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#Leadership : 24 Tricky Job-Interview Questions the Best Companies in America are Asking….’If You Could be Remembered for One Sentence, What Would it Be?’ —Google Associate Account-Strategist Candidate

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With excellent perks, great pay and benefits, and high job satisfaction, employees at this year’s 50 best companies to work for in America seem to have a good thing going for them. But before you start seething with envy, you should see some of the questions they had to answer to get there.

Interview

 

To find these difficult and sometime odd queries, Business Insider sifted through hundreds of reviews on Glassdoor submitted by people who recently interviewed at the top companies.

If you’re thinking of tossing your hat in the ring, be sure to prepare yourself for some real head-scratchers:

‘If you could only choose one song to play every time you walked into a room for the rest of your life, what would it be?’ —Google associate account strategist candidate

 

‘How many Big Macs does McDonald’s sell each year in the US?’ —Facebook data scientist candidate

 

‘If this wall was a brick wall, and you were a brick, where would you be in the wall? What impact does this have on the wall as a whole?’ —Expedia market associate candidate

 

‘Design a spice rack for the blind’ —Intel hardware engineer candidate

 

‘Choose a city and estimate how many piano tuners operate a business there’ —Google product manager candidate

 

‘How much do you charge to wash every window in Seattle?’ —Facebook online sales operations candidate

 

‘How many children are born every day?’ —Apple global-supply manager candidate

 

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‘If you were to go camping with friends, where would you put your tent?’ —Expedia Senior Financial Analyst candidate

‘What kind of tree would you be?’ —Cisco Systems senior technical writer candidate

‘Why are manholes round?’ —St. Jude Medical electrical-engineer co-op candidate

‘If I was talking to your best friend, what is one thing they would say you need to work on?’ —Apple red-zone specialist candidate

‘If you could be remembered for one sentence, what would it be?’ —Google associate account-strategist candidate

‘If you were standing in a crowd of people, how would you stand out?’ —Microsoft site manager candidate

‘If you were to help a customer who is stuck on a boat in the middle of nowhere, what would be the first thing that you would say to that person?’ —American Express CCSG candidate

‘If I give you $1 million right now, what would you do?’ —Google associate account strategist candidate

‘How would you build Facebook for blind people?’ —Facebook product Manager candidate

‘Sell me this pen’ —Pfizer pharmaceuticals sales representative candidate

‘If you had a choice between two superpowers — being invisible or flying — which would you choose?’ —Microsoft high-level product-lead/evangelist candidate

‘How do you estimate the safe distance from shore given that there could be a tsunami?’ —Ebay analytics manager candidate

‘At this stage in your life would you prefer earning or learning?’ —Google software engineer candidate

‘What were you like as a child?’ —Biogen area business manager candidate

‘Write a program to simulate the writing of a ransom note given a magazine from which letters can be extracted’ —Microsoft software engineer candidate

‘What was your best day in the last four years? What was your worst?’ —Apple engineering Project Manager candidate

‘How did your parents feel about your performance in high school?’ —Eli Lilly senior care sales specialist candidate

 

 Businessinsider.com | May 5, 2016  |  

Your #Career : 3 Skills You Need To Rock Your Interviews & Your Career…I’d Like to Share My Take on What Interviewing Really Is, & Why you Need to Be Interviewing & Out there Consistently & Regularly Talking to Other Employers, Leaders & Managers.

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If you can’t answer these questions, you can’t present a compelling story of who you are and what you have to offer. Secondly, you’ll not be able to guide your career to the level you want it.  Amazing careers require a great deal of planning, vision and management, as well as a big dose of clarity, courage, and connection.

Two serious business partners listening attentively to young man at meeting in office

As a career coach, I work with hundreds of professional women each year who are in various states and stages of growth, leadership, and ascension.  In our work together, there are key steps we walk through over a period of weeks and months to help them achieve what they’re hoping for (and everyone’s desires are different and special, of course).

One of the steps that corporate professionals are most resistant to, and intimidated by, is interviewing. And they don’t understand that they need to be interviewing regularly – every three to four months – regardless of how happy or unhappy they are in the current role.

Interviewing is essential for your growth, expanding your network, understanding your value in the marketplace, and crafting a career that will meet your highest goals. Interviewing is connecting in a powerful way, and articulating your highest visions of who you want to be in the working world, and finding people who are excited by that vision.

I’d like to share my take on what interviewing really is, and why you need to be interviewing and out there consistently and regularly talking to other employers, leaders and managers.

 

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What is the best kind of interviewing?

