What kind of interview style will you face? :: Career-Resumes®

What kind of interview style will you face?

Everyone’s got a style – or lack thereof. Fashion, taste, attitude. It comes through in everything you do, and how you react in certain situations reflects your style.

It’s the same with interviewing. In this blog, we’ve talked about how to improve your interviewing skills, but one thing we haven’t addressed as much is the interviewer’s skills and style.

When you’re interviewing for positions at different companies, you’re bound to run into several different interview styles. There may be some similarities, due to the nature of the responsibilities and duties of the positions you’re considering.

The typical interview style is usually very professional and straightforward, right? You get general questions about your last jobs, your duties, why you left or want to leave, that sort of thing. And they’ll know whether you meet the basic qualifications for the position. But they could figure that out from your resume, too.

Another common style is scenario-based. You’re presented with situations, and asked how you would respond. They may also discuss with you certain aspects of your resume, but the main focus is on how much of a team player you are, what type of manager or executive you’d be, and how creative you can be on the fly.

A fairly new style – surely inspired by political talk shows of recent years – is the aggressive interview. How well do you stand up under pressure? Questions fired at you quickly. Little time to answer. Consistent interruptions and direction changes. Companies are using this interviewing style more often for high-stress and high-profile jobs, to help ensure they land a candidate who can handle the pressure.

Generally speaking, each interviewer will approach the process in a different way, based on their own personalities, how they view the position for which you’re interviewing, and what they want to see out of an ideal candidate.

What’s more, you may get a mixture, depending on the number of interviews required and the number of decision makers involved in the process. But as long as you have an idea of what could be waiting for you on the other side of the interviewing door, the more prepared (and polished) you’ll be.

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