This note is my feedback to all of you, on how to prepare for your HR Interviews.

Its basis is my
interaction with 12 of you yesterday. Towards the end there is a section on how B3 could help
you (and how you can bring in your questions, before any lecture)

Uniformly I found that you were honest and authentic in your interactions. Many MBA
students do not carry this reputation :) and this will stand you well.

You were all well groomed. You all entered and introduced yourselves well with prior
preparation. These showed to me your seriousness for the interview. Again good.

Some of my feedback is below. Even if you did not attend the HR interview, please review it for
what you can do differently.

Do take it with a pinch of salt :). Different people will give you different feedbacks on what works
well. Some of it will contradict each other. Welcome to the real world. Simply pick what works for
you and reject the rest. If possible, run it as experiment before deciding.

For most of you - there is scope for improving your initial introduction not because you did not
share your details - in fact some of you over shared :) - but the introduction is an opportunity
to plant seeds on where the conversation could go next.

Don’t be in a hurry to share your full and completely detailed introduction just because you have
memorized it all. Pause and find out if this is what they are looking for. More important to get
the ‘trailers’ in.

The introduction should not have the full story but the trailer to -
- Your strengths - backed by some accomplishments because of your strengths. The
accomplishments can be actual results, money impact of the result or what others are saying
about it.
- Your plans - backed by some things you have done to explore | move forward. Exploration
mindset is very valuable. So also ability to fail and continue exploring. If you have done these,
don’t try to hide it :)

HR is thinking two things. They might probe accordingly.

1. What are your real strengths? Not the ones you are projecting but real ones. How will
your strengths be useful to the company?
2. Will you stick around and stay motivated? All companies have large amounts of ‘junk
work’. Work that is boring or repetitive. They are always scared that if hire from a top
business school, the person may leave after a short period, leaving waste their trainings
and induction efforts and creating delays in execution of business plans. So hiring from a
mid-tier business school can sometimes be a better option for them. On the reverse side,
you need to convey to them (without saying in so many words :)) - how ‘stable’ you could
be
To give comfort to HR that you are serious about them, You also need to give thought to
researching your target company (even the target individuals who are interviewing you) where
possible.

Do not ask questions ‘naam ke vaste’ or those answers that can easily be found with an internet
search.

If you have clarity on your plans - your questions could be around how those plans will be met
by your employment (sometimes a manager may also decide that if you don't have questions
then you don't have plans). BTW not having plans is better than having false plans :)

When you compare notes with those who had already done the interview, that can also be
counted as research. That is a good thing too but only if you don't let it change the core of who
you are and what you have to say.

So what is HR checking for in the few brief minutes of interaction they will have with you?

Interaction Skills

You don’t need to have fantastic interaction skills but you should be able to interact and work
well with your team. They want to see if you have done it already in some form.

There are some simple aspects of Interaction skills - Listening, Asking Questions, Eye Contact,
Comfort with Silence – that you all should practice and become comfortable with in immediate
time frames.

Low Hanging Fruits -

1. Making memorized content sound more natural.
2. Asking Validation Question(s) after doing the initial introduction - Did I miss something,
you will like to know? – instead of giving the whole dump in one go.

As mentioned earlier, your interview usually begins with ‘tell me about yourself’ kind of question.
This is the place where you can sow the seeds for subsequent Interaction - Leaving ‘Trailer’ of
Strengths and Stability.

Practice how you give these Examples (telling as a crisp story). The more you practice, better
you will become. This is a life skill, so will never go waste.

If you have to take only one thing away from this note, let it be that you must be able to narrate
your introduction, your strength examples and your plans properly.

You don’t have to be expert speaker - and you can even do it in Kannada or Hindi :) in
emergency situations - but the story must be in place and thought through.
(Yesterday someone said, ‘Chuma’ while explaining her point and I loved it :))

Profile Match to the Role

If you are looking for HR business partner or sales jobs - then interaction skills are much more
important and even in your ‘technical’ interview, someone may have looked at them.

Since in a HR interview you are speaking to HR professionals, some of them may decide to a
2nd round of ‘technical HR interview’ with you, if you are looking for these specific roles. This is
also somewhat true, if your stated specialization includes HR.

Incidentally, your specialization and your internship experience should preferably match or you
should have a good story on why they don’t match (I wanted to do finance, did a finance
internship and realized it is not for me. So now i am looking for a marketing role – this a good
enough explanation)

Stability as a Strength

Do not underestimate your ‘stability’ strengths or ability | willingness to do not so interesting

work or take pains or to be available when needed.

Backup stability with consistent back story

● The family needs the salary, HR likes that. Means you will stay.
● If during internship my commute made me give up, HR can think, how much this person
will persist?
● If you have other plans (competitive exams, further studies, family wealth) - you need to
guard against how much you want to share. Telling a Lie is different from withholding
truth :)

Nobody wants you to stay for forever if you get hired but your back story should not indicate that
you will not stay for even one year.

HR will want to rule out that you don't have serious setbacks

If your english is so weak that you will not be able to interact well with team members then it is a
setback.

On the other hand, if you are making attempts to fix it and your effort shows, that will be treated
very well

If you are not shy to talk in ‘tooti footi’ english - that can also work out. Sometimes, HR may
think, such a person is likely to not go job hunting again in a hurry :)) - and it works out very well
You are not a complete loner. You should be able to work in a team - give and get feedback, do
projects together, pull your weight in a project situation. Some of their questions may explore in
these directions.

Someone who takes all the credit for team's work is not so great either.

You are not just a talker but also take action. What have you done? Accomplished?

Are you aware of your weaknesses? (self aware is good), What are you doing to fix it?

Do you have a learning mindset? (fixing weaknesses, taking courses on coursera, udemy
beyond what is required). You should however know something about the course you say you
attended.

If you say you have done python programming but can not show anything you can do with it -
then it subtracts not only from this claim but all your other claims too :))

If they are serious about you, they will want to better understand, who are you as a
person?

What are your values? How authentic you are? What do you care about? What are your deal
breakers? These are all windows to you. A good HR manager might want to explore these.

How B3 could help you

In the upcoming B3 classes -

- Lecture 2 will focus on helping your arrive at Version 1.0 of your Introduction. Please
review your introduction with these shared points to the extent possible, before the class
on on Dec 5/6
- In Lecture 3 we will focus on adding your strengths to your introduction and doing stories
of your strengths - Dec 12/13
- In Lecture 4 we will focus on adding inputs to your ‘plans’ in the introduction and getting
practice on sharing them.

If you have questions about interviews | job process - before any lecture please write
them on a piece of paper and leave them on my podium. These can be anonymous if you
wish.

During the class, I will attempt to answer these too. I am hoping that by Dec 19/20 - you will be
in an even better place to do well in your interviews.

🙂
Subsequent 1 or 2 lectures will focus on interview tips - how to do interviews better. This may
change however, based on your questions
Thanks
brij