Waiting to hear about the job
If you have been invited back for a second interview then things are looking good! You have obviously managed to impress your interviewer in the first place or else you wouldn’t have been invited back for another go. Don’t get complacent here though; it is just as important to do your preparation prior to the second interview as it was your first. Your interviewer has probably invited you back to get a little more information about you or it may be that at second interview stage a more senior member of staff wants to meet you to ask you some questions. It may have been that the interviewer has decided that you are the best candidate in his opinion but needs his superior to meet up with you and Vito his decision – who knows. Many employers use recruitment agencies to carry out the first set of interviews on their behalf to save them time and get a pre-qualified shortlist of candidates, they will have briefed the agency as to what type of candidate they are looking for, qualifications, interpersonal skills etc, etc so this interview may be the first opportunity you have actually had to meet your potential new boss. If you have not already sat a psychometric test or aptitude test then it may be that this will be a requirement at the second interview although, again, if this is to be the case then the chances are that you will have been briefed about it before you attend your second interview. Sometimes time may have been against an interviewer at the first meeting and there may well have been more questions that needed to be asked so this could be another reason you have been invited back for a second interview to clarify any outstanding points that your interviewer couldn’t ascertain in the first place. Remember that the second interview shortlist may have several other candidates on it and you’re your interviewer may want to explore your experience or interpersonal skills in a more in depth manner. One thing is for sure though if you have got this far things are looking positive so you will want to be giving this next meeting your very best.
Your second interview therefore is unlikely to follow the same format as the first. If another more senior member of staff is attending this second interview then the chances are that the interviewer will have already briefed them as to your background and shared any thoughts or concerns with them however there may be one or two questions asked that you answered at the first interview. It could be that there are certain specific areas of concern that your interviewer has and it may well be that they will address these questions in a straight manner. There are going to be specific questions your interviewer is looking to find answers to or clarification of and they are likely to be questions aimed at your ability to do the job should they offer it you or questions based around your past performance with your present or previous employers. So it’s a fair assumption that some of the questions will be along the lines of “give me an example of a project you have undertaken to increase your sales turnover” or “how did you manage to increase your weekly output from x to x”. These questions as mentioned are likely to be aimed at specifics.
It is fair to say that most second interviews usually follow a more informal approach than the first interview. In addition, the chances are you will already have met your interviewer once and you therefore may feel a little less nervous than on the first occasion so if you didn’t accept a beverage when it was offered the first time because you were worried you would throw the cup up in the air 6 foot whenever you were asked a question, you may feel confident to accept one in a less informal environment. Sometimes your interviewer may decide to conduct the second interview outside of the office in either a pub or restaurant. This can be done for a couple of reasons – it may be that the interviewer feels if you are in a more relaxed environment you will let your guard down and he feels that any questions he asks you may attract answers that are more truthful as it appears you are now his friend. Secondly, it could be that your interviewer wants to assess your interpersonal and communication skills outside of an office environment – something that may be relevant to the interviewer if the job role is going to entail entertaining clients socially. Whatever happens don’t get lured into a false sense of security, keep professionalism at the forefront of your mind and only say something you would be prepared to say if the interview was being conducted back at the office. If you are offered an alcoholic drink by all means accept one if you think the circumstances are right (obviously if you don’t drink you can say so) but try and keep it to one – alcohol is a natural relaxant and if you do drink too much you may let your guard down and you might end up saying something you regret – like telling a joke that was perhaps not really suitable for the occasion!
“Thank God for that” I hear you say when you get home and sit down with a cup of tea and the feeling of overwhelming stress starts to drift from your body and a warm feeling of relief enters your soul! However, there is still one more job to do before you sit back and wait for the post to drop on your door mat with the job offer and that is write a letter to your interviewer offering your thanks for the time afforded to you – and you need to do it immediately prior to a decision being made about the job. After all it is only courteous and professional to thank someone for the time they have given you. A short letter of thanks to the interviewer is going to give the impression that you have manners, that you really have appreciated the time given to you, that you are a professional person who has good and upstanding morals and that you want to stand out from the crowd to prove that the job really is important to you. It sounds old fashioned but for most employers these are all qualities that an interviewer will be looking for in their ideal candidate and if the decision in close between you and a competitor it could tip the scales in your favour. There is another purpose to writing a thank you letter and that is that you will be one of the few that will bother to put any effort into doing so. What will this achieve? Well when it comes to selection time if you are the only person to have written a thank you letter that will be a plus point above everyone else. In turn you will stand out from the crowd and your name will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression in the interviewers mind. I am not saying that this is going to swing the job in your favour, as there are going to be many factors involved when the interviewer is making his or her decision, but it could do!
