Ally with the HR interviewer
In other words, your strategy in interviewing with HR is to satisfy your interviewer that if he or she passes your file to the hiring manager and you subsequently get the job, there will be no possibility that you will embarrass him or her. To do that, you need to persuade the HR person of three things:
- That you are qualified to do the job
- That you want to do the job
- That if given the job, you will fit in
If you do, your application will move to where you want it to be: in front of the hiring manager, the only one in the organization with the power to give you the job you want.
Many HR people are informed, empathic, and professional, and they want you to succeed. Most of them are willing to assist you in refining your résumé, cover letter, or interviewing techniques. Many of them have gone out of their way to help me with this blog. If you are fortunate enough to get one of these folks on your side, they can really make the interviewing process much more productive and enjoyable.
HR people need to be respected, says Joel Hamroff, president of Magill Associates, Inc., a staffing service in Levittown, New York. “Remember that the person sitting on the other side of the desk at one time sat where you are sitting and they are at least as smart as you are. Human resources folks need a reason to exist, so the more you can ask about their experiences and opinions, the more it will endear you to them.”
But the bottom line remains: HR people cannot give you the job you want. Nor can they give you the facts-on-the-ground important information you need to make a good career decision. For the most part, HR people are well informed in a general sense about the company and its benefits policies. But they probably don’t have a lot of the specific information you want about the position and the people you will be working with.