Listening as an Interview Technique

by Danielle Dresden

Plato said, "Wise men talk because they have something to say, fools, because they have to say something."

He could have been an employment counselor.

The next time you go to a job interview, keep Plato's words in mind. Potential employers rarely invite candidates to job interviews just to hear them talk. They want to find someone who is going to work well in their organization.

So the more you know about them, the better. Do your homework before you go to the interview. Visit the organization's website for starters. Review professional journals and publications. Talk to colleagues and professors to get a sense of this organization's reputation.

If this sounds like a lot of work, think twice about scheduling an interview. You should only interview for jobs you want, and if you don't want a job badly enough to find out something about the company offering it, then you probably don't want the job at all.

Assuming you are interested, and you've scheduled and prepared for the interview, your first task once you're there is not to talk about yourself, but to listen.

There are lots of ways to listen, even when people are asking you questions. First of all, how have they structured the interview process? What does their behavior and body language tell you about the organizational culture? Can you get a sense of what they're looking for by their questions?

Listening while being interviewed will help you in two ways. For one, the best conversationalists may well be the best listeners, not the best speakers and, no matter how much is riding on it, a job interview is still a conversation. Secondly, listening to your interviewers will help you identify what the employer hopes to accomplish with this hire.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Nick D'Alto says the key to successful job interviews is for applicants to identify employers' problems and, in the course of the interview, show how they'd solve it.

There's another person you need to listen to during job interviews. That's yourself. By lending yourself an ear you can stay on the right side of Plato's line and avoid speaking just to say something.

You can also avoid an even bigger mistake -- taking a job that's not right for you. They may be the interviewers, but is your inner voice asking any questions of its own? If it is, don't make any decisions until those questions have been answered satisfactorily. Plato would probably approve.

Published 8/25/02, Pharmacy Week Vol. XI -Issue 31