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Conducting an Interview – Capstone Project
Student’s Name,
Professor’s Name,
Course Title,
Date
Resume and Cover Letter Criticism
Most of the resume and cover letter sent are very competitive. Most people have met the qualifications and others have slightly overqualified from the job description and specification required the firm advertised. As such, the competitiveness makes it difficult and challenging to pick the best candidate. However, from the resumes, some candidates were very decisive and precise while other made some common mistakes. Some cover letters had some common mistakes of spelling errors, grammatical problems among others. For instance, some people addressed the cover letters to dear sir or madam. The translation of such a letter means that the person did not take their time to investigate and do research to get the right person who will be the interviewer or to whom all the application letters should be made (Mukoyama, Patterson, & Şahin, 2018). Decisive letters would address directly to the employer or the person receiving the applications. Per se, such cover letter would be addressed as dear sir, or they can be addressed as the dear madam.
The best resume had the names of the employer who also received the letters. Those inserting the names are favorable for the job since they know who the employer is, or who the applications are addressed to, hence the first contact person to their application letters will be critical in recruitment. However, those who address the letters to a selection of either the sir or the madam showed they have little to do with the company, are not interested in the job but if they are employed then it`s just fine. Similarly, an indication of a sir or a madam case shows that they left the salutation part of the cover letter to be selected by the employer as appropriate. That is a gamble and shows some level of laziness.
Consequently, the tone of the applications is very critical. On one hand, there are those applicants who made a clear appeal for a job based on their skills, qualifications, and experience. These group of applicants were very competitive and bet on their qualifications to get the employment spot above all other qualifications. However, the second tone is those peddled by a group of applicants who tend to appeal to the emotional and humanitarian aspect of the employer to get the job. It sounds more of an intimidation and a psychological game against the employer. Such applicants in their cover letters and resumes tend to plead to the employer to have goodwill, mercy, and kindness to them and invite them for an interview or slot. They do not give it to their competence and skills to get them to the interview and recruitment to the job.
In a competitive process to get an added advantage, one should focus more on the skills, qualifications and their abilities to accomplish a task. In addition, it is better to go straight to the point and be aggressive and decisive in both the resume and the cover letter. For instance, one can go straight to their qualities that are specific to the job description or specification as stated in the job advert. Mentioning all skills that others are not even relevant to the advertised job might be interpreted that they leave the employer to decide or guess their best skill, talents or potentiality.
Type of job interview
The type of the interview to be used will be personal contact or in-person interview. It entails the person being interviewed to appear in person and have a conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee (Cascio, 2018). Personal contact with the job applicant is imperative to help the recruiter to know some interpersonal skills that a prospective employee has. Some interpersonal skills like communication skills, attitude, personality, type or extent of disability if any are vital components of a person that can only be detected in physical presence. In addition, through conversations from a physical presence interview, the organization can predict the values of a person and if they are compatible with the values of the organization. As such, the prospective employee might be able to blend well with the organizational culture. Such attributes are not able to be informed about since phone calls are not able to tell personalities like when a person is not telling the truth. If a person is lying, they would often not maintain eye contact, would be fording the hands and having discomforts like sweat if a person is uneasy.
There are however certain problems that are associated with physical interviews including them being expensive and time-consuming (Spradley, 2016). A lot of time is spent in interacting with a person and preparation take between one interviewee and the other. Time is also consumed in preparing for such an intensive interview. Resources are spent since a panel might be required to conduct such an interview hence facilitation needed like tea, water, photocopying papers, notepads and pens among other items. The interviewees would spend a lot of resources to print their resume and even transportation to the venue of the interview. Another major challenge would be the fatigue from the interview panel from the many applicants who would be yet to be interviewed. The similarity of questions and answers might affect the quality of the interview too.
