The best candidates… “A players” take notes during their interviews… not copious ones… but a few key words as they go along in the interview. After the interview they write a summary of everything that went on in the interview.<\/p>\n
It will not come as a shock that in an hour to an hour and a half interview, even the people involved in the interview won’t remember the same things. (Read my blog post about “inattentional blindness.”) A hiring or interviewing authority may repeat the things that are important to them one or two times and unless the candidate writes it down, the odds are good the candidate will not remember what was important when the second interview rolls around a week or so later. Even if one’s memory is good, remembering more than one, two or three issues a week or so later isn’t likely.<\/p>\n
Often times a candidate will review their notes about the interview a day or so later and have an epiphany about some of their experience and background that relates to the particular issue that was discussed. Writing the interviewing or hiring manager an e-mail something like, “I was reviewing my notes about our interview the other day and it came to me that…..” a few days \u00a0after an interview always looks impressive, especially if the message is of business value.<\/p>\n
Reviewing these notes before other interviews after the initial interview gives a candidate decided advantage. So, take good notes. Write good summaries.<\/p>\n
I had a candidate a few months ago who got called back to a company he interviewed with five or six months earlier. For all kinds of different reasons, they never hired anybody and they wanted to speak to him again. One of the comments the hiring authority made as they went to make him an offer, was that they were very impressed with the fact he remembered almost every important issue they had discussed six months earlier. It was easy. He had taken good notes and written good summaries.<\/p>\n
What makes these notes and summaries even more important is what a candidate goes through on second, third or fourth interviews with the same guitar. Different people in an organization will emphasize different things. It isn’t uncommon for different levels of management to see things differently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The best candidates… “A players” take notes during their interviews… […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n