PROPER WAY TO ADDRESS THE INTERVIEW PANEL
Usually someone will escort you into the interview room, & introduce you to the panel members. Don’t worry about remembering all their names. Often the panel members will be wearing name tags As you’re introduced, look the rater in the eyes & give a firm handshake. Too many times candidate give a dead fish handshake. When shaking hands with a female rater don’t use too much pressure, just match the pressure in their handshake male & female alike. At the end of the interview, the panel will usually stand & shake hands again. If not take the first step to leave a lasting impression, & remember eye contact while thanking them for the opportunity. If you know the panels rank or if ladies are present follow that order.
STICKY ORAL BOARD QUESTIONS
How Would You Handle the Following Scenarios?
Drinking or drugs on the job,
Stealing on the job,
Conflict with another employee,
Irate citizen,
An employee crisis at an emergency,
Sexual harassment,
Racial situation,
Conflicting orders at an emergency,
An order that could place you in great danger or be morally wrong?
Example: You're a firefighter, and the guys on your shift want you to participate in a joke on the female firefighter. What do you do?
Many candidates seem to think this is standard practice for being a firefighter, and assume everyone is part of a family and it's expected, or depending how bad the joke is, or I've played jokes on others before, etc. Dissect the question down to its simplest form to one or two words. What is the core purpose of this question? Take off the disguise and you will have one of the questions from the 30 plus oral board questions often asked. What do you think it is.... SEXUAL HARASSMENT! This is a simple tool to un complicate the process. There are only about 30 oral board questions. They can be disguised in hundreds of different ways. It's your job to take off the disguise and find the real question. Sexual harassment questions are the most dangerous of oral board areas. It's a can of worms you don't want to open. If you do, you will never be able to close the can. You need to keep your answers short and simple here. Otherwise, you will talk yourself into trouble. It has nothing to do with which gender, it's how it's interpreted by the person that is offended. The oral interview is like fantasy land. It is not like the real world. Your answers in the oral board might not be what you would do in real life. Don't fall into the trap. The board understands the rules, you can't fool them. Don't try to intellectualize and bring heavy logic to this process. If you do, someone, who understands the rules better will get the job over you.
Courtesy of: Captain Bob at www.eatstress.com
CLOSING YOUR INTERVIEW
There are those who would tell you to raise the flag and beat the drum with a lot of fanfare in your closing statement. Please spare us this part. Understand if you haven't done a great job in the body of your presentation, you're not going to make it up in the closing, and repeating it over again will not help. Don't forget that the closing part of an interview is where you call on the emotions of the interviewers to give you the job. Don't reiterate. Some try to do repair work, most of the time if you screwed up the question the first time you will most likely just make things worse. The question is done, move on and leave it alone.Use only the key points not already covered in your script. Without being boring or lengthily, thank the panel for their time, tell them why you really want the job and with your qualifications hope to be considered for the position. Then shut up and get out of the building. Or you might say something you regret. We had a guy one day ace his oral. After his closing, he said, "Well, if I don't get this job I can always fall back on that part time painters job." The panel couldn't believe what this guy just said after acing his oral. Did it hurt his score? Yes!!!
