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Job Interviewing #2: Interviewing with a Competitor of your Current Employer

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Blog reader Ranganathan from Toronto, Canada asks, “I am interviewing with a competitor of my current employer. Most of my work at my current employer is confidential. How do I describe these projects in the upcoming interview?”

Ethics and Responsibilities

Interviewing with a Competitor of Current Employer: Ethics, Responsibilities Your employers, both current and former, expect you to treat sensitive and confidential information ethically. Accordingly, you must not disclose such information outside the company—in an interview, trade show or party at home.

During an interview with a competitor of your current or former employer, describe your past projects and accomplishments in terms of concepts and particulars that are public knowledge. If the interviewer presses for additional information, be diplomatic and decline to present confidential information. Interviewers will appreciate your reluctance.

Beware of a Trap: Test for Integrity

Interviewing with a Competitor of Current Employer: Test for Integrity Public trust and ethical behavior are vital to organizational and individual success. Recent corporate scandals have underscored the need for organizations to build and foster ethical business environments. Organizations are therefore inclined to select employees who share such moral values.

Good corporate ethics policies prohibit current employees from disclosing proprietary information from/about their former employers. In asking you for sensitive information, the interviewer is probably setting up a trap for you—the interviewer may be checking if you demonstrate a high degree of integrity and professional conduct.

Declining to provide proprietary information will demonstrate your consideration of the ethical consequences of your actions. Consequently, you will earn the respect of the interviewer.

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  4. Job Hunting: Don’t Chase Perfection
  5. What’s Behind Your Desire to Job-Hunt and Jump Ship?

Hamish McRae on Drivers of Change in the World Economy

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In an essay entitled “Reading the Future,” Hamish McRae, one of Europe’s leading futurists, argues that we can all understand the changes in the world today and get the future right. He identifies five important drivers of change in the world economy.

Hamish McRae on Drivers of Change in the World Economy

  1. Demography: how many more people there will be in the world, how old they will be, and where they will be located.
  2. Resources and the environment: whether there will be enough resources to give these additional people a decent lifestyle, the pressures this will create on the environment, and the impact on the business community.
  3. Globalization: how long it will continue to race onwards and how it will change its nature from emphasis on international trade to emphasis on movements of culture and talent.
  4. Technology: how we can see an outline of the technologies that will dominate for the next twenty-five years and how we must try to understand the broad social impact of these technological advances.
  5. Government and social change: why we will ask different things of government, why government will tend to retreat, and the opportunities that will be created for the private sector.

Call for Action

The five macroeconomic trends identified by Hamish present an opportunity to understand the future in a broad context. Translate these trends into microeconomic indicators and examine how they may affect your lives: your society, marketplace, industry and the economy. What opportunities do these trends present to your career, your personal and professional growth, your choice of investments, etc? How will you capitalize on these opportunities?

Example 1: In the United States, the oldest segment of the population—persons 65 years or older—is predicted to grow to 20% of the population by 2030 from about 12.4% in 2005. The aging population will increase the demand for healthcare services and preventive medicine. What investment choices can you make?

Example 2: Assume you dispense cash at a bank in a semi-urban location in India. In their relentless pursuit of productivity, banks in India will push new technologies: transactions over mobile phones and wider adaptation of ATMs and online recordkeeping, thereby shrinking the functions of bank tellers. There will be a greater demand for employees who understand customer needs, spot business opportunities and execute growth plans. How will you expand your skills and graduate into such roles?

Biography

Hamish McRae is one of Europe’s leading futurists and the principal economic commentator of ‘The Independent’ and ‘The Independent on Sunday,’ both published from the United Kingdom. He is the author of “The World in 2020: Power, Culture and Prosperity.” Hamish’s essay is part of the book “Leading Authorities in Business,” edited by Marshall Goldsmith and James Belasco. [Biography adapted from the website of the ‘Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.’]

Personal Spaces for Social Interaction

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Personal Spaces for Social Interaction

We regard the physical space around our bodies as personal territories. Subconsciously, we consider ourselves the center of a series of invisible bubbles—each bubble representing a comfort zone. American anthropologist Edward Hall defined four personal spaces in his classic book ‘The Hidden Dimension‘ (1966.)

