Going for interview? Know the process and possible interview challenges before facing.

What is the desire of MCA, B Tech, MBA or any higher education pursuing student after the completion? The answer is – to get a relevant job. Every job seeker has to face a process before being getting any job and that process is called – Interview. Interview has become very important for companies to hire efficient and competent work force thus has become very important process for the candidate. An employer gathers some information from the candidate during the interview process and this information include – knowledge and presence of mind of the candidate, suitability of the candidate with the job position applied, Personality traits of the candidate and technical and soft skills of the candidate. Within the span of interview process, candidate has to provide the information to the prospective employer failing which may spoil his chances to get the job. Hence, it’s very challenging for a job seeker to get through an interview process. Despite good knowledge and skills, many candidates cannot be able to convince the employer their suitability for the job. Let us try to understand the challenges which might be faced by a candidate during an interview and in this chain of interview skills articles, I would like to acquaint candidate the process of interview and facilitate the success in the interview.

Let us discover the challenges in the interview first. Biggest challenge in growing competition in the job market, for a single position in any company, HR department receives a long list of aspirants. Thus all aspirants have to undergo stiff competition from each other. And to minimize the efforts, HR departments have set cut off rounds, e.g., candidate does not get eligible for the next round. Cut offs can be minimum percentage, group discussion round, written round, technical round, HR round. To clear all these rounds, candidate must have a balance of technical skills as well as soft skills. Even competition is there for employers in the market, thus every employer wishes to recruit highly professional and competent work force to have advantage in the competitive market. No company likes to buy a threat to employ unskilled or unprofessional candidate which can hit company’s prospects in the market position. So, employers screen all candidates on various aspects to judge various professional skills like punctuality, behavior, attitude towards job, patience, stability and many others. So, a candidate has to prove this during the interview, because this is the direct interaction between the employer and candidate. It’s like a single bullet, once trigger is pressed and aim is missed, nothing can be done thereafter.

Another challenge which might be faced by the interviewee is changing job market. What is studied by students becomes outdated after some intervals and candidate needs to be updated with latest technology, terminology and technique in the market. One, who has knowledge of 2015 application and applies for job in 2016, must have knowledge of latest applications being used.

Thus, interview process might look simple and easy unless faced and one who is not aware of these challenges will not be able get success in the interview. A proactive candidate with preparations to face these challenges will have more chances to perform well in an interview. In my next article I will continue with some preparation required to be done before facing any interview. By that time I want all job seekers to understand the process of interview and challenges mention above during an interview.