Let me clarify one thing, Eric. When I was talking about
preparing for certain questions, I was talking about coming up with
one's own answer for the questions, not memorising some fabricated
answer. Of course the answer had better be an accurate reflection
of the candidate. You don't need to hire them to find out if
they're lying - an experienced interviewer will look at their track
record and do a proper reference check, and pick a liar out from a
mile away.
If an interviewer's got 20 candidates to interview in the space of
an afternoon, he's not going to have time for someone who's going
to um and ah, plain and simple.
SL's complaint is that she freezes up in interviews, and for that
specific situation it's best to have some SOPs to fall back on. The
very fact that she walks in there knowing she possesses those SOPs
will provide her with some confidence. It's easy enough to tell
somebody to have confidence in themselves, but unless you've got
some way for them to do that, it's hardly more than empty
cheerleading - if you're going to mention the what, it's your
responsibility to back it up with the why and how.
Even more importantly, the level of a candidate's preparedness for
an interview is something the interviewer would take as an
indicator of the candidate's future performance. Put bluntly, if
you're showing me that you're the sort to wing your way through an
interview, you're telling me that you're going to wing you way
through the job as well, so why should I hire somebody who's too
sloppy to get his act together? Over the years I've lost count of
the number of candidates I've turned down for this one reason - if
they're not prepared to put in the work and get themselves ready
for the interview, they obviously don't want the job badly enough
for me to justify recommending them for the position. Skills can be
acquired along the way, but if the person's attitude is wrong right
at the start, it's a no-go.