  1. Intimate space for interacting with significant people and for hand-shaking, whispering, etc. with friends and acquaintances—touch to 1.5 feet away
  2. Casual space for interacting with close friends—1.5 feet to 4 feet away
  3. Social space for interacting with acquaintances—4 feet to 12 feet away
  4. Public space for interacting with relatively anonymous people—further than 12 feet away

Personal Spaces Represent Comfort Zones

Personal Spaces Represent Comfort Zones The distances associated with the comfort zones above depend on one’s cultural upbringing. During an interaction, the nature of the interpersonal relationships and/or the context of interaction may affect comfort zones too. Consequently,

  • Personal spaces are larger for two strangers in a conversation.
  • Women tend to have smaller personal spaces when interacting with other women.
  • Westerners tend to require larger personal spaces. People from India, China and other Asian cultures are used to crowded cities, packed public busses, and such—hence, they are more comfortable standing close to other people.
  • Two individuals in an argument expect each other to be as far as possible. If one of them moves closer, the other person may interpret this move as a sign of aggression.

Significance of Personal Spaces

The significance of this concept of personal space is obvious: we feel uncomfortable if a person enters a space that we do not desire him/her to be in.

  • During hand-shaking, do not get too close to the other person. Being within the other person’s arm-length ensures you are within his/her personal zone, and out of the intimate zone.
  • Stay within the friendly zone if you want a casual conversation with a celebrity.
  • When talking to or walking with somebody else, if the other person backs away a little, it is likely that you are encroaching his/her comfort zone. Be mindful of the other person’s requirements—do not try to close the gap.

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What is Behavioral Interviewing?

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Behavioral interviewing is a popular approach to screening job candidates. It is based on a philosophy that assessing a candidate’s past behavior and experiences is a reliable indicator of his/her response to identical situations in the future.

Traditional Interviewing v/s Behavioral Interviewing

Screening candidates gives interviewers a glimpse into an applicant’s characteristics, skills, and experiences to determine their fit for a position. Unlike a traditional interview, which poses hypothetical questions, in behavioral interviews interviewers ask questions intended to elicit concrete examples that reveal whether the candidate demonstrated particular behaviors or skills in the past.

For example, instead of asking a candidate, “How will you deal with a team member who was not pulling his weight on a project?” as in a traditional interview, an interviewer using the behavioral interviewing technique may ask, “Describe a project where one of your teammates was not pulling his weight. What did you do? Did he change?”

Behavioral Interviewing Process

Typically, prior to the interview, an interviewer identifies a set of behavioral traits and characteristics he/she believes is essential for success on a particular assignment. He/she then selects a series of questions structured as follows:

  • Describe a time when you had to …. What did you do?
  • Give me an example of a time when you had to …?
  • Tell me about a situation in the past …

An interviewer may question the candidate’s responses and probe further:

  • What was the outcome?
  • Did you consider …?
  • How did the other person react?

Quite often, an interviewer structures questions such that a candidate cannot note the particular personality trait the interviewer seeks. Instead of allowing the candidate to theorize or generalize about events, the interviewer expects three details of each experience: (1) what was the situation, (2) how did the candidate deal with the situation, and, (3) was what the outcome.

The 'STAR' Technique to Answer Behavioral Interview Questions

Sample Behavioral Interview Questions

  • Describe a situation when your team members disagreed with your ideas or proposal on a project. What did you do?
  • Tell me about a time when you discovered a problem before anybody else on your team. What was the nature of the problem? How did you handle it? Did you ask for help?
  • What has been your most creative solution to a problem?
  • Give an example of when you had difficulty getting along with a team member. What made this person difficult to work with? How did you deal with the situation?
  • Tell me about a time when you have had to reject a customer’s request. What reasons did you give? How did you communicate?
  • What was a constructive criticism you received recently? How did you respond to it? Did your relationship with this person change?

For more questions, see my compilation of job interview questions.

For more on how to impress an interviewer by discussing your credentials and accomplishments in terms of personal success stories, see my article on the STAR technique.

Wondering what to read next?

