these Open Championship Clubs choose to relief grind - Pitchcare

one I had not predicted, but I still got
through comfortably.
Your research will help you to prepare
for questions good and bad and, right
now, I want to focus on the most
common type of bad question - the
hypothetical question. Untrained
interviewers tend to use hypothetical
questions a lot. Trained interviewers
avoid them nowadays. Examples of
hypothetical questions include “What
would you do if ‘this’ happened?” or
“How would you deal with a difficult
team member?” or “How would you
handle an angry customer?”
Hypothetical questions invite you to
share your knowledge, but your answers
will not give the interviewer any evidence
that you have successfully dealt with (say)
difficult team members or angry
customers.
The knowledge you actually share at the
interview might just be what you read in
a book or researched on the internet the
night before. Good interviewers are after
people with proven ability and
experience - not people who have just
done some research.
The correct way interviewers can ask
these questions, so that they yield
evidence of ability, might be to say “What
have you done in the past when ‘this’
happened?” or “Please give me an
example of how you have dealt with a
difficult team member in the past” or
“What experience do you have of
handling angry customers?”
A trained interviewer then listens
carefully and calibrates both the content
and calibre of your response. S/he will
then either move onto another question
or probe an unconvincing or untrue
response until s/he is convinced that you
(the candidate) have had a fair
opportunity to prove your suitability.
You can differentiate yourself from those
candidates - who answer hypothetical
questions with hypothetical answers - by
giving ‘evidence of ability’ responses to
all questions.
For example, if you are asked ‘How
would you deal with an angry customer?
Rather than say “I would do this…..”
(hypothetical answer), politely ask the
interviewer “May I give you and
example?” The interviewer will then
signal you to continue and you can then
give a meaningful and true answer.
As you prepare for what most people
would describe as an ordeal, you might
consider reminding yourself that what
the interviewer wants is evidence of your
ability, and not knowledge or
reassurance.
On those occasions when you have no
experience or evidence of ability to offer
as an answer, you can, at least, choose a
strategy that has worked well for
somebody else. Again, you could ask the
interviewer “May I give you an
example?” When given the go ahead,
Training & Development
you can say ‘What worked for my
previous employer was taking the person
to one side and having a quiet word
about …’
Although you may not have personally
had that experience you will, at least,
have given an answer that is real. It will
then be up to the interviewer to probe
your response or move on. A trained
interviewer would ask “So, you
personally, did that did you?”
That said, the majority of interviewers
are untrained, so you might well get away
with it.
Good luck, then, with your next job
interview. Do your research, rehearse
until you are word perfect and try always
to give ‘evidence of ability’ answers -
especially to the hypothetical questions
so favoured by those confident, but
‘cr?p’, interviewers!
If you or your boss, or members of the
management team where you work,
would like to be trained to do interviews
that will help you to get the best people
for the job, please contact Christine
Johnson, the Pitchcare training coordinator
at chris@pitchcare.com or call
her on 01902 440251.
Frank Newberry has been helping people to
develop their careers and get better results
in the turfcare sector for over twenty years.
If you are having problems preparing for an
interview, and you think it might help to talk
about it, you can contact Frank directly via
the contact tab of his personal website
www.franknewberry.com
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012 PC 131