What does the letter need to say? Only you can decide what to put in your letter but it could be something along the lines of “Thank you for giving me the opportunity of meeting with you this afternoon I very much appreciate the time you have afforded to me. I would like to say that I am very interested in the job and should there be anything further you would like me to clarify please contact me on my mobile number provided on the top of my CV. I look forward to hearing from you in due course.” It might be that there was something you forgot to tell them about yourself at the interview and you could add this but keep it brief and only add it if it really is relevant. The idea is for the interviewer to read and remember the letter not have to spend fifteen minutes reading it.
Once you have finished your letter and rushed down to the post box to get it off first class it’s probably a good idea to go back and reflect for a short time on how the interview went. There might have been areas where you felt you said the wrong thing or there were things you wished you had said but forgot. You may have made comments that your interviewer appeared impressed by, points that you may undoubtedly wish to use in the future at other interviews should you not get this job or by the same token, questions you didn’t feel you gave good answers to – you get the drift, try and analyse the whole interview as best as you can and jot down any plus points you can come up with or ways in which you can improve your general technique for the future. If you don’t jot them down within a day or so you will have forgotten them so even if you only have a scrap piece of paper write them on it – you never know when they may come in useful.
If u get thejob
Thump! – The post has arrived – you open your letter and YES, you have been offered the job! However, it might be that you have decided that you don’t want this job after all and that you couldn’t stand the interviewer or the company. If that is the case then you should let the employer know politely and turn them down in a professional manner and as soon as possible – after all there may be someone out there that really does want the job. It is always prudent to remember that you never know when or if you and your interviewers paths might cross again and the last thing you want is to find you’ve happily settled into your new job and six months down the line your new manager happens to be the interviewer who has now joined your company! A lot happens in industry, takeovers, mergers, reverse takeovers, you name it, and most industries are very incestuous. So it’s not a good idea to tell them to shove their job “where the sun don’t shine” or anything else along these lines – so if you have changed your mind and don’t fancy the job anymore just decline it professionally and you then don’t have to worry about “what goes around comes around!”
Life is never simple, if it were, we would all be living in mud huts feeding our children by living off the land and never worrying about a thing - no complications, decisions to make or anything else. But that isn’t the case. The problem you may have is if you have applied for several jobs and attended several interviews and then you get offered a job it may not be your preferred choice. It may be that you are still waiting on an answer, from another company (which is the job you would really like) but have not yet had a reply from them. You don’t want to accept the first job and then find out a couple of days later that you’ve been offered the second one it would be a disaster. Well there’s a couple of ways you can play this. The first thing you need to do in this position should be to try an create yourself some breathing space – buy a bit of time. You could contact the employer and say to them that you’re really pleased that they have chosen to offer you the job you’d just like a day to make your mind up for certain or discuss it with your wife - after all changing jobs is a big decision, one that you are not going to make lightly. This isn’t an unreasonable request and as long as you keep the time extension short then they wont think anything of it. If you start asking for a week to think about it then your potential new employer is going to start getting suspicious and you could be risking the offer – don’t forget they’ve been around the block a few times and know their job. No one wants to play second best and if they think you’re looking for a better offer with another company you could blow your chances – once and for all!
Now you really are in the driving seat! You have a job offer on the table for a job that you really wouldn’t mind doing at all because you know you could do it well – you have little to lose providing you play your cards right. So what do you do next. A good idea would be to contact the company whose decision you are waiting on and explain the situation. Chances are they will be glad to hear that they are your first choice and it always looks good if every one else wants to employ you and that you are in demand – wow what a catch you would be! However just because you are the next Gordon Gecco it’s fairly unlikely that they will give you an answer there and then but it may be that they will get back to you the following day with their decision – it really doesn’t matter if its no because all of your doors are open! It isn’t a good idea to play this game if you haven’t been offered another job (although it seems tempting) because the end result could be disastrous – you don’t want to lose the chances of getting this job by being over zealous if time is just a matter of course.