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  2. Interviewing Skills #3: Avoid Second-Person Answers
  3. Interviewing Skills #4: Avoid too many ‘I-I-I’ or ‘We-We-We’ answers
  4. Emotional Intelligence Is Overrated: The Problem With Measuring Concepts Such as Emotion and Intelligence
  5. The Fermi Rule: Better be Approximately Right than Precisely Wrong

How to Network

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Developing a network of business and social contacts is vital for personal and professional success. In our professional lives, our network can facilitate us secure a job, seek advice on job opportunities and work problems, get support, and ensure career progress. Statistics have shown that about three out of four United States-executives that earn more than $100,000 annually got their jobs through networking.

Steve Fishman on how to network

‘Leadership’ by William Safire and Leonard Safir attributes the following five steps for networking to an author by name Steve Fishman. My research has indicated that this is an excerpt from a ’80s issue of the ‘Success’ magazine.

  • Meet as many people as you can.
  • When you meet someone, tell him what you do. Networking is low-cost advertising.
  • Don’t do business while networking. Make a date to meet your contact for drinks or lunch.
  • Give and get. You can’t always be a buyer. Do favors. They’re like a savings account!
  • Make friends even when you don’t need them.

Call for action

Tending to our business and social network is not time-consuming as some of us might expect. Through our daily interactions, we are developing our network at all times. We never know with whom we could strike up an important conversation. Therefore, quite often, networking involves just being open to interacting with new people and staying in touch with people we already know.

Use Steve Fishman’s five guidelines to build your network. Develop a few one-minute statements that can help you introduce yourself to people you may meet. Spend a few minutes every day to call people you already know. Reach out, connect, stay in touch and develop your network. How can you help people in your network? How can you be of value to them?

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General Electric’s Jack Welch on Acting Quickly

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General Electric's Jack Welch on Acting Quickly

Jack Welch was the Chairman and CEO of General Electric (GE) from 1981 to 2001. During Welch’s twenty-year tenure, GE grew into one of the largest and most admired companies in the world. Jack Welch is widely recognized as one of the greatest business leaders of our time. In 1999, Fortune magazine named him the ‘Manager of the Century.’

In an interview with Spencer Stuart executive headhunters Thomas Neff and James Citrin for the book “Lessons from the Top”, Jack Welch regrets not taking action quickly during his tenure at General Electric.

I think the biggest mistake I made is a fundamental one. I went too slow in everything I did. … If I had done in two years what took five, we would have been ahead of the curve even more.

You rarely do things too fast. If you think about your life and the decisions you’ve made, you can’t come up with too many where you said, “I wish I took another year to do it.” But you can sure come up with a list where you say, “I wish I had done a bunch of things six months earlier.”

Call for Action

Procrastinators sabotage themselves. However, procrastination is a learned behavior and therefore can be unlearned.

In all spheres of life, competition has transitioned from “big-eat-small” to “fast-eat-slow.” Good ideas are relatively easy to come up with. However, quick and efficient execution is primary to the success of these ideas. When a hundred people probably have the same idea, execution in a fast timeframe is just about the only thing that matters.

Are you holding back on your ideas? Do the tasks look daunting? Do you lack confidence? Are you uncertain of the direction or afraid of failure? How can you overcome these hesitations? Develop a set of ideas to reach your goals, prioritize them, and commence working on your ideas right away. Why delay?

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Seven Habits to Beat Monday Morning Blues

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Ring. Ringggg. RRRRRRING. It is 6:30 on a Monday morning. Your alarm clock goes off. You can’t bear the thought of getting out of bed and going to work. You suddenly remember that you promised your boss an important status report by noon and realize you are yet to begin a test to gather data for the report. Perhaps, you partied all weekend with family and friends, and dread going back to your uncooperative co-workers and a cold boss. You wish you could stay at home and escape from your commitments. You push the snooze button yet again as you cover yourself with your blanket.

Does the above experience sound familiar? If it does, you probably suffer from Monday morning blues. In other words, it sounds like you have the “Case of the Mondays,” to borrow a phrase from the movie ‘Office Space.’

Mondays are a bit of a drag for many of us. We feel our weekends are inadequate to accomplish everything that we want to—we tend to over-plan and underachieve. We wish we had relaxed more, completed more errands and spent more time with family and friends. When we return to work on Monday, we are hung-over from the out-of-work rhythm of the weekend.

Here are seven habits to beat Monday morning blues.

