With the unemployment rate still above 8% across the country, getting a job is of the utmost importance to many and knowing how to interview is a key factor in getting hired. In addition to the basic elements of a good resume that demonstrates your talents and experience, the most important aspect of the interview is your ability to communicate and build an effective and successful relationship in a short time. Understanding what will push the success buttons for male interviewers vs. women can be your key success factor.
Quick tips for interviews
What to remember when being interviewed by a man:
1. Keep your answers short and to the point.
2. Talk in terms of past results and successes.
3. Use words like productivity, effectiveness, results, team.
4. Dress sharply as appropriate for the job.
5. State your point first, then give your reasoning behind it.
What to remember when being interviewed by a woman:
1. Start off a little more conversational, but read your interviewer to see how open they are to conversation.
2. Talk in terms of relationships, team, loyalty, commitment.
3. Share stories about how your past successes led to the success of others in the company, customers, vendors, etc. Show how you believe in giving.
4. Dress for the job, but try to have some nice color accents.
5. Look her in the eye all the time.
Human resource professionals are trained to interview and be as objective and methodical as possible. However, they are men and women and cannot do without their natural and learned gender perspectives. If you can engage them, you are showing them that you are personable, easy to work with, talkative, and a team player. Unless you’re looking for a highly-skilled job that doesn’t involve a lot of human interaction and teamwork, your soft skills are extremely important.
teach me to like
One of the hardest things to teach someone is how to form relationships with others. We tend to learn this when we are growing up from the role models around us. How did your family behave towards each other? What were your mom and dad’s communication habits with each other, their friends, family, you, your brothers and sisters? We are all aware of these communication habits. Some of us make a conscious decision not to be the same way. Most of us repeat the same clothes because that’s what we know. Unless the communication styles you were raised with really made a bad impression on you, we consider it normal.
At the job interview we all sit at the table with our own luggage. Our “script” from when we grew up and our daily experiences before the day of your interview. That includes the interviewer.
Make your job easier
Your job is to make your job easy. You need to stand out from the rest and show that you are the obvious choice. Part of the way to do this is to make sure you don’t step on any gender communication lines. It is very likely that for specific jobs they are looking for a man or a woman. In fact, they may have already made that decision before you, even a member of the “wrong sex” knows them. They are not allowed to say so, but the history and experience of the workers in that position may dictate gender bias. Not to mention, if your interviewer has to answer to a boss or bosses, they may have been told what gender he should hire. This means that in order for you to get him to risk his job or her reputation, you really have to prove his worth.
Are you thinking, “Well, that’s not fair”? Not to say illegal. But, such is life. Dealing with it. Don’t complain about it, just make it happen. If you know you are the right person for the job, then BE the right person for the job. You need to show them that you are the perfect and unique candidate for that position.
As men and women, we have our gender perspective of the word, people and things. That’s the way it is. The more we know how to overcome our natural deficits and biases, the better off we will be.