about weakness is
a. tell honestly one non-critical weakness;
b. tell people you have think over it well to overcome your weakness;
c. give example to show you have made progress.

Do not stop at just telling people what weakness you have and you know it exists. Be proactive and positive. Everybody has weakness, it is the way they deal with it that makes people achieve differently.

- Name a weakness not too big not too superficial. Examples can be, you may not be the most articulate accountant among your colleagues.
- Why do you think being articulate is important in your work environment?
- What is your status quo?
- What action plan you made to improve? How did you do it? How have improved so far? What is left to be done in the year ahead?
- Examples of your action plan can be: read books on skills to present briefly, brilliantly and invite discussion. Even though things do not come to my mind as well as well trained executives, I tried to write down key points to train myself for what I need to talk about and what I do not need to talk about. How I can be to the point and say things clearly. I know I am not there yet, but compared with the start, I have made significant progress. I think so long as I set on the goal and keep learning and practicing, I will be a good communicator and presenter in the near future.

Describe a situation where your work or an idea was criticized.
The key to handle criticism is
a. find out why they criticize. What the boss wants, what I have delivered? Is there a gap?
b. Ask myself, did I make efforts to know what people want?
c. After I have done a and b, if I still think I have good reason to believe my work should meet my boss’s expectation, I talk to him privately and explain to him my reasons why I still think I have done a good job.
d. If the criticism is constructive, I take them and do better next time. If the criticism is not constructive, I try to understand other’s perspective and make it constructive for myself and move on.

Why should I hire you?
Comparing myself with other candidates, I personally think I am more competitive in three areas.

- I am very energetic and very mature at the same time. Being mature helps me make very conscious efforts toward my work and my career. I have a steady goal but I am open minded and objective in order to learn well. I am very personable and this helps me work with people very well so far.

- I treasure this opportunity and becoming a competent @@@ is what I want to achieve. I believe I can do things better and better with this passion. If I am hired, I am able fully devote to this job. I do not foresee major break or leave in the years to come. My family has been fully supportive.

- I have a good background in accounting and I believe I have talent in this field. My next project is to bring my analytical skills and writing skills to the next level so that it will help me to analyze data and write clear and useful report when I go through apprenticeship in @@@.


How do you handle stress?

- My teacher tells me moderate anxiety is where people perform the best. Therefore, I welcome pressure. I find pressure motivates me on many occasions and they even excite me sometimes.

- On the other hand, I do have felt pressure that is overwhelming and sometimes things can become very hard. In these situations, I take a breath, ask for advice, prioritize, learn to give up things that are less important to me, go to gym, talk to family and friends, have a good laugh, then, I would usually find things are not as difficult as I had thought and then I become more confident and take a best shot at them. I tell myself it is ok to lose sometimes, but I should never lose my positive attitude.


Describe a stressful situation you have been in recently and how you handled it.

- I have gone through quite a few stressful situations in my life so far. I have felt lucky because stress have not knocked me down. I think a positive attitude and clear action plan and prioritizing have helped me.

- I took a trip to China this summer. My friend, who is teaching in a college, invited me to be a guest speaker at a student gathering one night. Young people are very interested to know about the education systems in Canada. I thought it would be just a private function and I can chat casually. To my surprise, there were so many very serious young students waiting for me in a lecture hall!

- At first, I felt nervous and a bit of stress. I then calmed down. I took a step back and quickly made a list in my mind what I want to talk about and what are the most important thing to talk about. In the few minutes before the meeting, I did some research online to double-check some data. I drafted an agenda and shared it with the audience first. When I spoke, I tried hard to make it interesting and easy for the audience to understand. I also shared with them my personal experience in school. In doing all this, I just forgot about my stress because I felt I was busy enough not to think about stress.

- Later, the president came to me and said I did a very informative but yet also very fun presentation and invited me to another major seminar as a guest speaker.


What is the most difficult decision that you have made recently?

- Before this co-op placement began, my teacher made us practice “cold-call” skills in job searching. To me, it was a very big challenge. It was a very difficult decision for me to assess myself in terms of cold call skills and accept this big challenge.

- I had thought I was not ready to speak assertively over the phone to get a job opportunity. English is my second language. Will people think I am bugging them when I cold call them? If I cannot speak clearly enough within the first minute, will people lose their patience? These were my concerns.

- I talk to my friends and they gave me good advice. To prepare for the cold-call, I wrote down how I want to break the ice and how I want to introduce myself, what I want to say if people say yes or no and what question I can ask properly to obtain more information about the company and the possible job openings. And when I spoke, my two secrets were I stood up to speak and I keep a smile.

- After a few calls, I become more confident and fluent and I do not need my “speaking notes” any more. I made some good contacts and I also learned a lot from talking to different people over the phone.


EXIT WITH ASSURANCE

Make a smooth exit and open for future contacts

- Ask “Are there any other questions I can answer for you?” or if you have established rapport with the interviewer, directly ask “Do you have any concerns over my qualifications”?
- Ask for what next
- Ask for name card
- Firmly stand up, smile, shake hands again, thank them for taking the time to meet you
- Say I look forward to hearing from you, loud, and very confident
- Proper exit body gesture.

Do you have any questions?

This is a very important closing. Better not say you do not have any questions. Show that you are interested in this job. But never ask any questions that the interviewer (HR) is unable to answer. Ask questions that an HR/hiring would love to talk about, or a very easy personal question. You can say

- It has really been a pleasure to talk with you and let you know more about me. I find it really helpful for me to know more about the organization. I saw it on your website, or my friends told me a little bit about your training program. Would you be able to let me know a bit more about the training program?

- As a long-standing employee with …, what do you like best about the company? What do you think is the most important quality in an employee with … to do his job really well?

Expected Salary
- Do your homework and know the range
- Decide if you deserve low/medium/top range.
- Tell a clear amount
- Support your expectation with 1-3 convincing reasons
- Leave it open for hiring manager’s discretion

Follow up

- Do you have any concerns over my qualification for the job? Is there anything else I can let you know? (they would usually say, no, but you will impress the interview if you ask so)

- When could I expect to hear from you? Then, say, should you need any further documents or information later on, please let me know. Thank you for your time meeting me. I really look forward to hearing from you soon. Firm hand shake, ladies first, men next, look at them into the eyes, smile, and leave the room. Not too much small talk, not too humble, be careful.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net