Habit 1: Prepare for Your Weekend

  • Plan all your weekend activities after consulting family and friends. Be realistic in what you can achieve; do not over-plan.
  • Before leaving work on Friday evening, clean and organize your desk and prepare a to-do list for Monday morning.

Habit 2: Have an Organized Weekend

  • Enjoy a stress-free, relaxed Sunday by planning entertainment and fun activities for Sunday. Spend time with family and friends–go shopping or walking or take your children to the science museum. Or, just be lazy. Focus on recreation on Sunday.
  • Complete your home projects and errands on Saturday. This will enable you to unwind on Sunday, before you start your workweek. Instead, if you relax on Saturday, you will realize on Sunday morning that you will need to complete all your household tasks by Sunday night. You will then hurry through Sunday and feel tired by Sunday night: you will not feel well rested on Monday morning.

Habit 3: Maintain a Regular Sleep Pattern

  • During the weekend, we tend to go to bed late and wake-up late because we are not required to be at work by 8:00am on Saturday or Sunday. With our sleep out-of-rhythm during the weekend, we find it difficult to wake-up promptly on Monday morning. Maintain your wake-up time on Saturday and Sunday mornings. If you desire to ‘catch-up with sleep,’ get to bed earlier on Friday and Saturday.
  • Try not to nap on Sunday afternoon—you will be able to get into sleep early on Sunday night and prevent drowsiness on Monday afternoon.

Habit 4: Prepare on Sunday Night

  • Pack your bags, prepare your clothes and setup the breakfast table on Sunday night. If you brought work home, pack-up and organize your workbag. You will not feel hurried or leave important papers at home on Monday morning.
  • If possible, review your agenda for the rest of the week and your to-do list for Monday morning. Reviewing your commitments will make you more conscious of your plans for the week ahead.

Habit 5: Relax as you Prepare on Monday Morning

  • Go to bed early on Sunday night and wake-up early on Monday morning. You will be able to relax as you wake-up, get prepared and have your breakfast.
  • Start from home early. Beat the traffic and listen to good music during your drive to work. By coming to work early, you can concentrate and get high-priority work done with fewer interruptions or before your co-workers stop-by your cubicle to discuss their weekends and developments from across the world.

Habit 6: Choose Work You Enjoy for Monday Morning

  • Having a productive start-of-week is critical to having a great week ahead. If you prepare your to-do list on Friday evening, you can start working as soon as you reach your desk on Monday morning. Firstly, choose the kind of work you enjoy doing for Monday morning. For example, if you like preparing illustrations, work on a presentation of your new proposal for the project workflow.
  • Secondly, avoid negative interactions that may make you feel glum at the start of the workweek. For example, avoid meeting people who may have counterarguments on your project plans or avoid working on emails or memos with arguments against your idea. Experiencing positive interactions will make you feel good about yourself and your work.

Habit 7: Organize the Rest of the Workweek

  • If possible, do not have important deadlines or schedule update meetings early in the week. If you have a major project deadline on Tuesday or need to meet your boss on Monday afternoons to discuss test results, you may not feel relaxed during the weekend. On Sunday, you will be concerned about how you will prepare for these commitments. Instead, schedule important meetings for the later part of the week. You will feel good: you have the early part of the week to prepare and you can enjoy the weekend with a sense of accomplishment.
  • Plan for fun on Monday evenings: plan on watching a movie or eating-out or taking a walk along the beach on Monday evening. You will have something to look forward to throughout the day on Monday.
  • Take a mini-break during midweek. See my earlier blog article on taking Wednesday afternoon time-offs: leave early on Wednesday and do something out-of-your-routine and relax.

Concluding Thoughts

The key to beating Monday morning blues is organizing your work for maximum leisure during the weekend. By following the above seven habits, you will enjoy relaxed weekends and prepare yourself for a week of action when your alarm clock goes-off on Monday mornings.

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Telephone Skills #1: Showing Courtesy to your Visitors when Talking on the Telephone

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Suppose you are talking on the telephone and a coworker visits your desk for a conversation. Do not make your visitor feel insignificant by ignoring him or her. Show common courtesy by following these simple steps.

