As a hiring manager for several large consulting companies, I've conducted hundreds of interviews. But I will let you in on a secret: I wasn't trained to do so.

The path by which your resume, your personal information and capability, gets into the hands of the right person for an interview is beyond the scope of this white paper. I will save that for another article. Suffice it to say, if you made it this far, you are better off than the other 90% of your competitors. And that’s what it is… it is a competition and you should treat it as such.

But let say for argument's sake that you are now officially on the docket for Human Resources to give you that one call. Here is what typical happens. I will break it down into the major components. These are examples of course. Your experience may vary, but this is generally what happens.

Step 1: The first call for Fit

Human Resources (HR) or a head hunter will give you a call just to make sure you actually are who you say you are on paper. This individual has a lot of experience in interviewing and is formally trained to do so. Their job is to ensure the rest of the process is as streamlined as possible and by that, I mean that you are not going to waste someone’s time further down the way because you don’t know what you are talking about.

This is called a “fit” interview. They are interested in identifying you as a potential “fit” with the company in question. Fit is an amorphous term. It’s intended this way. There are a large number of variables the caller will want to know, such as:

• Personality: Are you likable? Do you seem genuinely interested in the job?
• Phone voice: Do you speak with informed reason?
• Presence: Can you hold your own? Can you make an argument?
• Culture: Will you fit into the culture of the company?
• Skills: Do you possess the requisite skills to get the job done?

You’ll notice that skills are at the very bottom of the list. This, again, is intentional. The weed out process during the first call is 80% personality, because the business of making money and getting along with groups of people can be more about personality then about hard skills. Usually, not always and this process reflects that point. The industry term for this is “soft skills.” Soft skills include emotional intelligence, maturity, presence, and likability. It also crosses over into the hard skill of selling yourself, which is what this is all about.

Step 2: Hard skill screening

Assuming you make it past the first call, the second call will be scheduled by Human Resources to dig deeper into your hard skill set(s). Now here is where things get interesting.

Human Resources is trained in interviewing and screening, but nearly all of them don’t have industry background for the job in question. That is usually the case. There are very few who gave up an industry job to go into Human Resources. It does happen, but it is the exception rather than the rule. Human Resources therefore is a paradox in companies and the source of much contention. They have formal training in interviewing, but usually not in the industry.

This second call would more likely be conducted by a mid-level manager that does have substantial industry experience. The calculus of the manager to interview you changes depending on the position your are interview for, but normally it will be whomever the hiring manager is for this position. This manager, 9 times out of 10, has no formal training in interviews. That point is obviously dependent on their tenure and the more experience they have, the more likely they've done this time and time again. Regardless they are interested if you possess the skills to get the job done. Here is a breakdown of on-point and off-point questions:

On-point questions (skills-based):

1. Talk about your progress from the time you entered the industry…
2. What skills do you bring to the table, day 1…
3. Talk about a particularly hard problem presented to you and what you did…
4. Give me an example of a time where you had to do with resources…
5. How did you handle that time when you disagreed with your superiors…
6. How many people have you managed…
7. What is your management style…
8. How do you correct behavior or sub-optimal performance…
9. We have this problem , can you think about how you would go about solving it…

Off-point questions (non-skills based):

Note: There is an entire sub-culture within business at poking fun at these questions because they are so ridiculous. Examples abound online and I won’t be exhaustive, but only provide some for completeness. The point I’m trying to make is that mid-level managers usually have no formal interview training and these questions are inevitable.

1. Given a scale from 1 to 10, rate yourself on variable? Subjective questions like this are irrelevant. Objectivity is the point.
2. Explain in ? Complicated topics are by their nature complicated
3. What is your philosophy on ? Philosophical discussions are better left for after-work drinks
4. And so on…

Again, the point I’m trying to make is that usually people who hold your future in their hands usually aren’t trained to do so. That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? The best course of action in this situation is to take charge. And by take charge, I don’t mean to belittle the interviewer. I mean that you need to bring the discussion back into objective examples of hard skills. If you sense that things are getting off-track, then you begin to lead the interviewer back to talking about hard skills. Begin by stating problem-action-result (PAR) examples that you faced in the past. For example, you can state a time when you were faced with a problem that was open-ended, and you had limited resources and limited time, and you did these five things to get the program back on track.

