Everyone is curious to know how to get selected in interviews! Are there any tips and tricks or a key which helps to crack the interviews? Even I had same thoughts and same curiosity during my undergraduate days.
But, I realized that understanding the selection process and prepare accordingly for the interview is a key to get selected in any interview. My senior colleagues helped me to understand the process during my Chemical Engineering graduation days and result was selection in one of the Navratna Public Sector Undertaking in campus interview.
Organizations conduct interview to find best fit for them. It is not only the intellectual candidate they look for but they want to have a candidate who also culturally fits into their organizations.
So, it is not only your qualifications and experience which matters but also your positive attitude, your ability to work in teams and positive aspirations which matters in the selection process.
Selection process is an amalgamation of intellectual, emotional and cultural aspects required for the job in any organization. I feel it is becoming more theoretical and jargon with the terms used here. But, they are important. I would like to simplify the terms so that you will find them easier.
Intellectual parameter takes care of your intellect i.e. your qualifications and work experience. Emotional quotient takes care of your emotional behavior i.e. how you react to different situation .
You will be given some hypothetical situation and your response to the situation is noted to evaluate your emotional quotient. Cultural aspect takes care of matching your culture with organizational culture.
This is very important as organizations look for the candidates who fit culturally with their culture and values as such candidates are easily adaptable. I hope you are now familiar with the terms and requirements of the organization for finding the right candidates.
As I told earlier, understanding selection process is the key to get selected in any interview as you can prepare as per the organization requirement. Let us understand the typical selection processes for better understanding and chances of getting selected in any interview.
a. Walk-ins
Walk-in interviews are conducted by many private companies who want to select the candidates in many numbers or within short time.
Normally, walk-in advertisement is given in newspaper or website of the company and candidates are invited along with their resume at the notified location.
Sometimes, candidates are advised to send their resumes at the designated e-mail address or mailing address and selected candidates who match the criteria are invited for walk-ins.
Normally, walk-ins interview consists of the group discussion and personal interview. I would like to make you understand the purpose of group discussion and personal interview. Let us understand them.
i. Group discussion – Typically, a group discussion consists of a group of candidates and an evaluator who guides the communication and evaluates the candidates.
A topic is given to the candidates for discussion in which they are expected to give their views. Finally, instructor concludes the discussion. Limited time is given for each candidate to express their views. Topic can be on current affairs, technology, socio-economic aspects and so on.
Group discussion is an important tool for many organizations to find right candidate for their organization who fits into their organization culture. Every organization has its own culture and they try to find a candidate who can culturally fit to their organization so that such candidates can adapt easily into their organization.
Secondly, group discussion is an important tool to find out how candidates behave while working in groups. This is very important for organizations as people work in groups in many organizations and team work is the key for their organizational performance. Hence, you can see that group discussion has a profound impact in the selection process.
I would like to advise you to read my group discussion post here to learn the tips and tricks to win any group discussion.
ii. Personal Interview – Personal interview of a candidate is normally conducted by a group or committee comprising of a domain expert i.e. person who is experienced and expert in the job for which interview being conducted and a human recourse (HR) expert who evaluates the candidates emotionally and their cultural fit with the organization.
Domain expert normally asks some basic theoretical questions about the requirement of jobs and also asks practical questions related to job domain.
Apart from common questions, HR expert asks questions related to human handling, your reaction to different situation, and your values and beliefs system and so on.Hence, you have to thoroughly prepare for technical aspects of the jobs and you have to have positive attitude.
Results of the walk-ins are displayed on the same day or sometimes displayed after some days.
b. Campus Interviews
In Campus interviews, companies visit colleges’ campus for selecting the candidates. Normally, candidates are in their final year of studies. So, candidates get the jobs during their final year of studies.
It is great! Companies normally go to the reputed institutions for conducting campus interviews. It is beneficial for the companies as they get cream candidates from such reputed institutes and can get away with the tedious selection process which involves written examination of huge number of candidates and conducting interviews for the selected candidates.
Campus interviews normally consist of the small written test for the candidates of the particular institute followed by group discussion and personal interview.
Written test is conducted which is based on knowledge on technical, analytical and English. Results are declared within some hours and eligible candidates are called for group discussion and personal interviews.
Group discussion and personal interviews are discussed above. Normally, results of the selected candidates are displayed on the same day. Hence, candidates are normally selected on the same day.
Hence, I advise you to put in your hard work in your 12th standard to get admission in reputed institutes so that you get your dream job during your final year of your studies.
c. Regular selection process
Regular selection process consists of giving an advertisement in the newspaper for the job requirement, seeking applications from the candidates, conducting written examinations, displaying results of the written examination, calling eligible candidates for personal interviews and finally displaying the final selected candidates.
This process is normally adopted for government jobs. Primary importance is given to examination results followed by personal interview. Hence, thorough knowledge about written examination is very important over here. Written examination is again based on technical questions related to job, analytical skills and knowledge about English.
I am confident now that you have enough knowledge about different selection processes and how to prepare for these. I assure you that understanding these process and prepare accordingly with hard work will give you assured success in any interview.
Best luck!
