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eSight Interview: What a Hiring Manager Says He Seeks in a Job CandidateBy: Nan Hawthorne
Summary:
We know what the job search books tell us about how to present ourselves when applying for a job. But here is what one live hiring manager says about how you can put your own best foot forward as a job candidate -- in the real world. 
eSight Interviews a Hiring Manager
Matching the Candidate to the Job How to (and How Not to) Present Yourself to a Hiring Manager What About Disability? Helpful Guidelines eSight Interviews a Hiring Manager I recently had a unique opportunity to interview a hiring manager for eSight about how he chose people for two job openings he had to fill. I found what he sought and how applicants either won or failed to win his confidence both enlightening and useful. Let's start by introducing him. I'll call him HM so he can remain anonymous and be candid with us. HM supervises technical writers at a major insurance company. His department's workload has more than doubled recently. When HM gained approval to hire two new writers, he was relieved, although he knew it would be some time before these new workers would be up to speed enough so they could take up the slack now so evident within the department. HM told me that it was all the more imperative, then, that he find the people who could best develop the skills they needed to carry out the duties within the two new jobs quickly and competently. I began by establishing the background for these particular hiring decisions. eSight: HM, please describe your position and your hiring responsibilities. HM: I'm the supervisor of the contract development and regulatory department for my company. I'm responsible for all hiring for the department. eSight: What were the positions you needed to fill? HM: We had two openings for insurance analysts. These positions are responsible for developing and writing insurance contracts, filing contracts with state and federal regulatory agencies, and resolving problems or issues with the regulatory agencies. The positions also provide research and consulting support for other company departments, such as sales and operations. eSight: How did you go about finding promising candidates for these openings? HM: My company has a policy of hiring and promoting from within, so our process is to first consider internal applicants. (The company has approximately 3,000 employees in four states.) The positions were posted on our company intranet. eSight: How much flexibility did you have in what was required of applicants as far as resumes etc? HM: There is a required application for general information -- name, length of time with company, current position, etc. In addition, the applicant is required to submit a resume. Applicants who passed the initial screening were asked to provide additional information. eSight: And how did you determine the salary range for these openings? HM: Most large companies -- like mine -- do annual surveys of counterpart organizations to determine average pay for various job types. The salaries usually reflects a market average. If you are really unsure about the salary -- that is, whether it's worth your while to apply for the job -- and you can't glean the information from the job announcement, advertisement, or people you know in that industry, you just have to ask. It's probably best brought up at the end of your first interview. Ask if they can tell you the approximate salary range for the position. If their response is to ask you for your salary expectations, be honest but flexible: "I'm looking for a position that pays in the mid-30s, but I am flexible." Go to Top of Page Matching the Candidate to the Job I then explored how this hiring manager defined his "ideal candidate" and how he decided which individual applicants came close to that ideal. eSight: What particular skills, background and education does this position require? HM: These are professional positions requiring advanced skills in research, writing, and verbal communications skills. The job basically entails finding the answers to complex legal and regulatory questions and issues. A successful applicant is someone who is creative and flexible, someone who is a good problem-solver, and someone who can take a complicated task and break it down into its simplest components. Job-specific knowledge, although helpful, is less important than having the ability to understand an issue and know how to use various research resources to come up with an answer or solution. To do well in this position, one needs very good reading comprehension, be very comfortable with research, especially online, and be able to explain, both orally and in writing, complicated legal and insurance concepts in a way that people who are not insurance professionals can understand. The successful applicant also must have a good work ethic, have a lot of initiative, be self-directed and be able to work with a minimum of supervision. eSight: How did you determine whether the applicants met those requirements? HM: I reviewed each applicant's education and job experience, but I primarily wanted to know -- through the interviews -- how the applicants approached problem solving. I needed to know if they could think on their feet and how comfortable they were dealing with unfamiliar material and information. Their writing samples were a big factor in the hiring; at least 50 to 60 percent of each candidate's evaluation was on the writing samples. eSight: So the position allows for aptitude over demonstrable skills. Someone with less experience can learn the job. How did you ascertain whether the applicants had this "learning" capacity? HM: Yes, because the job is very specialized, I assumed that few, if any, of the candidates would have experience specific to this job. As a result, most of my evaluation was based on whether the candidates presented and expressed themselves well, whether they asked good questions, whether they had prepared themselves for the interview, and whether I thought they were someone who would have the initiative to be able to "figure out" the job. eSight: What were you looking for in an ideal candidate? HM: Someone who is intellectually curious and who knows how to conduct research for finding answers to questions, even on unfamiliar topics. Someone who can analyze a question or situation; determine the most efficient approach to finding the answer; find the answer; and then be able to write a clear, concise explanation of the results of that research. eSight: What tools do you use for determining the quality of candidates? HM: