What If I'm Not Currently Employed?

Being unemployed does not make you unemployable. I have hired several people who had left their jobs, either voluntarily or otherwise. Some hiring managers will specifically ask the candidates why they left their last job, but I usually don’t bother.

In many of these cases the candidates were victims of unfortunate economic forces striking down their company or department. It’s certainly possible they were underperformers who were cut loose at the first opportunity, but if I’m doing my job right their weaknesses should come out during the interview.

Some candidates will just come right out and tell me they were laid off from their last job. Apparently they believe that honesty is the best policy. And in this case it certainly is, or at least it’s better than trying to hide the fact they’re not currently working. To me, misrepresenting your status is worse than the stigma of having been laid off.

But what if you are in the unenviable position of having been terminated from your last position? It’s not the end of the world; just present your side of the story without sounding like a victim or a bitter malcontent. Explain that your work might not have been the best, but that it was a difficult environment not best suited to your skills or the most conducive to top performance. And say that you have learned from that experience, and are now eager for a fresh start where you can prove yourself. Of course, you actually do have to believe all this when you say it, as insincerity is quite easy to spot.

I even had one candidate who straight out told me he quit his last position because it didn’t offer him any opportunity for growth. That smelled fishy to me – why didn’t he just keep working there while he looked for a new position? It’s more likely it was a mutual separation. Still, I didn’t dig into it – and I offered him a job anyway.

Why Do You Want to Leave Your Current Job?

This question often comes up early on in interviews, and sometimes it’s asked as the very first question. Some hiring managers will ask this of all candidates, though I generally do not. The only time I might ask this is if the candidate has only been at their current position for a few months. In those cases their current job is clearly not working out, and I might wonder why that was -- just in case they end up having the same issue at our company.

There are many safe, generic ways that people can respond to this question without much thought. And yet some people will fidget and equivocate, hemming and hawing, generally making it much harder for themselves than it needs to be.

For instance, here are some common safe answers:

• There was not enough growth opportunity / I wanted a more challenging position


• I could not deal with the commute.


• The company was having financial difficulties and layoffs were looming.

And here are some not so safe answers:

• I didn’t get along with my boss. (Hmm, will this guy get along with me?)


• My company treated its employees poorly. (A disgruntled employee? Generally you should not speak ill of your previous employer)


• I didn’t like the work. (Hmm, but you’ll be doing much the same type of work here…)

One-On-One vs. Group Interviews

Some companies will have the candidate meet with a series of interviewers one-on-one. Typically, the interviews last about 30-45 minutes each, and there may be 4-6 such interviews back to back. Other companies prefer to do group interviews where two or more people sit at the table with the candidate.

My current company does group interviews, and it’s also the format I prefer as a hiring manager. With 1-on-1 interviews I don’t know what went on or what was discussed in the other interviews, so I can’t be sure what the interviewers mean when they say later that the candidate couldn’t answer their questions satisfactorily.

In my interviews we typically have one or two managers and one or two engineers present as interviewers. I generally ask most of the questions and the other interviewers chime in as needed with follow-up questions. And after it’s over we all know what exactly was discussed. Hence I find that with the group interview format there’s a lot less disagreement afterwards between interviewers on whether the candidate should be hired.

As a candidate you should also prefer the group interview format. It takes up much less of your time, and you avoid repeating the same things over and over again. How many times have you had to say during an interview day, “As I mentioned to the previous interviewer,…”?

Still, group interviews can seem imposing to candidates. You might feel like you’re being ganged up on; in addition, maintaining eye contact, and figuring out whom to maintain eye contact with, can be a challenge. Typically there will be a primary decider in the room, most likely the hiring manager, along with supplementary interviewers to make sure all the right questions are asked. If you do manage to spot such a dynamic you should keep your focus on the Alpha interviewer for most of the interview, as that’s whom you’ll need to impress the most.

The Interview Format

If you’ve been to more than one interview you probably already know the drill. But there are some differences between companies and between interviewers, and also differences based on the position being filled. Personally when I conduct interviews I try to be as consistent as possible so as to evaluate all candidates fairly. For a web developer position it goes something like this:

1. The candidate arrives in our building and asks the receptionist for the HR contact person.


2. The HR rep greets the candidate and takes their completed paperwork (application, release forms, NDA, etc) and escorts them to a conference room.