Step 3: Face to face interviews

Assuming you’ve navigated the first obstacles, you will likely be invited for face-to-face (F2F) interviews. This is a good thing. The company is willing to spend money to drive or fly you to a destination and meet people you will most likely deal with on a daily basis if you get the job. That’s a key point. These are the people who will matter to you in the future.

Normally what happens is this: you will be talking to mid-level, senior-level, and perhaps executive-level people all in one day. That’s a tough task for Human Resources and it requires some scheduling. Therefore, this F2F time table may be a bit far off from the second call.

The mid-level manager that called you for that second call might also be sitting in front of you the morning of that day. This is why it’s important to remain calm and own the interview. Again, they are not trained to do this. They are here now in front of you to ensure the two of you can work together. Soft-skills come back into play. Most like the following will happen:

• Mid-level: Figuring out if the two of you can work together on hard problems
• Senior-level: Figuring out if you understand the mission of the company and its path forward
• Executive-level: Figuring out if you are the kind of person he/she can take out on the town or put in front of customers.

These are simplifications, of course. But I would bet 8 out of 10 times these examples are dead-on accurate. Key points here are that you are now dealing with people in the flesh. They want to know what you look like, how you sound in person, and how you handle difficult problems under stress. The last part is important. Good interviewers would press you to divulged your secrets under duress, but never put you into a position where your needed to compromise ethically or morally. If you can keep your cool and stay on point, you will be fine. Else, you’re done.

Things to always do during F2F interviews:

• Dress the part
• Bring a pen and a notebook and take notes… lots and lots of notes
• Do not look at your phone, or laptop… ever
• In fact, just leave both of those in your backpack, briefcase and leave them there
• Do be mindful of the schedule and communicate that you are keeping track
• Ask a lot of forward-thinking questions:

1. What does my promotion path look like?
2. What has the company done with this one thing I read online that seems worrisome?
3. What does a typical day look like for me on the job?
4. Can I see where people eat/relax/handle family matters?
5. If public, can you tell me about your stock performance?
6. What is the 5 – 10 year plan for this company?
7. What is your growth strategy?
8. Who are your competitors? (you should already know this… it’s a leading question)
9. I have thought about these problems you face. Have you encountered them?
10. How do you handle business overseas?
11. Who / what are your partners and alliances?

Step 4: Follow-up calls

Human Resources normally takes over from here. They will want to know how your interviews went with specific people you interviewed with in person. Taking notes during the F2F will help here. You will want to give feedback to them on the interviewing process so that they can adjust in the future. But what you are really doing is communicating to the company that you are now part of their solution. You are now helping out HR and they will appreciate it. This kind of direct action for the company is something you want to exude throughout the process.

They will also, at this point, tell you if you are a serious candidate for the position or that the committee assigned to you that day decided that other candidates are a better fit. Being turned away is hard, but in the long run it’s best for the two of you. You would never want to work in a company where you didn’t fit in, even if you were perfectly capable of doing the job. Trust me, I’ve been there too.

Follow-up calls can vary greatly. Typically what happens is that HR will want to know your timeline assuming everyone is on-board with you joining the company. They will want to know when you can start. Be honest with them. If you need time for yourself or your family, then tell them that… but be reasonable. They will also now ask about compensation. This is important. Notice that compensation has not come up before this point. You should be prepared with a solid and reasonable answer to this question. You should do your homework. Online resources like Glassdoor are a good place to start, assuming you don’t already know what’s considered reasonable in your particular industry for your particular level.

Finally someone from internal hiring or HR will give you a call with an offer. They will state the conditions of the offer, the compensation… and they will spend an extraordinary amount of time talking about the point of compensation and the timeline to accept that offer. They are now selling to you, not the other way around. You are now in demand.

If you get to this point, then congratulations! If you are smart, you have been doing this in parallel with other companies as well. Because of this, you will then be in a positive position of power to further negotiate. But don’t be greedy and respect the company’s timeline.