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November 5, 2004

The Redcoats Are Coming! The Redcoats Are Coming!

Microsoft is coming to campus on Monday to interview second-years for full-time positions after graduation. I spent a good chunk of my yesterday doing mock interviews with classmates over at the career center.

It's exhausting, but rewarding. And totally, totally necessary.

I've written before about the Microsoft Interview process, and it's a bear. (And, c'mon, you know you have tough inteviews when people write books about it.)

Interviewing is a skill. And, like all skills, practice is required. Preparation is essential to success. I don't care how smart, verbose or charming you are - if you walk in to an interview unprepared, the interviewer will know. They will know. I didn't believe this until I started doing interviews on the other side of the table. At one point, I remember asking a generic, guaranteed-to-be-in-the-interview question (e.g., "Why do you want to work at Microsoft?") and seeing the interviewee go, "uh..." and I just thought: "Oh, my God! She's making this up right here and now!"

Fakers get found out.

So how do you prep for an interview? Fortunately, it's not that hard. Just stick to the basics and do them well:

• Be honest. If you lie, you'll get found out. And then you're dead.
• Know your resume inside out. If it's on the resume, it's fair game for discussion. If you said that you "implemented a CRM system for a Fortune 500 company", you better be able to regale the interviewer with funny anecdotes about how it all came together. Be enthusiastic about your accomplishments.
• Know your weak spots. Everyone has them. Know what they are, critically evaluate them, and be prepared to discuss a) what they are, b) how you found out that you have them, and c) what you're doing to rectify them. Flaws are OK, but companies want to see that you have self-awareness and are actively working to improve yourself.
• Know your story. What's the arc of your career? Where did you start, where have you been, and where are you going? What have you done to demonstrate that you have a vision and plan for your career, and are taking charge of it? Why are you qualified for this job? More importantly, why does this job interest you? What is it going to teach you? What is is going to add to your life that you can't get elsewhere?
• Do your homework. If you're interviewing with a company, you better know how that company makes its money. Know who the executives are, who the key customers are. Know what analysts think about the company - or, if it isn't covered by analysts, at least know what's going on in the sector and industry. Are you a customer? If so, what do you like/hate about the company? (And if you're not a customer, why not?)
• Be yourself. Interviewers are people, too. They have kids and dogs and a mortgage, and they're at UWBS on a Monday morning because they want, desperately, to uncover cool people who can help make their work lives easier by being smart, competent, thoughtful, and, most of all, genuine. Don't be some fakey, plastic Interview Person(tm) who smiles some toothy grin and speaks in platitudes. Everyone hates that person. He (or she) certainly never gets a job offer. (Corollary: check the MBA buzzwords at the door. You might win at "bullshit bingo" in the interview, but you're gonna lose the job.)
• Eat something. Low blood sugar (and low levels of caffeine in the bloodstream) are correlated to face-plants during the interview process.

Once you stitch all your stuff together, rehearse your answers to the standard interview questions (heck, say them out loud in front of a mirror if you have to. It helps. Trust me - I've done it). Don't ever, ever, ever, ever walk in to an interview and "try out" a new answer to a question. It will come off badly.

Other than that -- game on! Interviewing becomes more fun the more you do it. The trick is to keep your head up and go for the gusto.

Posted by Gavin Shearer at November 5, 2004 6:18 PM. Posted to UW MBA.

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