What happens during a second job interview?

What happens in a second job interview?

• about a month ago i applied for a job at vision express, i had a phone interview and was then called and offered a formal interview, that went well and i got offered a second ...show more

• Answer:

  That's a question that puzzles many people, but no worries, you're actually in a great position. As someone who's interviewed extensively over the last 20 years, I'll provide you some insight as to what's going on in their minds. Employers, more than anything else, want to hire you and be done with the process. After all, interviewing takes time and it pulls a few people away from their actual jobs. The issue is that making the wrong hiring decision is very costly and they just can't afford to make that kind of mistake, even though it happens sometimes. The great news here is that you obviously did well on your phone interview (which is really your first), then you, again, did well on your face-to-face interview. Being invited for another interview only means one thing - they really like you, but now they want confirmation. What does confirmation mean? Well, it means that they are hoping that you next interview performance is just as good as the first two, and it wasn't a fluke. In order to test the performance consistency and also the job fit for you as a candidate, they will most likely have you meet with additional people to obtain additional points of view on you. You may also re-interview with some of the same people you already interviewed with, just to make sure that their first impressions were correct. So, on second or third interviews they are looking to have you meet more people to build as large a consensus as possible on you as a candidate. When they finally make their internal decision to hire you, they feel confident they are making the right decision because they have more than one or two opinions from the team. What else happens on second interviews? Now that they already met you before, some of the interviewers could start to ask tougher questions to see how you handle yourself. Typically, behavioral interviews are what I'm referring to at this stage of the game. In other words they are curious to see how you handle yourself in certain challenging situations in the job, so they can ask you to describe a time when a project went wrong and what you did about it. They can ask to describe a time when you had serious conflict with a co-worker or any other person in a project and how you took care of the situation. Alternatively, they could describe a challenge that is common at their company and then they ask you for your solution to the problem. In other words, how would you handle it. Remember, there is no right answer to these questions, but what they want to hear is your ability to be honest and show your human side by recognizing the challenge in front of you; they want to hear what steps you took to solve the problem (being solution-driven is a skill that scores points); and finally, if appropriate, describe what you did, or will do so that the situation never happens again. Behavioral questions can be about scenarios that already occurred or can be based on hypothetical cases just to see you thinking on the spot for a solution. Don't panic with these questions. Listen to the question, pause, think, then provide your best approach to a logical solution. If appropriate, provide an example from your past experience to back up any claim and to strengthen your answer. Examples create a picture for the interviewer and builds your credibility. Having said all this, some of the new interviewers in the second or third round are just going to ask very similar questions as you've heard before. One word of advice to help you score points. Whatever you learned about the company and specific job, try to incorporate in your own answers. Maybe there were certain buzzwords or descriptions that everyone seemed to repeat. The closer you get to speaking their 'language', the closer you'll be to getting the job offer. I believe you're very close to the offer. Be yourself, think about everything you learned about the company so far, research anything you're not too sure about before going in, and whatever you do, do not forget to tell them how excited you are to be there and how much you want the job. They need to believe you really want the job and they can see that in your energy and words you use. If you don't use this little secret, some other candidate could do it and take the job away from you. This is one of the biggest mistakes on second and third interviews - people don't say how much they want the job. Of course you do it in a professional way, but make no mistake, they want to hire someone who's full of energy and really wants to join the company. I hope this is helpful. Best of luck to you. Go get it!