So as to mitigate such challenges, the interview will be subdivided into three sections of elimination processes. The first will get mass eliminations, second will have moderate eliminations to have a quality interview with most qualified people. The first wave of the interview will be conducted online through the company systems. It will eliminate more paperwork and simple mistakes like job omission of job positions, wrong entries made and grammatical errors. The second level of the interview will be conducted to eliminate those who come late for the interview and cannot be able to meet the threshold set by the interview panel. The last interview will be extensive and only those who are promising candidates will be able to reach the last level.
Interview Form
| Interview Questions | ||
| Why do you need the job most? | ||
| Besides the academic qualifications, and previous job experience, what other life expose have you have that contributes significantly to the job? | ||
| What are your life motivations to wake up daily and report to work besides money? | ||
| What are your best skills that make you more suitable for the job? | ||
| What is the greatest contribution you hope to bring to the company when given the opportunity? | ||
| Group work and working as a team is a core component of our strategy, what are your previous experiences with teamwork? | ||
| Have you ever been to a leadership position of a team and what were some of the outcomes? | ||
| What are other components of teamwork in terms of team motivation have you experienced? | ||
| Given the chance, we have organizational cultures that we expect adherence to, as enshrined in our values and code of conduct if you have a difference with any, would you be comfortable to express your opinion or your take the job first? | ||
| Besides the monetary compensations, what other modes of work appreciation have you encountered? | ||
| What values do you uphold most in the industry? | ||
| QUESTIONS | ||
| Are you married? | Yes | |
| Do you have kids | No | |
| Have you ever been employed before? | Yes | |
| Was it in the same industry? | Yes | |
| If you saw a violation of our code of conduct, would you inform the management? | Yes | |
| Have you ever been to a leadership position of a team in school or at other working institutions? | Yes | |
| Given the chance, we have organizational cultures that we expect adherence to, as enshrined in our values and code of conduct if you have a difference with any, would you be comfortable to express your opinion? | Yes | |
| During the course of your duties in your previous workstation, have you ever differed with a colleague of your more so one in a higher position of power at work? | No | |
| Do look forward to work with the organization in the long run? | No | |
| If other opportunities were to arise in other company after you have gotten the job will you notify this firm before you leave? | Yes | |
| Have you ever been fired from any job previously? | No |
Summary of Job Interview
Most people are looking for jobs, more so jobs that have comprehensive benefits. The job evaluation and interview attracted most candidates since the firm offers a permanent and pensionable job. As such, most people even those who are in other firms were attracted due to the security of the job. Most companies employ their staff under contracts that are terminated at slightest misconduct. In addition, most employees are attracted to work environments with a robust labor union. Per se, they sort employment due to the robust workers union that protects and advocates for other workers’ rights. The most important aspect that attracted other candidates who had better-paying jobs was due to the flexibility of the company that offers employees a work-life balance. It seemed that besides the money, workers would like private time for their families and loved ones or to sort other pressing issues.
The interview was fruitful and led to a final candidate being selected for the job. The process was tiresome but the final decision was reached having considered all the possible ethical concerns were taken into consideration. First and foremost, the main criteria used to recruit the new employee was on academic qualifications. Those who did not have master’s degree were disqualified irrespective of their work experience. This decision was informed by the job description and job specification. Competency from academics and work experience was factored in. those who were given the considerations were those with over five years of experience in the industry. Work experience was considered since the candidate was having a pre-informed idea about the challenges of the industry and some methods of solving and overcoming certain challenges within the field of practice. Most importantly, the company was pleased with the values of the candidate that is not entirely motivated by monetary compensations alone. The candidate selected is able to take other methods of reward systems like benefits, acknowledgement, and appreciation. This was key to the firm since the monetary cash in hand for the employees are little, but such related reward systems are comprehensively rolled.
References
Cascio, W. (2018). Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.
Mukoyama, T., Patterson, C., & Şahin, A. (2018). Job search behavior over the business cycle. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 10(1), 190-215.
Spradley, J. P. (2016). The ethnographic interview. Waveland Press.
Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right. John Wiley & Sons.
