What You Need to Know About Business

Asking Questions -- An Essential and Overlooked Step

Other articles:
Putting a Spin on Work Experience

[Chapter 4: continued from here]...This is why so many hiring decisions are made by groups, and why there's been so many desperate attempts to develop a hiring algorithm where every applicant can be reduced to a number and the one with the biggest number gets hired. Many people don't want the responsibility for hiring and are very eager to pass it off to a group or a procedure if possible.

What's the source of all or nearly all of the information the employer will use to make this decision? YOU! And the other applicants. You wrote the resume-including just what you wanted and omitting the rest. You wrote the cover letter. You're giving the answers to the questions in the interview, and you'll supply the names and phone numbers of your carefully selected references.

The employer has probably never heard of you before, and here you come in telling them they should just turn over some part of their business to you and trust you to run it for them.

Since this is the place where the interviewer probably spends 40 hours a week or more of their lives-and the organization that pays their salary-you should forgive them if they're a bit skeptical about your claims ... and a little anxious about the effects of a bad decision.

So, while you want to show an employer what you can do for them and how you can help them to achieve their goals and realize their aspirations, you also have to remember that it's important to alleviate their apprehensions about the decision they have to make.

You need to do both to receive a job offer.

Most of the questions you'll be asked will relate to either the employer's fears of hiring the wrong person or to their hopes and the goals they can achieve if they choose well-or both.