What to avoid in interview for managerial job

I fear I have to opine once again on the topic of job interviews as the nature of my work requires that I sit through interminable hours of the same.

Some time ago I sat as a member of an interview panel for a senior management position. One thing struck me as odd: Most of the candidates used acronyms incessantly during their presentations. Now I am not talking about standard acronyms that are widely understood such as CEO (chief executive officer) or FYI (for your information). I’m talking about institutional specific acronyms that only someone who worked with the interviewee, more so in their specific department, would understand. “I was in charge of the SPC within which a key deliverable was BPIS” is an example of a sentence delivered with much aplomb by a candidate to a confused audience. Another applicant waxed lyrical about “the merits of GLAS in the reduction of MANEX” and two panelists scribbled notes to each other wondering if the other knew exactly what was being said.

The result? Poor scores on those specific questions. I’m like a dog with a bone on the improper use of acronyms by professionals. It becomes a standard language of communication that prevents many individuals from articulating themselves clearly outside of their day to day, business as usual activities. As a board member I see this very often in the presentation of board packs that have been lifted word from word from internal management reports meant for internal management audiences. The acronyms therein are lingua franca for employees, but complete Greek to board directors who only come into the organisation for quarterly board and committee meetings.

Reading a board pack in advance then becomes a 3000 metre steeple chase event, each acronym providing a comprehension hurdle to jump over the metres of pages that one has to read before a board meeting.

Anyway, back to the interview room. As panelists we had an extensive discussion about the appropriate way an interviewee should make a power point presentation that was part of the interview process. Should they sit or should they stand?

The majority view was that an interviewee should stand, as it provided the opportunity for us to see how the individual comported themselves. We never told the candidates this, expecting that they would decide how best to present themselves. Majority stood. A few sat. Those that sat performed dismally in that segment of the interview primarily because it is very difficult to make a presentation and keep swivelling on one’s four legged seat between the screen behind you and the audience in front of you.

As audience members, we ended up communicating with the side profile of the seated candidates, which position also yielded a critical communication failure: Complete lack of eye contact with some of the interviewers as the candidate could not physically see panelists seated along the same side of the table. But standing also produced its own interesting revelations.

One male candidate had not buttoned the top of his shirt nor was his tie pulled up tight. He left a very untidy impression. One lady, who had chosen to wear a clinging, knee length dress with a low neckline decided to sit for the first part of her presentation. She then stood up for the second part, but her dress didn’t follow the natural laws of gravity and lovingly bunched itself snugly around her hips so that it rode up quite high above her knees.

It provided titillating conversation after the interview for the male panelists, who could – to a man – determine at which point of the presentation they stopped paying any attention to the words coming out of her mouth much to the amusement of the female panelists. Lesson here for ladies attending interviews is to be mindful of what they are wearing to an interview and how the fabric moves and shifts as one sits or stands.

Like any good athlete or musician, practicing for interviews is imperative and getting a friend to video record one as they answer questions or make a presentation is an excellent way of catching one’s idiosyncrasies, nervous tics and unintended body language. Following up on how one performed during an interview, where possible even if one is successful, also provides an excellent feedback loop for constant self-improvement.