Interviewing at its best is an open, honest dialogue – a conversation between two interested people sharing their needs, preferences, and visions, and determining if there’s a match.  So many corporate professionals don’t understand how critical it is to get out of your own company’s mindset, and explore and “try on” other avenues and approaches. In a recent talk I gave for the University of Connecticut and the National Association of Women MBAs, one senior-level executive shared with me that her mentor (at her company) advised strongly not to interview or find a job elsewhere, but to stay where she was. In my opinion, that’s bad advice. Always interview, so you can fully understand (and expand) your options and make the right choice based on as many opportunities as possible.

Interviewing for other jobs with other companies helps you see more clearly what you have and what you want next.  Once you begin to embrace and enjoyinterviewing on a regular basis, you’ll find these positive outcomes will naturally occur:

  1. You’ll understand your perceived value in the marketplace, and how well you’re faring against the competition.
  2. You’ll see other ways of operating – other types of work, cultures, politics, policies and procedures, new exciting outcomes that other organizations are striving for, and other “ecosystems” that will inform your personal and professional desires and preferences.
  3. You’ll make great connections (including powerful mentors and sponsors), who will open thrilling doors for you.
  4. You’ll begin to see more clearly and refine exactly what you want to do with your talents and gifts.
  5. You won’t feel so stuck and limited when it comes to the job you have.
  6. Finally, you’ll be able to discern more clearly if what you have today at your current job and employer is really want you want.

What needs to happen before you can interview successfully? There are three essential skills you need to master before you can rock at your interviews and make the most of meeting new hiring managers and leaders at new companies:

Know and communicate precisely what you have to offer and what makes you, you

Again, in working with thousands of professionals, I’ve seen that that vast majority or working people simply can’t answer these fundamental questions:

    • What are you especially great at?
    • What stands you apart from the competition?
    • What do you adore about your current work, and what would you like to let go of?
    • What are visions for how you’d like to contribute professionally, in an ideal world and workplace?
  • Why should we be interested in you over others with your same training and experience?
  • What’s the ideal next role for you?
  • Why are you interested in us?
  • What types of people motivate and inspire you best?
  • What kinds of work outcomes are you most excited by?

If you can’t answer these questions, you can’t present a compelling story of who you are and what you have to offer. Secondly, you’ll not be able to guide your career to the level you want it.  Amazing careers require a great deal of planning, vision and management, as well as a big dose of clarity, courage, and connection.

Network socially

After reviewing so many LinkedIn LNKD -0.93% profiles (and hearing from lots of my followers – now over 170,000), I can read your LinkedIn profile and in three minutes, identify a great deal about you that you didn’t realize you were communicating.

After all,

How you “do” LinkedIn is how you do your career.

I’m always stunned to see how many people just aren’t utilizing LinkedIn or other social networking tools to the fullest (or at all). They haven’t uploaded a photo. They use only their job title as their tagline. They don’t fill out their summaries or list in a compelling way the amazing accomplishments they’ve achieved.  They don’t tell a story about who they really are and want to be in the workforce.

The harsh reality is that how you approach developing your digital profile and footprint is how you approach your professional identity. If you’re lazy, shy, uninspired, scared or reluctant to do the work to build a profile and connect with others in a committed, excited way, this is a strong indicator of how you’re operating at work as well.

In addition, you can’t just rely on digital networking to move you forward. You have to meet new people in person as well. Get out of the doldrums by “bringing yourself to market.” Attend industry association meetings, conferences, meetups, build a new networking group, etc. In other words, bring yourself forward in all ways possible to show the world who you really are. The people you meet with inspire, uplift and support you.

Envision and articulate what you want next

Because the majority of professionals I see come to me when they’re stuck, I’ve observed that human beings see only what’s at the tip of their noses. They forgot who they’ve been at their best or who they can be. If they’re unhappy in their careers, they experience only limitation, confusion, paralysis, exhaustion, toxicity, crushing politics, disillusionment, fear, malaise, and reluctance to change.

The problem with all that is that if limitation is all that you see regarding your own abilities and your past – then limitation is all you’ll get coming back at you in your future.

What to do instead?  You need to think bigger and higher than what you see in front of you, and what you have been. Find new ways to be inspired by what’s possible for you, and talk in those terms – what you’re looking for, what lights you up, what compels you, what you’re capable of — rather than only what you’ve done and focused on to date.

If you need new sources of inspiration, go out and get them. For instance, watch one TED talk a day, or connect via social media with people who are 100 steps ahead of you doing what you long to do, and share their tweets and posts.  Write an article on LinkedIn, or take a class that will inspire you. The more you connect with others who are making the impact you dream of, and with work that lights you up from the inside, the more you’ll see that what you dream of is not as far out of reach as you imagined.

