I have a job interview coming up on next Tuesday. Just to give you a little background info:
I currently work for Capital One in their Information Systems department. They are outsourcing this job to a vendor, hence the position is being eliminated. I have applied for a Business Banking Incentives Specialist position within the company. This position is more like an analysis job where I will have to keep track of the sales, deposits, loan amounts handled by the bank associates and reward them accordingly. Ofcourse there is more involved, such as new projects, changing the system, take over the project at some point, and project management etc. but this is basically what the job requires you to do.
This had 3 levels of interviews.
Meet the Recruiter - Cleared
Meet the Supervisor - Cleared
Meet the Supervisor (again), his Manager, and then his Regional Manager - Coming up
**Strengths: **I feel pretty confident about it. I know the Supervisor and the Regional Manager pretty well, as I send them some company reports on regular basis. I doubt if anyone else has applied for it, because this is happening too quick. I actually met the supervisor first, and he recommended that I go ahead and apply for the job, so that’s also a good sign. Since I’ve passed 2 levels within 1 week, obviously they are interested. I have been studying their forumula and plan guidelines to understand how the system works and how they calculate the incentives.
**Weaknesses: **They require a 2 years experience in all of the programs they use, such as Crystal Reports, SAS, Excel, Access, and Word etc. I have all that experience but Crystal Reports experience is less than a year and SAS is none. Ofcourse I can nail the Office applications. I am fresh out of school with not much professional experience.
So I guess my question is: What else can I do to prepare myself for the Interview with the Manager and the Regional Manager? I’ve studied their process and understand it, that’ll give me something to talk about over lunch when I meet him. What else?
re: not having any experience in crystal reports or sas, first of all,try going to some websites and learning a little bit abt these programs so that you can atleast have an intelligent conversation with the mgr without going into too many details. Also, emphasize that you might not have any exp. in these technologies but you're a quick learner and ud be able to catch up. Make sure that you can give some relevant examples from your past where you had to learn something new (of equal difficulty). Or you can tell them that you're flexible to recieve some training on crystal repo or sas but be careful since they might not want to spend money on your training.
*Just make sure that you completely understand what your job entails. You already mentioned that uve been studying it, and while im sure they do not expect you to know the process inside out while interviewing, the more you know the more you can impress them.
Over lunch, try to sound intelligent and prepared by asking them some relevant questions about the position. Or if possible, if you are aware of some activites within this new dept, make sure you casually talk about them with the regional manager. These ppl are kinda like college professors, noones really interested in the *** they do but u gotta impress them by pretending. SO just understand the position and dept, and then you can easily spend the lunch without any awkard silences. You might also want to talka bout sports too, some of these old bigwigs like to play golf, so u can try doing a little bs there.
*Also, try to see what exactly they are looking for in a person and then during the interview make sure you give them examples of how you've demonstrated those traits. For example, in the job description they might list "Organization skills are necessary", so in return you can provide them of how you "organized" some huge PSA event and how big of a success that was. I always used to ask during the first interview of what he/she was looking for, and then in the second interview i used to nail those points.
*Know you resume inside out. This is very important, cuz us desis have the tendancy of inflating the hell out of our resumes. So whatever you put down, make sure you can adequately and concisely describe it.
*I'm sure you already do this but make sure you reflect an image of complete confidence. Keep a professional smile on your face, have a firm handshake and try to convey a sense of enthusasim or passion about this new job.
Lussi bhai, thanks a lot yaar, very helpful suggestions.
I forgot to mention that I did go on the SAS website and learned what the program does. I was hoping for some screenshot and I did get some, but not too many. I currently use crystal reports to generate company reports and I am pretty good at it. I can't write complex reports and formulas yet because I've been using it for 6 months only, and that too using the reports that were already written. I sometimes have to modify the criteria etc.
What I can mention is that I am a quick learner and an example would be Crystal. I knew nothing about it until I started using it. They did not provide any training. Now I am able to write simple reports and formulas and I learned it all by myself by just playing with the program.
You are right about the BS about golf and other stuff, I'll have to do that. I am pretty good with that because when I met with the supervisor, we were supposed to meet for 15 minutes but we ended up talking for one hour and 20 minutes.
As it is, the job was grade "E" (bonus eligible and the salary rate is higher) but the recruiter said they may degrade it to a grade "F" (bonus ineligible and the salary rate is lower) because I don't have at least 2 years of professional experience in that field. I am okay with that because I gotta start somewhere. Once I have experience to bring to the table, then I can demand the adjustments. I'll keep you posted on it.
Also during lunch and casual chit-chat, make sure you don’t let you gaurd down. It’s STILL an interview and they are judging you. So keep it professional.
Another positive thing going in my favor is that the regional manager is good friends with my dept's regional manager and he also knows the supervisor and the manager pretty well. I was talking to my director today about my interview and he said he'll e-mail all 3 of them and recommend me, and he did. So that's good.
