What HR looks for when interviewing you.

In the human resource world, all executives who interview you expect to hire the best and the brightest. In getting the crème de la crème, they use different methods in achieving the results. Most of them use behavioral analysis when interviewing and any careful HR executive will process all the information required to hire a candidate only in one sitting. Today, I want to take you through the mind of an interviewer; this article will give you insight into the various philosophies and approaches used by interviewers.

The following are angles in which an interviewer will assess the candidate he or she is reviewing:

1. To build a great organization, HR guys believe you need to hire people that are smarter than you in particular areas. They treat each interview as a conversation. When interviewing candidates for senior-level openings they try to find out who somebody really is and how their heads work. Initiative, intellectual curiosity, personal authenticity, and reason.

2. Others looks at where someone wants to go in his or her career but also look at where he or she has been, not just in terms of recent jobs and education but in terms of life lessons. It is incredible how many smart people with excellent credentials are really clueless about what it might take to get people to work together. Considering that later in their career they will be responsible for managing hundreds or thousands of people, this becomes a significant issue. Personality, and the perception that a person could work well with others, no matter what their economic lot in life, counts for a lot. Any sign of elitism is the kiss of death.

3. Just imagine a question in an interview like, 'What's the best practical joke you've pulled off, and why?' In that question an interviewer is looking for a sense of creativity, a willingness to have fun, and at a deeper level an ease with others that's made evident by a willingness to joke around and take some risks. Moreover, the question breaks down some of the seriousness and tension in the interviewing room. Interviewers also want to get a few good ideas of practical joke endeavors.

4. Some want to find out if this is the person who really made things happen in his or her prior positions. Sorting the doers from the posers might be the hardest task of interviewing. Interviewers will always ask why the candidates want the position not because there is a right answer, but because they want to hire a person who will probably stay for awhile and to know if the candidate is capable of making purposeful decisions.

5. Others like to ask interviewees to talk about their history and about how they got to where they are, what they want to do now, and what they aspire to in the future. In the course of the interview, interviewers listen for the major decisions they've made and ask them to help them understand how they made those decisions.

6. Other interviewers enjoy what they call the 'little sister' test for candidates with brilliant backgrounds like MBAs or PhDs. Here, they select one of the most specialized items on their CV for example, their thesis and ask them to explain what it is as if they were their 6-year-old sister. This is a great way to test their ability to explain, synthetically and simply, very complex things. This skill is key in many businesses.

7. The underlying philosophy is that HR selects employees one by one. Most employers know that without the best people, they cannot be the best. Once interviewers establish that a candidate has the necessary skills, it becomes a matter of assessing interest and fit. The focus is on having candidates see a wide variety of interviewers. This approach provides both the candidate and firms with a diverse set of perspectives upon which to base a decision. Most important, this philosophy enables a candidate to get a great deal of insight into the culture and determine whether there is an appropriate fit.

8. Most HR people use behavioral - based interviewing most of the time, what they don’t know is that many applicants come in with too many prepared answers, and sound like politicians; no matter what question you ask them, they are going to give you a prepared answer. To get more to the core of an individual, the question should be, "What motivates you to be as successful as you are?" and follow it immediately by another question, "Can you walk me through how you set your goals?" These questions get to more of the essence of the individual.

Now that you know how most interviewers think and the approach they use, you need to put yourself in their shoes and take the bull by the horns. I expect you to get to their mind and pass an interview with ease.