The writing samples were a primary tool. The job requires high levels of writing skills, so the writing samples were very important. This was stressed to applicants from the beginning. Unfortunately, only about half of the candidates -- we received about a dozen applicants, 10 of which made the "cut" to interviews -- submitted writing samples at all, and, of those, only three had anything approaching a portfolio which gave me an idea of their writing abilities. Go to Top of Page How to (and How Not to) Present Yourself to a Hiring Manager I took advantage of this real life hiring process to find out how the individual candidates either succeeded or failed in presenting themselves as the best person for the job. eSight: In general, how did the candidates you hired show you that they met your criteria? HM: The best candidates, in addition to providing good writing portfolios, were actively involved in the interviews. Primarily this involved active listening. When I described a particular trait, skill or experience we were looking for, they responded without prompting with an example of how their past jobs or experiences involved that particular trait or skill. Even if they didn't have specific experience, the best applicants explained how they would approach the particular situation, if they were given the job. The best candidates asked as many questions as they were asked, and their answers to my questions were detailed and gave specific examples of work they had done that demonstrated the kinds of traits and skills I was looking for. The majority of the applicants I interviewed were rather passive about applying for the job. That made me wonder if they would also be passive about doing the job, and that factor went a long way toward eliminating them from consideration. eSight: What did the best candidates do to make it to the final cut? What made you select the individuals you did? HM: The best candidates were those who were prepared for the interview. They found out some general information about what my department does, where we fit into the overall company, and what that position did on a day-to-day basis. The best candidates also asked me a lot of questions about the position, including future prospects for the job. One even asked me about how I came to that department and position. All of this showed that they were actively involved in the process. The best applicants had a comprehensive portfolio of samples showing their writing in different situations -- formal reports or presentations, informal e-mails, letters and other samples. One applicant even included several items that weren't business-related. She included an article she had written for a church newsletter and a review of a CD she had posted on a web site. This was perfect. Not only did it show her creative abilities -- and it doesn't matter what the job is; creativity is always a plus -- it illustrated how she organized her thinking and demonstrated that she knew how to tailor her writing to specific audiences. Her writing portfolio alone practically guaranteed her the position. eSight: What did the least qualified applicants lack? What could they have done to improve their standing? HM: The applicants not selected were the least prepared for applying for the job. They did little, if any, research about the department or the position and had few ideas about what they were going to be doing in this job. They took a passive approach to the interviews by answering questions in just a few words. A particular sore point with me was that, despite the fact that the job description heavily stressed writing and research skills and specifically said that applicants had to demonstrate them, many of the applicants had very poor portfolios of writing samples. One applicant said they didn't have much in the way of writing samples because their current job didn't require much writing. That answer ￂ? and attitude -- eliminated her from contention. Anyone who wants to work in the "information economy" has to be able to write clearly. What's more, they have to be able to demonstrate that to a job interviewer. They need to be able to put together a portfolio of writing samples that show their communications skills in different settings. eSight: How might a person develop such a portfolio of writing? HM: The Internet provides unprecedented opportunities to develop and hone writing and research skills, whether you do that in your current job or not. Join Internet discussion groups. There are numerous "expert" web sites where individuals ask questions about various topics. Sign up as an "expert" in an area you are interested in. You'll get asked questions where you have to do research and write responses. Set up a web site on a particular topic you are interested in, or find someone else's web site about your topic and offer to write for it. Start collecting samples of your writing. Organize them in an attractive fashion. It doesn't have to be fancy. A simple three-ring binder of samples and a brief explanation of when and why you wrote them will do nicely. Go to Top of Page What About Disability? eSight: If any applicant had been a person with a disability, what would you have wanted them to do or say about their disability and how might they have assured you the disability would not have been a detriment? HM: None of the applicants, as far as I knew, had a disability. (Had there been a candidate with a disability,) attitude and approach would have been everything. Rightly or wrongly, most hiring managers who have not had much exposure to disability are going to be unsure about an applicant with an obvious disability. Appearing confident and competent will help get the interviewer past the disability and into your skills and experience. If you want the job, you have to try to put the interviewer at ease. As a hiring manager, I am likely going to be reluctant to ask about your disability. You should bring it up first and explain in some detail how you deal with barriers and that demonstrates you are a good problem solver. And, although perhaps unfair, I also feel strongly that a disabled applicant has to be a topnotch applicant to be considered at all. You need to be able to provide specific examples that show you can do the job despite your disability. Have a knockout portfolio of examples of your work, depending upon the industry you are in. Provide superb references. Do your research of the company before you show up for an interview. Go to Top of Page Helpful Guidelines Here are some basic interviewing guidelines I gathered while visiting with HM.
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