Negotiating Your Salary & Benefits Package:
Lets get down to business now comes the really important part! It’s always wise to leave negotiating salary and any benefits package until you’ve been offered the job. The reason being once your future employer has decided that you’re the employee for them your are in a great position to negotiate a mutually acceptable package. Negotiating a deal is not just about money and benefits, its about negotiating your whole contract (which includes salary, benefits, holiday entitlement, working hours and of course those free season tickets to your favourite football team or use of the corporate hospitality box!!). By negotiating your deal it will give the perception that you know what your you are actually worth (of course this isn’t necessarily what you are going to get) but that you are not prepared to settle for just any old offer (without being over the top). This might not be exactly what your employer wants, on the basis that they will be paying you more than they really want to, but it will show that you have good negotiating qualities, a strong personality and good negotiation skills (something that will have a good bearing should you be entering a sales orientated role) which you will be able to apply to the job once your in it – it’s a good quality to have. There’s little point in trying to squeeze them like a lemon with unrealistic sums, at the end of the day they can only pay you what they can afford and you might end up losing the job at the last minute – something you won’t want to do due to greed.
So the big question here is how are you going to determine how much they value you and what are they willing to pay you? Well in all honesty it’s no good just plucking a figure out of the air. When you applied for the position the chances are that there would have been an indicative offer in salary whether that being an “Salary In The Region Of X” or “Basic Salary In The Region Of X With On Target Earnings Of X” or “Salary Between X and X Subject To Experience”. Aim for the top end of the scale or if you are really cheeky you could try and squeeze them for 5% – 15% more than the quoted figure, they can only say no and the chances are you will end up getting more than they would have offered you in the first place! Remember that if you can prove to your future employer that you are better than the average “Joe” you will have a far better chance of negotiating your way to the higher level of the salary bracket. So how do you prove this? Well your qualifications are always a good start. If you have more qualifications than were originally advertised for the position then that’s a plus point. You will definitely need to prepare some justifications for asking for the top dollar rate but you could say something like “I’m not only ACII qualified but am four parts FCII qualified and you were originally looking for candidates who were working towards completing their FCII” or “The advertisement for the job stated that the candidate must have two years sales experience for the position whereas I have five years including 12 months experience in pure new business lead generation”.
At the end of the day you have been offered the job based on your experience along with other attributes and because you were an overall better candidate than the other applicants so all you really need to do is point out these qualities and use them in your negotiation techniques.
Additional Employment Benefits:
There are other package benefits that may apply that are not necessarily salary orientated. They are things such as holiday entitlement, luncheon vouchers or expenses, performance related bonuses, commission, overtime, profit sharing, private health insurance, share options, childcare contribution, sports / gym facilities, company car, mobile phone, rail or travel ticket and non contributory pension. This list is not exhaustive and it would be unrealistic to ask for all of these benefits, the best thing to do is choose maybe two or three and see how you get on. It may be that your employer doesn’t want to provide a company car but he may be prepared to finance your travel to and from work so compromise is as always the golden rule.
Hey lets face it some hard ball managers (whether they be HR Managers or Heads of Department) are going to try and get you as cheep as possible so there could be some dirty tactics at play at negotiation stage. You can just bet your bottom dollar that they will be holding a card up their sleeve to try and get you to agree to a lesser package or make you take on more responsibilities that the job role originally stated. Generally speaking this is a little bit “Un British” and ruthless and the chances are they will pull this one out of the hat just when you have almost struck your salary deal. A good example of this is where your employer tells you his right hand man is off sick and is likely to be off for at least six months and would you therefore mind taking over his work. Its not that you don’t want to demonstrate what a hard working person you are or that you can’t do the job but you’ve basically agreed on a salary that was acceptable and now you’re finding out the job is twice as involved – it’s now much harder to go back and negotiate and your employer knows this! All is not lost however. You can prevent this situation happening by you both laying down your cards at the start. All you might say is “We need to talk about my salary, benefits package and holiday entitlement. Are there any other areas of issues concerning the job role or workload that you feel we could do with discussing at whilst we talk about my salary and benefits package?” You have now made it extremely difficult for your employer not to mention the fact that his right hand man is off sick and you will be required to do his job as well as your own for the next six months – hence you can use this in your salary negotiation.
Confirmation Of Your Employers Job Offer:
When you have agreed everything with your employer, salary and benefits package, working hours, holiday entitlement etc, etc and both you and your employer have agreed on the final points of the deal then your employer should issue you with a letter of confirmation of the offer, this should encompass all of the agreed areas such as your salary and benefits package, the title of the job being offered, working hours, the date in which your contract will commence and any conditions that apply to the job offer. Once you receive this confirmation and are satisfied that everything is correct that you should formally respond to your new employer agreeing the terms and conditions outlined in the offer letter and off you go!
