Job market looking up? looking Down? The only way to get a new job is to crack the interview
On EITF season 1, we asked the following question : When you interview someone today for a position in your company, apart from the job qualifications, what do you look for in the candidate and how do you make the decision to hire or not to hire?
In this article, we will tell you why we asked this question, and what we learned.
Let us give you a little background for the tech industry at the start of Season 1. We began working on the EITF project in April of 2022. This was back when the job market was in a post-covid hiring frenzy. The state of things had a catchy nickname as well – “The great resignation”. The pandemic was forcing everyone to reassess what they wanted their lives to look like in the present–and not just in 5 or 10 years. Employees had had time to reflect on their career journeys and decided to make changes that better aligned with their desires to spend more time with their families, have better work-life balance, or even leave the workforce altogether.
A lot of changes were being made, and new positions and new roles were being advertised as exciting new possibilities to expand on one’s career. We would say, the market hit a peak in hiring. Even when things were looking positive though, we heard some people say, “the winter is coming”.
Today, it looks like “the winter is here”. The job market is in trouble today, with multiple layoffs and inflation leading to recession. We would even go so far as to say, there has been a flip since we first started out, interviewing our experts. It is now an employer favored market, with a lot of people with lots of talent, available in the job market today.
The market is always going to go through changes, but one thing remains constant – the only way to get a job is by attending an interview. In today’s world of leetcode and stack overflow, we all know that if we spend enough time learning, we could crack the coding rounds. For management roles, we can all study up on the STAR method and prepare ourselves for what’s to come in our interviews.
On the flip side, one of the other reasons we asked these questions is because some of us are now on the other side of the interview – maybe even for the first time. How can we evaluate equally qualified candidates? What should we look for? What questions should we be asking?
Here’s what we learned from our experts on Season 1 –
Attitude : A lot of our experts mention this in their answers, because when a candidate has a good attitude in the interview, it tells them whether they are truly interested in the job they are interviewing for.
Ambition : Ambition is what drives one to take their career to further heights. If a candidate has ambition, they will strive not only for themselves, but also for the betterment of the organizations they work for.
Communication with the interviewer : Our experts say that if the candidate can communicate and articulate well throughout the interview, they consider it a big positive. It doesn’t come down to perfect language, but it comes down to whether you can convey what you want to say, and whether you can have a conversation with the interviewer, without fear. At the end of the day, most of us work in a team, and communication plays a big role when one works with other individuals.
Eagerness: This is what our experts evaluate when it comes to eagerness - How eager are they to learn, how eager are they to take up the job they were interviewing for, how eager are they to move forward in their careers?
How do you answer a question that you don’t know the answer to? : Our experts say that no candidate is perfect for the job. There will be questions asked in the interview that the candidates don’t know the answer to. How does the candidate go about answering these questions? Our experts say that they prefer when a candidate asks questions and tries to answer, but also not to spend too much time exploring that option. If you don’t get too far with it, they’d prefer that you communicate that you don’t know the answer, but also show the willingness to learn the answer to the question.
Listening skills : In an interview, it is important to listen to the interviewer as well. In today’s world of social media, our attention spans have reduced quite a bit, so developing listening skills even if the conversation is long, is important to understand the entirety of the question.
Resume perceptions : Our experts say that it is important to communicate the transitions in your resume clearly. Some experts prefer to hear that the changes you made were due to interest and not monetary, but some argue that monetary aspects are also important to understand, because it lets them know how to ensure that their candidates are happy.
What you know about the industry : This is something important for people who are making job changes amidst their career journeys. Apart from just trying to figure out what you know, our experts mention that they also like to learn about the new technology that the candidate has worked on. What new ideas can they bring to the table for discussion? How can the new candidate help their team think outside of the box?
Do you agree with what our experts have said? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments, or shoot us an email via contact@eitf-project.com!
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