Chapter 19

How Does Your Experience Help Us?

In This Chapter

Recognizing questions that target experience

Focusing your answers on an employer’s needs

Studying sample questions for practice

In the classic adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark, Karen Allen (playing Marion Ravenwood) hasn’t seen Harrison Ford (playing Indiana Jones) for awhile and comments that he’s not the same man she knew ten years ago. Ford’s Indiana Jones has a great comeback:

It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.

And so it goes with experience. You can have ten years of skill-building experience — or you can have one year’s experience with nine years of reruns. Solid experience is yet one more confirmation of your ability to do a top-notch job.

Making Your Experience Relevant

Psychologists insist that past behavior predicts future behavior. True or not, interviewers look at your yesterdays for clues on how well you’ll perform in your tomorrows.

Simply reciting your experience isn’t going to excite an employer. You have to make the connection between then and now. You have to show exactly how your experience-based accomplishments make you the perfect candidate for the job opening. Here’s a straightforward example:

As you’ll note on my resume, I’ve had five years of praised experience as an instructor and training coordinator. I’d like to tell you a few details about my work as an office-work trainer for military spouses, which has a direct application to your project to retrain a portion of the company’s plant workers. Would you like to hear a bit about that?

Whether you have a lot or a little experience, employers want to hire people who will continue to learn and grow to the benefit of their company. So as you answer the experience questions, focus not only on your experience, but also on how your efforts served the changing needs of your previous employer.

I started training the military wives on word-processing programs from 9 a.m. until noon three days a week. After several months, I was asked to add evening hours two nights a week to train a class on spreadsheet programs, which I myself had to quickly get up to steam on — and was glad to do so.

When you can show how you’ve successfully adapted in the past, convincing employers that you have what it takes to adapt your experience to their workplaces is easier.

After the interviewing Q&A begins, what should you do if you don’t understand one of the questions? Don’t be afraid to ask for clarification — I’m not sure I understand your question, and I don’t want to give you an irrelevant or incorrect answer.

The Questions

Questions that you may be asked about your work experience, along with suggested answering techniques (ShowStoppers) and definite mistakes (Clunkers and Bloopers), include the following:

What kind of experience do you have for this job?

ShowStoppers

Gather information before answering. Ask what projects you would be working on in the first six months. Relate your experience to those projects, detailing exactly how you would go about working on them.

Give specific examples of your success in dealing with similar projects in the past, focusing on results.

Show how crossover (also known as transferable) skills drawn from even seemingly unrelated experience — such as waiting tables or planning events — apply to this project. You learned the value of being reliable, coordinating efforts, staying organized, and so forth.

Clunkers and Bloopers

Say you have no experience. Next question!

Show that your experience overreaches this particular job — unless you know your overqualification is a plus or when your real agenda is to angle for a higher-level position.

In what ways has your job status changed since you got into this field?

ShowStoppers

Mention that you’ve worked in X number of positions — from small to larger employers — with increasing responsibility; this position is a logical next level in your upward track record.

Sketch advances in your line of work over the years. Describe how you’ve continued your education and training to be sure you’re moving forward with the technology and the times.

Draw out hiring objections: Ask whether you failed to cover any key responsibilities. If there’s a gap, show how you’ve handled missing responsibilities, perhaps in earlier positions.

Clunkers and Bloopers

Omit mentioning key functions in your move upward. You’ll look like you may need to catch up.

Confirm that you’ve held the same job for ten years, with little change.

How long would it take you to make a contribution to our company?

ShowStoppers

Explain how selecting you will shorten training time because your experience qualifies you as a turnkey candidate. You don’t need to be brought up to speed — you’ve been there and done that job before. Name past challenges, actions, and results.

Estimate how long it would realistically take you to begin producing first-class work on a particular project. Then detail how you would go about working on the project. Forecast how much time you expect each step would take. Be realistic but optimistic in your time estimates.

Clunkers and Bloopers

Say you’ll hit the ground running and smile.

Say you can’t become productive for at least four months (unless you’re headed for an incredibly complex job in which a settling-in period lasting beyond three months is normal).

What are your qualifications?

ShowStoppers

Item by item, connect your close fit between the job’s requirements and your qualifications.

Ask what specific projects or problems you may be expected to deal with and which have the highest priority.

Identify the projects you’ve accomplished in the past that qualify you to work successfully on the projects the interviewer mentions.

Clunkers and Bloopers

Assume you know what the interviewer wants to hear about, plunge in, and fail to check the interviewer’s interest after a minute or so.

