We interview people on a daily basis and many of them have several questions about the interview process. Today, we answer some of the most common questions we get asked to give you a few tips that will give you an advantage going into your next interview.

What should I ask the interviewer beforehand?

The more information you have before your interview, the better. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if there is any info you need to better prepare for your meeting with the recruiter. In general, you should ask who you will be meeting with, how long the interview will be, any special directions regarding your arrival and checking in, and what you should have prepared to bring along with you.

–Tonya Winebrenner, Staff Source Recruiter

How much should I prepare?

AS MUCH AS YOU CAN! Make sure your resume is up to date and clearly organized, be sure you have quality examples of your past work, and run through a couple mock interviews with friends or family to polish your interview approach if you can. You can never be too prepared, but you can definitely be under-prepared. The best bet is to prepare to the point where you are no longer nervous about how the interview will go. It’s ok to be a little anxious about how it will turn out, but if you prepare well you shouldn’t feel any nerves about your ability to interview well.

-Maria Martinez, Staff Source Recruiter

What should I do if I’m going to be late?

Life happens, and sometimes we end up running late to our interviews. A lot of people panic when faced with this situation. Calm down. The best course of action when you’re running late to an interview is to call the office and let them know your situation. Give them a realistic timeline of when you’ll arrive and if asked to reschedule, be prepared with a date and time in mind. If they can still see you, apologize once when you arrive and then don’t bring it up again. You want your interview to be about your work experience, not a constant reminder that you got there late.

-Hailey Bengtson, Staff Source HR Assistant

Where should I sit?

You have two options here: the first being that after you shake hands with and introduce yourself to the interviewer, you can wait to be invited to sit down in an indicated chair. This is most likely how you will be directed to your seat for the interview. The other option is that after introductions, you can politely ask where the interviewer would like you to sit.

-Tyler Geeve, Staff Source Marketing Assistant

How professional should I be?

Everyone wants to put their best foot forward and to appear professional for their interview. However, you don’t want to come across as stiff or robotic. There’s a fine line between professional and friendly that you need to navigate in order to find an appropriate balance. Unfortunately, there is no universal answer for this. You will need to adapt to every new interviewer because each one will have different preferences leaning more towards professional or friendly. Be prepared, feel it out, and use your best judgment.

-Kailey Lessentine, Staff Source HR Assistant

What do I do if the interview isn’t going well?

The LAST thing you should do is panic. Nobody’s perfect and everyone has bad interviews from time to time. Pay attention to you what you are doing and try to determine what is turning the interviewer off. Are you not making enough eye contact or rambling too much? Whatever it may be, do your best to correct anything that could be turning the interview sour. Sit up straight, speak clearly, and give confident, steady eye contact. If you still see that the interview is not going well, don’t lose too much hope. Even a bad interview is a great learning tool for bettering your skills for the future.

-Colleen Nicholls, Former Staff Source Recruiter

When should I follow up?

After your interview, the recruiter you met with should give you a timeline as to when they will be reaching out to you. If that date comes and goes with no word back, it’s ok to reach out via email to follow up on your application and candidacy for the position. If your interviewer didn’t give you a deadline for when they would be reaching out, it is generally accepted to follow up with them after a weeks time.

–Tyler Geeve, Staff Source Marketing/Recruiting Assistant

Most of us know how to behave in an interview, or at least we think we do. Well, we wanted to know just how many people actually use proper interview etiquette, so for the last two weeks we have been tracking the most common behaviors we see when people come in for an interview. All of these should be avoided, but it may shock you just how many people aren’t on their best behavior during their interview.

Late

Across the board, our recruiters experienced only a handful of candidates running late. About nine percent of the people scheduled for interviews arrived late (within ten minutes of their scheduled time). It may not seem like much of a big deal being only a few minutes late, but in an office like ours, recruiters have interviews back-to-back all day. If you arrive five to ten minutes late in some cases, the remaining time left isn’t enough to conduct the interview; especially if the recruiter has someone scheduled right after you. Always do your best to arrive on time, and if you don’t call and let them know you will be running late and be prepared to reschedule if need be.

No Resume

Not having a resume for an interview is one of the BIGGEST mistakes you can make. The resume is the most important tool you have in your job seeking arsenal so it needs to be up-to-date, well organized, and you should have several copies of it on hand. That being said, around eighteen percent of the applicants that came in for their interview didn’t have a resume with them. Always make sure when you leave for your interview that your resume is in hand and ready to go.

Inappropriate Clothing

You always want to make sure you dress the part for your interview. What you wear says a lot about who you are, and you want to put your best foot forward. That didn’t stop almost twenty-three percent of our interviewees from coming in wearing inappropriate clothing (i.e. anything with holes/tears, graphic designs, tank tops, anything displaying foul language, etc). When you go in for an interview, or any professional event, dress for the occasion. At the very least, you should dress business casual (dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes, etc.)