Join me in my Amazing Career Project online course today to build a happier, more rewarding career.

 

Forbes.com | April 16, 2016 | Kathy Caprino

 

 

#Leadership : 4 Keys to a Killer Interview Process…One truth I’ve learned in that experience is: The Most Expensive Hire you Will ever Make is Hiring the Wrong Person.

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Throughout my career, I’ve made both good hires and bad hires, and I have helped hundreds of clients find their key staff.

Free- Man at Desktop

 

One truth I’ve learned in that experience is:

The most expensive hire you will ever make is hiring the wrong person.

Culture, momentum, growth, and morale are just a few of the casualties that come in the wake of a bad hire.  In the vast majority of bad hires I’ve seen, there’s one common denominator: a rushed or short circuited interview process.

The old adage is truer to me now than ever: Hire slowly, and fire quickly.

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As I continue to learn how to hire thoroughly, I’ve run across four key components of a thorough and effective interview process.

  1.    Use Video Questionnaires as Part of the Process

Simply reading typed out answers just doesn’t cut it anymore. For whatever reason, it’s easier to get a read on people when you’re hearing them talk and watching their body language. There’s no replacement for face to face interaction (see below), but a great way to filter who you should sit down with in person is by having candidates submit video questionnaires specific to the job you are filling. It might sound like a bad version of “The Bachelor,” but what you will learn in a five minute on-camera interaction will help you narrow your candidate pool in the initial stages of your search.

Do yourself, your clients, and your staff a favor, and make sure you invest in an intentional hiring process. It may take more time, money, and energy than you’d like, but it’s a decision that’s too important for cutting corners.

  1.    Meet People In Person

Video questionnaires have become a big part of our search process, but I am not a fan of virtual interviews. Why? Not because I am old school or slow to adapt. It is because over 55% of our communication is nonverbal, as Albert Mehrabian, a pioneer in body language research, discovered.

In my work with churches, I tried building a more affordable search solution by cutting out face to face interviews. It sounded like a great idea, but turned out to be a miserable failure. Even though we used the same team, the same process, and had the same database, client satisfaction cratered from nearly 99% (with face to face interviews) to 65% (with virtual interviews).

Even though you can see facial expressions over video, you cannot perceive the 55% of nonverbal communication over video. There are certain qualities, skills, and weaknesses that can only be discovered when people interact face to face.

I’ve come to realize that unless the person will be doing their job virtually, you cannot do their interview virtually.

Yes, flights are expensive and time is precious. But the most expensive hire you’ll ever make is hiring the wrong person. Do yourself a favor and take the time to do in-person interviews.

Peter Drucker is credited as saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” I believe this now more than ever.

  1.    Include Your Team

Earlier in my career, I thought that doing 360 degree interviewing was an abdication of leadership and a sign of indecisiveness. I was so wrong.

Nowadays, my team has incredible weight and influence on the people we hire on. There are a couple reasons for that.

First, every department lead I have knows the needs of their team better than I do. We’re all on the same page in vision, mission, and values, and they’ll know who will make things run better and fill in the gaps we have as a company.

Secondly, they may be able to pick up on some good or bad traits a candidate has that I might miss.

Finally, including your team in the interview process will protect your culture better than anything else. Nobody will produce better hires for your company than the best hires you have made. Don’t overlook including your key team members in the hiring equation.

  1.    Culture Over Competency

My friend Cliff Oxford wrote a great column some years back titled, What Do You Do With The Brilliant Jerk? I hired way too many of those over the years. I saw a rock star and hired them irrespective of whether or not they would fit our team. I’ve vowed not to make that mistake again. It’s never worth it.

Peter Drucker is credited as saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” I believe this now more than ever. If you ask our team what our five year plan is, they would look at you like you were speaking a foreign language. But ask them what our culture is like, and they will rattle off our nine values and how they see them lived out at work. Culture is at the core of who we are, and that’s a huge reason for the success we’ve had.

When I hire new people, my first thought is “Do they fit our culture?” When I include others in the hiring process, it’s to protect culture. If they do, then I’ll take a look at things like skills and competency. If they don’t, it’s not even worth a look. The team is more effective when everyone is on the same culture page; and when the whole team works more effectively, the business thrives. Hire strategically. Hire competent workers. But in my experience, if the culture piece isn’t there, the rest is all for nothing.

You can teach skill, but you cannot teach cultural fit.

Do yourself, your clients, and your staff a favor, and make sure you invest in an intentional hiring process. It may take more time, money, and energy than you’d like, but it’s a decision that’s too important for cutting corners.

 

Forbes.com | March 9, 2016 | William Vanderbloemen