  • Acknowledge the visitor’s presence with a wave and a smile. Then, gesture to him or her to take a seat close to your desk.
  • If you have an appointment with the visitor, your telephone call was probably unscheduled. Or perhaps, your phone conversation has been longer than you expected. In either case, if you sense your telephone call is not likely to end in a minute or so, defer your phone conversation. “Hey, Sharan. I have a visitor here at my desk. I have an appointment with her. Shall I call you back in the afternoon to complete our discussion?”
  • If the visitor is unscheduled or if the telephone call involves an important topic, defer meeting the visitor by writing a small note. Hand over your note to the visitor with a smile. “Sales review till 2:00pm. Will visit you or call you.” Alternately, if you believe your call will end soon, write down “Two minutes, please.” You can then continue to concentrate on your phone conversation.

Practicing these good manners will enable you to prioritize the visitor over the telephone call or vice versa, as appropriate.

Judging People: Talent is more than Skin-Deep

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Perception and Reality are Often Poles Apart

At a non-profit organization, I work with two members of the support staff. Sally and Diane (names and context changed for anonymity) joined the organization five months ago and report to the branch manager.

Sally is young, energetic and talks loudly; however, she lacks initiative, has difficulty following-up on assignments and needs constant reminders. Diane is experienced, thorough at work and gets her assignments done promptly; she is quiet and has an introverted personality.

Sally recently had an opportunity to coordinate the visit of the Executive Director of the non-profit organization. The executive was impressed with Sally’s abilities and asked the branch manager to give Sally a raise with a promotion. The branch manager, who had not spent a lot of time with Sally, shared this initial assessment on Sally and agreed.

Having interacted with Sally and Diane extensively, I considered Sally’s promotion unfortunate. Diane was more deserving of promotion for her hard work, initiative and promise for advancement.

Learn to Look Beyond the Surface

Our first impressions are usually deceptive and incomplete. We tend to judge people based on their appearance, their mannerisms (smile, handshake, liveliness, etc.) and their tone. However, reality runs deeper than what is visible at the surface.

  • Know what you are looking for. Develop evaluation criteria and write them down. For instance, assume you are looking for a project manager to lead a new product development. Write down what skills and attributes a good project manager should possess. What should be the ideal background? Would you like the candidate to have had experience leading projects of similar size and scope? Did the projects complete on-time and within assigned budgets?
  • Do not judge people because you share common characteristics. An example: A hiring manager I worked with sometime ago brought a candidate onsite just because the candidate’s resume listed membership in the manager’s favorite charitable group. None of the other interviewers was impressed with the candidate’s leadership skills (among other attributes). The hiring manager realized his mistake and remarked, “I thought everybody that participated in [activity] with [charitable group’s name] was a natural leader.”
  • Check the opinions of others who may have had different perspectives in other contexts. For instance, in job interviewing, talk to all the references that a candidate provided and ask specific questions about the candidate. Talk to independent references wherever available. In particular, seek objective people who have long experience working with the candidate.

Conclusion

As professionals, we are often required to judge job candidates based on an hour of interviewing or induct team members based on minimal acquaintances. Hence, judging people for their talent and personality is a vital skill for managers. To discover others, we need to go beyond perceptions and learn more about their experiences, thoughts and actions to understand them better.

Question: Do you have interesting stories about judging people from perceptions? Please share them in the comments section.

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Is Showing up Late to a Meeting a Sign of Power?

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Blog reader Devan from Kuching, Malaysia asks:

A new executive in my company habitually arrives late to meetings and appointments, even if he can be on time. Could he be trying to show off his power?

Devan, I am not sure. It is never easy to form an opinion based on a few observations.

It is true that power can corrupt: a few ‘powerful’ people tend to grow more oblivious to what other people think when they gain more power. Others think more positively about power and grow more generous as they gain more responsibilities.

The desire to feel important drives some to have other people wait for them before starting meetings or, worse, to restart the meeting upon arriving late. This is irrational behavior.

Is showing up early to a meeting a sign of weakness?

Another prevalent belief is that showing up earlier is a sign of vulnerability and that showing up later gives an ‘control’ in the proceedings of the meeting. Or that, showing up earlier is a sign of being too organized or overly anxious about the outcome of the meeting.

In reality, being punctual and organized in keeping appointments is a sign of respect for the value of others’ time and a critical component of professional behavior.

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