Eating/Chewing Gum

We get it. People get hungry. And a lot of our interviews are scheduled around breakfast and lunch time. Always make sure you try to eat something before your interview if you think you’ll get hungry during it, and if you’re about to head in for your interview and hunger hits you, wait until afterwards to get food. Over the last two weeks, about five percent of applicants came into the office with a bag of food that they were eating while they were being interviewed. On top of avoiding eating, you will want to spit out any gum you happen to have in your mouth before meeting with a recruiter. The constant chewing is not only distracting, but can cause you to mispronounce and trip over your words.

Foul Language

Remember that whole “best foot forward” thing? That doesn’t just include dressing professionally, but speaking professionally as well. About four percent of people used foul language or swore during their interview. This is one of the quickest ways to put a recruiter off. The use of foul language communicates hot-headedness, impatience, and is very unprofessional. No recruiter wants to send their client someone with a foul mouth, as it reflects badly on themselves and their company. Keep it clean, and if you do have a slip-up, apologize and continue the interview without lingering on it for too long.

Using Phone

During your interview, you want to give the recruiter your full attention and limit distractions that would pull your focus away from them. The biggest attention hog in our daily lives is our phones, and it was apparent that the attention problem associated with smart phones even spread to our interviews. Around five percent of people were on their phones at some point during their meeting with our recruiters. Like we said, you want to give your interviewer your full attention not just because you want the job, but because its respectful as they have taken time out of their day to speak with you. No one likes talking to a brick wall, so always keep your phone on silent and in your pocket or tucked away elsewhere.

Fist Bump

This wasn’t even on our list… until it happened. One person, rather than ending their interview with a handshake, went for a pretty awkward fist bump. Always keep it professional, even if your interviewer seems more casual and laid back. A fist bump is not the best move when you’re trying to convince a recruiter you’re right for a position. Just stick to a nice, firm handshake. It communicates confidence, competence, and doesn’t put anyone in that awkward situation of reaching for a handshake and meeting a closed fist instead.

Stand-Out Week

While many of our recruiters were tracking these behaviors, one seemed to have some bad luck when it came to her interviews. Out of the sixty-five people she had scheduled for the two week period, she only interviewed twenty-two. Nine people did call to either cancel or reschedule, but THIRTY-FOUR people didn’t even show up for or cancel their interview! That’s more than HALF! No call no shows to interviews are unacceptable. The very least you could do is call or even email your interviewer to let them know you won’t be coming in for the interview. This allows the recruiter to more efficiently use their time completing other tasks, instead of waiting for an interview that isn’t happening.

-Tyler Geeve, Marketing/Recruiter Assistant

*Data collected by Staff Source Recruiters*

One of the most asked questions we get is “What should I NOT do in my interview”. While that list can be pretty long, there are definitely a few things you should never do. To make things a bit more exciting, and to share what types of things we see in the office, we’re going to offer up a few stories from our recruiters that showcase first-hand what you shouldn’t do in an interview. Remember, all the stories you are about to read are 100% real.

Not a Family Affair

We understand that many people that come in for interviews are parents, but what we can never understand is why many of these parents bring their kids along with them to their interviews. It wouldn’t be that much of an issue if they were older, like teenagers, but we frequently have people come into the office with kids anywhere from 3 to 8 years old. We’ve even had people wheel in strollers! Unfortunately, these parents are often told to reschedule because we cannot have their children roaming around the office during their interview, and we definitely can’t leave them unattended in the lobby. When you’re scheduling your interview, make sure you have child care set-up if you need it.

–Tonya Winebrenner, Staff Source Recruiter

The Late-Comers

It’s pretty well-known that you should try to be on time for your interview, and if you are late, you need to call to let your recruiter know. Well, not everyone follows these guidelines. We have countless stories about candidates showing up late for interviews, but none worse than a candidate who showed up a WEEK late. It was so late, in fact, that we initially thought WE had made a mistake in scheduling them. Come to find out the person no-showed their original interview date and then came in the next week because they had booked a trip a few days before their interview. Lesson to learn from this story: Always let your interviewer know if you wont be able to make your interview so they can get it rescheduled. (And maybe don’t schedule an interview when you’re going to be on vacation)

–Jennifer Musleh, Staff Source Recruiter

One-Liners

How can you make a resume that is only one line long you ask? The answer is you can’t. That didn’t stop one candidate from submitting a one-line resume online that not only didn’t include their name or contact information, but also didn’t have any work experience or skills listed. Oh, it gets better. The document they submitted was a single blank page that simply read “i need a job”. And before you say “hey, you’re really gonna call someone out for a bad resume when you forgot to capitalize the ‘I’ and add punctuation to that last quote?”, no I didn’t. The resume was not only one line, but that single line also had punctuation and capitalization mistakes. We had never face-palmed harder in our lives. Make sure you always review your resume and make sure all the information is correct.. and including your name is greatly appreciated as well.

