From the book How to Prepare for an Employment Interview.
Get the entire book by e-mail in Microsoft Word format.
Hiring decisions are not easy to make. It's important to understand this, because the employer's anxieties are one of your biggest obstacles to getting a job offer. Your goal during the interview is to remove these anxieties and reassure the employer that they can feel comfortable choosing to hire you.
The fear behind every hiring decision
There can be a very high cost to a bad decision. Not only would the employer miss out on all the benefits that a good employee would provide, but they would have to endure all the costs of their mistake until they can correct it-assuming that it's even possible to correct it.
A bad decision could leave the employer with someone who:
Doesn't achieve the expected results.
Can't or won't do the work they were hired to do or isn't available when needed.
Screws up the work they do-sometimes requiring others to undo and redo the task.
Doesn't get along with the existing staff or causes a rift in their workgroup.
Loses customers by providing inadequate service.
Requires a lot of time and attention to show them what needs to be done and how.
Makes them look bad.
Or perhaps they'll choose someone who's perfectly capable but decides to leave the company after just a few weeks or months, requiring the whole costly hiring process to start up again.
A poor hiring decision can be a powerful drain of company resources and workgroup morale. It is often a source of embarrassment and frustration for the hiring manager.
And they're not always easy or inexpensive to undo. It can be hard to get rid of a poorly performing employee. There can be very elaborate processes required involving warnings and written documentation, perhaps even reviews with union representatives or other groups.
No wonder employers are so fearful of making a mistake.
This is why so many hiring decisions are made by... [continued here]
Read the entire book online or