The current thinking on best interviewing approaches is to identify the specific talents (empathy, focus, etc,) that are required by the job (not a trivial task and usually not well done), then build interview questions that will reveal/expose those talents. Talents fall into many categories and most people really don't know their own talents so it can feel very much like a psych exam (or games) when you are being interviewed. Depending on the company culture and the skill (and talents) of the interviewer this can be done very well or very badly.

Skills, knowledge and work history count for something but talent is what makes the difference between good and great for both employees and employers. Or so they tell me .

- Eric

no I didn't get the job. the company hire a moron for the position. They said I am a nice guy and have the right skills but they just dumped me.

I found out the company hired someone else less experience but he must have a silver tongue to seduce the interviewer.

I work in IT technical support for Window environment. How do I tell the interviewer that I haven't work on the system before? I told them that I was willing to learn the software. There was only 1 proprietary software the company used at work. They weren't willing to train new candidates hence they rejected me.

I was applying for position as senior tech support in Window environment.

now I know what CIA interrogation feels like. It makes you sweat, and cause you to doubt your answer.

3 different interviewers ask me same questions again to determine if I answer the right question. Interview lasted 3hrs. I can't recall the questions since I was thirsty after 20min into the interview. I drank alot of water.

they deliberately put me in seat under bright light while the interviewer sat in darker area of the room. The light shined in my face causing glare.

This technique sounds like CIA interrogation to me.

Were you possibly interviewing for a job in law enforcement or a job in some kind of high security area/field?

I have been to a couple of interview boards for law enforcement positions in the distant past, and that sounds like what you are describing.

For one department, I had passed all the written, background, physical fitness, physical agility, psychological, and polygraph tests. I actually max'ed out the written, physical fitness, physical agility and passed all others with flying colors. Then came the interview board....

Four hours in front of 12 officers plus the assistant chief. All the coffee or water I wanted to drink. No restroom breaks.

They did it to test my ability to handle stress, and think on my feet. I had these guys coming at me NON-STOP for 4 hours. I knew it was coming, made it through and still did not get hired. Found out later there was a quota to meet, and I did not fit the image and plumbing of said quota.

Picard,

Sounds like it wasn't a very fun experience. I'm sorry, bro.


I do have a question for you though since I'm not an IT guy at all. I'm curious if the role you were going for is one with lots of high pressure situations often for extended periods?

The reason I ask is that I've found most people in the world are not as ill-intentioned as we think. No I not niave enough to think there are no bad guys out there, but most folks do what they do believing it is right or they have a reason for it. Just curious if this was their way of seeing candidates in an extended high-pressure scenario.

I never sweat an interview. You have to go into it with the mindset that it is theirs to lose, not yours. You have to believe you have the goods, and even if the job market is crappy it doesn't matter because you have what they need. Even in a bad market houses get sold, cars get sold, and people get hired for jobs that come available. How do you make the sale under those conditions? If you have the right approach, it doesn't matter what the conditions are, you can get what you need everytime if you just go about it confidently. I have turned down far more jobs after the interview than those I have not been called back on. It wasn't always like that, but once I figured out that it was just another sales job, it made a lot more sense. It is not about what you know as much as it is about what you can make the other guy believe.

There was a movie released in 1999 called "Suckers", about the goings on at a used car lot. There is a ring of truth to what is said in that movie about salesmanship, probably the closest thing I've ever heard to the truth. There's a fine line to their approach, and it is easy to become unethical, but if you watch the movie and listen to the monologues from the Sales Manager (the bald headed jerk in the movie), you will hear exactly what I am talking about. It doesn't have to be as cold and ruthless as he makes it out to be, but the underlying truth is universal to successful salesmanship.

Well, there are limits. If they absolutely require some background in support of a given product, there is not much you can do. In my case, I found out later they were trying to fill the job for a couple months and my background with supporting other products in a similar environment, coupled with my personality/attitude made me a good fit.

In your case either the silver-tongued devil had that experience you lacked, or the image he conveyed was more what they wanted. So in that sense, your comportment during the interview was obviously important. Now my interviewers were not trying to be harsh or put me on the spot (although having to get through military security to get to the interview was intimidating in its own right), so I can't claim to have overcome that obstacle. But being in this field for 13 years and knowing that I am good at what I do also makes a difference. I can carry myself confidently.

I even managed to get an offer for a different job that was totally out of my scope (I have done mostly Windows Server stuff with some network admin and voice com; they needed Unix/InfoSec) by studying up on the technologies, telling them that I was new to the material, and thereby telling them that I could take initiative. If it hadn't been night shift, it would have been a great experience...