When you have limited work experience, speak only of your education without weaving in nuggets of experience in your school lab work, volunteer work, or student jobs.

How did you resolve a tense situation with a coworker? Have you ever had to fire someone?

ShowStoppers

First, discuss your analytical process for solving routine workplace problems (as advocated in conflict-resolution guidebooks). Storytell a specific example of a problem you solved.

In a termination example, state the steps you took to help the fired person improve and save his job before making a termination decision.

Emphasize that you follow company policy and that you’re fair and tactful in dealing with employee problems.

Clunkers and Bloopers

Complain that colleagues unfairly ganged up on you.

Discuss an example of when you fired someone because you just didn’t like the person.

Focus on how horrible the problem or employee was, naming names.

Give a specific example of teamwork when you had to put your needs aside to help a coworker.

ShowStoppers

Mention the importance of coworkers being able to rely on each other. Give a specific example, showing how you helped and that the reliance wasn’t one-sided.

Explain in the example that, although you went the extra mile for the team, your efforts did not cause you to skimp on your own duties. Perhaps you went the extra mile on your own time.

Clunkers and Bloopers

Comment that you’re a team player and leave it at that.

Say you can’t recall any examples.

What did you like best at your last job?

ShowStoppers

Help the interviewer to see a match from past to future by mentioning specific work experiences you were good at and enjoyed that are likely to be present in the prospective position.

Speak about opportunities to plan your own day or to think out of the box. If you’ve made a connection, the interviewer may encouragingly say you’ll find similar opportunities in this position, and you will enthusiastically agree.

Confirm that you enjoyed being visible in a high-stakes effort, knowing that your contributions directly contributed to the company’s bottom line.

Clunkers and Bloopers

Blast your ex-job as a loser and say that’s why you’re here.

Explain that nothing stands out as having been especially rewarding.

Describe a time that you had to work without direct supervision. Have you ever had to make department decisions when your supervisor was not available?

ShowStoppers

Discuss your level-headed decision-making process. You don’t rattle easily.

Show that you’re self-directed and self-motivated, but are happily willing to follow others’ directions or to ask for assistance when needed.

Storytell: Discuss a specific example of a time you had to make a decision without supervision. Choose an instance when you anticipated company needs and finished a project ahead of time or made a beneficial decision.

Clunkers and Bloopers

Whine about being forced into a decision that turned sour.

Admit that you’ve never worked without someone looking over your shoulder or telling you what to do.

Have you ever misjudged something? How could you have prevented the mistake?

ShowStoppers

Briefly discuss a specific — but minor — example of misjudgment. Say what the mistake taught you and how it led you to improve your system for making decisions or solving problems.

After talking about your example and what you learned from it, ask a question to refocus the discussion on your accomplishments — “Would you like to hear about a notable win as well as that loss?”

Clunkers and Bloopers

Discuss a mistake that cost your employer plenty of time and money.

Pass the blame to someone else.

Say you’ve never misjudged anything.

Has a supervisor ever challenged one of your decisions? How did you respond?

ShowStoppers

Identify an example of being challenged when you listened politely but supported your decision with research or analytical data, and you won over your critical supervisor.

Add that even though you justified your decision, you were open to suggestions and comments. You’re confident in your abilities but not closed minded or foolishly stubborn.

Clunkers and Bloopers

Castigate your supervisor for trying to micromanage.

Insist that you were right even though management reversed your decision.

In your current position, what are your three most important accomplishments?

ShowStoppers

Mention six of your best work accomplishment stories. Ask which ones the interviewer would like to hear more about.

After describing the top three, comment that you can expand the list, and reach across the desk to hand over an accomplishment sheet with your name, contact information, and as many as ten accomplishments. (Leave your accomplishment sheet behind as a reminder of your talents.)

Clunkers and Bloopers

Laughingly remark that you have so many accomplishments that it’s hard to choose just three.

Admit that you’re not sure what counts as an accomplishment.

Your experience doesn’t exactly match our needs right now, does it?

ShowStoppers

Don’t agree. Instead, state that you see your fit with the job through a rosier lens. Your skills are cross-functional. Focus on how you can easily transfer your experience in related areas to learning this new job.

Stress that you’re dedicated to learning the new job quickly. Give two true examples of how you learned a job skill much faster than usual.

Say you don’t have any bad habits to unlearn and discuss your good work habits that will help you get the job done efficiently and well.

Clunkers and Bloopers

Agree, smile, and say nothing to compensate for the mismatch — unless, of course, you don’t want the job.

Let the door hit you on the way out.