–Tyler Geeve, Staff Source Marketing/Recruiting Assistant

TMI, Guys

Nothing is worse for a recruiter than a candidate who starts oversharing during their interview. Most of the time, it wastes interview time and becomes a little annoying when the recruiter wants to focus the conversation on your job experience and not how you spent your weekend or something like that. In some cases though, we come across that rare breed of person who seems to have no filter and will talk about ANYTHING in their interview. Take a guy who came in to interview for an available position and continued to talk about the various bathroom situations he has had to work around, in detail, and how he frequently had to “do what he had to do” on the job (and we HEAVILY censored this story, you’re welcome). So, when you go into an interview, remember to keep it professional, avoid talking about the bathroom at all costs, and maybe don’t pee on your new employers building.

– Colleen Nicholls, Staff Source Recruiter

What Resume?

Resumes are absolutely critical for the interview process. The recruiters use them to assess your skills, they are sent to clients to review for long-term positions, and almost every job hiring process requires one. This was news to one person who called in to schedule an interview and was asked to bring a copy of her resume for us, something we ask all new applicants to do. They had scheduled the interview as normal, only to call back minutes later and say, “Sooooo, I don’t have a resume and I’m not about to make one for this interview. So I’m just gonna cancel my appointment”. Things like this drive us crazy! Especially after we process your application, ask our pre-screening questions, and get an interview scheduled (steps which all inform you that you will need a resume for your interview); only to have someone call back minutes later and cancel because they don’t want to bother putting together a resume. It’s very frustrating for us, and a real waste of our time. AGH! Sorry, that one really gets me going. Always be sure to have an easily accessible copy of your resume for interviews, and be sure to update it when necessary.

–Maria Martinez, Staff Source Recruiter

The Swordsman

This one isn’t so much a direct interview lesson to learn from, and more a life lesson that could affect your ability to get a position. One day in the office, when not much was going on, our receptionist noticed a man in our parking lot moving around pretty quick. She called the rest of the office over to take a look, as many of us were worried that he was running around between all of our cars. Turns out he wasn’t running, he was rollerskating in figure-eights… with a sword on his back. Seriously. This is real. This happened. He was out there for about 20 minutes before he skated away down the sidewalk leaving us in total awe. Lesson learned from this: be careful what you’re doing and where you’re doing it; because you better believe if sword-boy walks into our office looking for work, we’re all going to remember him.

-Tyler Geeve, Staff Source Marketing/Recruiting Assistant

This is one of the most common questions we receive from new applicants, many of which have not worked for a staffing agency before. While the specific details and operations may differ from agency to agency, the general idea remains the same. A staffing agency works by filling client job orders with candidates who are looking for work. However, you remain an employee of the staffing agency itself and not the client company, even though you are working at the client’s location. As a worker, you are contracted out to work for the client but your call-off procedures, policies, and payroll are controlled by the staffing company.

Many people may also then say, “So you guys only have temporary work then?”. The answer to that question is yes, but we also offer full-time, part-time, on-going, and temp-to-hire positions. It’s important to remember that every staffing agency is different and that just because a position is available at one, doesn’t mean that the same position will be available at another. We have had many people come into our office saying “I used to work for _______ agency and they had positions with _________ company. I was wondering if you could place me there, too?”. If they are one of our clients, we may be able to. But more often than not, if you saw a position with one agency, the exact same position would not be available through another.

We also want people to understand that there is absolutely NO CHARGE to new applicants. Our agency does not charge a fee to be a part of our program or to have us source a job for you. We make our money by charging our clients a markup on the pay-rate you receive for working at their location. For example, if you work a position that is paying $15/hr, we may bill that client $20/hr in order to cover the cost of any testing, paperwork processing, and other expenses. This keeps the process completely free of charge for you.

The last thing that some people get confused with is that we are a privately owned business and not part of any government agency, and that we have no obligation to find anyone a position. Remember, we help candidates find jobs, but we also have to find reliable workers for our client companies. We have seen examples where people come in interested in a certain position, but become upset when we don’t send them out to the assignment because they don’t meet the requirements. If someone walks in without the necessary experience or qualifications, or just has a bad attitude in general, we do not HAVE to place them at a job. While a case like this is rare, it highlights the fact that we serve two different groups of people. Yes, we want to find the best job for you, but we also want to find the best candidate for our clients.

 

–Colleen Nichols, Staff Source Recruiter

“One of my employees came in for an interview and mentioned that he recently resigned from a job. He asked me what he should say when he’s interviewing for other jobs.  He left his previous position because he didn’t think it was a professional environment and didn’t agree with the management styles…but he didn’t want to make it seem like he was not willing to work with people.  I gave him the following tips:”

 

• Make sure you mention that you gave notice and/or left on good terms
• Keep it simple – ‘I didn’t feel this was a good fit for me, so I am seeking better opportunities’
• If they do ask for specifics, highlight that you tried to make it work – ‘I spoke to my manager or supervisor to see if there was a way that we could work on (problem), but…’
• If you have good references from that job site—use them!

 

–Colleen Nichols, Staff Source Recruiter