If you have been called back for a second interview, there’s a tendency to think you are on your way to getting a job. Wrong! While it is true that you should be congratulated for making it past the initial interview because 90 to 95% of candidates do not make it that far, the race is far from over.
The initial interview was necessary for you to get to this level of the interview process, but once you advance, the competition only gets harder!
Those who write books and articles about finding a job rarely explain that second and later interviews are a very different experience from the first. Follow-up interviews actually involve the same questions, but the number of people asking those questions increases and the detail requested is much more in depth and intense. Most candidates are not ready for the intensity and complexity of the follow-up interviews. The complexity is also less predictable and patterned than in earlier stages of the interview process. Be prepared for playoff intensity, because now it is all on the line and you have to bring your “A game.”
Companies usually involve more than one person in the hiring process because they want to spread the risk of hiring. You read that correctly – companies will tell you that the reason so many people interview candidates is to make sure of the candidate’s qualifications, that he or she can do the job, that everybody likes the person, and so forth. The truth is that no one wants to take responsibility for making a hiring decision, and the risk of possible bad consequences. People in the hiring process are so afraid of making a mistake that they want other people to share responsibility for the screw up.
This means that you’re going to have to interview with people that may or may not have anything to do with the job for which you are applying. Beware and remember: the more people who are involved in the interviewing process, the more difficult it is going to be to get hired.
I am constantly amazed at the differences of opinion between the different interviewers in a company about the kind of candidate needed. One would think that all the people involved in the hiring decision would have a consistent profile of the ideal candidate in mind. Unfortunately, most of the time that is just not the case.
