Job interview round table outcomes

On 8th May I attended an interesting round table organised by Politecnico di Milano Career Service during the 1st PoliMi Career Day.

10 HRs from 10 different companies (among which Luxottica, Bosch, Edison, FIAT, DHL) talked about what do they look for in a candidate when they meet him in a job interview.

They all agreed on some key points:

• Job interview is not an exam for the candidate: both the company and the candidate have to evaluate if by hiring the candidate or by accepting the job, they’re making the right decision. So, it’s ok to be concerned about a job interview, but you should know that the HR has no interest in find a tiny reason to kick you out.
• Soft skills matter: HRs ar NOT technicians. They won’t stress too much your technical knowledge but they will try to extrapolate everything about your personality or your attitudes by what you say. In this scenario you have to make them understand that you are full of what they love to call “soft skills”: you are a great leader, you can organise people work, you can master time, you are a real problem solver. The technical part will come later (and usually not wih the same people).
• Passion: at least 9 out of 10 HRs said that they always like to feel that the candidates are really keen on the job they’re being interviewed for. At the question “Ok, how should I show this to you without starting jump on the desk?” they said:
  - by not answering “Just because you called me” at the question “Why are you here?”
  - by showing interest in all the activities you did before (they assume that if you’ve been motivated until that day you won’t change with the job).
• Don’t try to hide the (legal) intelligence you did about the company before going to the interview: if you searched for information about the company, you aren’t there by chance. This denotes interest in the specific job or company and is strictly related to “passion”.

A point they stressed a lot but I don’t agree with, is that we should not try to reach a compromise between the job we’d like to do and the job they offers to us. I think we should be more pragmatic than idealist in this field. We can always find a compromise between the “job of our dreams” and what is really possible to do.

UPDATE:

I forgot one thing. The HR from Edison, at the question “How a company consider a PhD?” said: “PhD gives to an engineer such a high qualification that usually companies are not interested in it.”

I’d really like to hear other opinion about it. Anyone reading has something to say?

~ by Alessandro on May 11, 2008.