3. I (the hiring manager) and other managers and/or developers join the candidate in the conference room for a group interview.


4. We ask the candidate to talk about their recent work and projects and toss out some ’soft’ questions.


5. We ask the candidate some technical questions on a range of topics. I usually work off a “‘Cheat Sheet” of questions for consistency.


6. We ask the candidate to go up to the whiteboard and work through some exercises and write code and markup.


7. We ask the candidate whether they have any questions for us.


8. The other people exit the room, and the candidate and I talk about salary expectations and company benefits.


9. I tell the candidate what the next step in the process is, thank the candidate for coming in, and then walk them out.

Most of this is pretty straightforward and about the same as what you can expect at most companies. However, there are some variations.

For one thing, most companies do a series of one-one interviews rather than group interviews, meaning that you may repeat steps #3-7 multiple times, typically with four to six people in total. Personally I consider that a waste – but that’s a subject for another post.

At some companies HR will perform step #8 instead of the hiring manager. Some companies will skip this step altogether in the in-person interview and negotiate later by phone. The benefits package may also be treated as an afterthought, although for some people it may be nearly as important as the salary.

Finally, step #9 is important, but it’s also one that’s often skipped by many companies. With them it’s usually just a “Thanks for coming in” without any indication what will happen next. In my case I tell the candidate that if we decide to extend an offer we’ll contact them within a few days.

And while I don’t explicitly say so, this statement also implies that if we decide not to extend an offer, they won’t be hearing from us again. Which probably sucks for the candidate – but they’ve been warned. And the supposed ‘professionalism’ of such a policy is a topic for yet another future post.

Must I Wear a Suit to the Interview?

This topic seems to come up again and again on the job and career discussion boards.

Fact is, you don’t HAVE to wear a suit to an interview, just as you don’t have to wear a suit to a wedding or a funeral. But wearing one shows respect for the process and those involved. And fact is, unless you’re going to the beach it’s generally better to over-dress for events than to under-dress.

Some people claim that they’ve never worn suits to interviews, that their interviewers were always dressed casually, and they’ve never had problems. I don’t doubt those accounts. But do you really want to gamble that your interviewers will be tolerant of casual dress to an interview?

An interview is a formal ritual, one of the very few serious rituals left in our modern society. The only others I can think of that are comparable are, as I noted, weddings and funerals. I wear a suit to all three rituals, and they’re the only times I wear a suit nowadays.

If you have to, change into a suit in your car.

The Day of the In-Person Interview

On the interview day you should make sure you have the contact information for the hiring company’s HR representative as well as the name of the person you are going to meet. Keep this information with you in case something goes awry. The following are examples of things that have happened to me or the people I interviewed:

• Candidate forgot to bring the directions to the interview location


• Candidate misread directions and got lost on the way to the interview


• Candidate got stuck in traffic


• Candidate woke up sick that morning


• Candidate had a family emergency


• Candidate decided to take the building stairs instead of the elevator and got locked in the stairway vestibule (this happened to me once!)

If any of these things happen, it’s perfectly legitimate to call your HR contact and ask to have the interview rescheduled. However, if at all possible you should do this BEFORE the scheduled interview time. Otherwise the interviewer(s) may be sitting in the interview room tapping their fingers on the conference room table and wondering where the heck you are.

As a hiring manager I know that the times I had an interview rescheduled or postponed, it didn’t bother me much at all as long as the notice came at least half an hour ahead of the scheduled interview time.
Of course, things can go wrong on the hiring company’s side as well. Here are some real-world examples of our screw-ups:

• The interviewer got stuck in an important meeting and no replacement could be found


• The interviewer was otherwise MIA and could not be found


• The interviewers all declined the interview meeting request at the last minute and no one showed up

Flying In for an Interview

Sometimes as a candidate may have to fly into another city for an in-person interview. Here are some tips to deal with such situations.

• Make sure the job is attractive before you commit up to two days of your time to travel and interview in a distant city.


• If you are travelling from the West Coast to the East Coast, try to take a flight leaving no later than noon. That flight will land around 9 pm with the time zone change. Chances are that with a baggage claim, car rental, drive to the hotel, and check-in, you won’t be at your hotel room and unpacked until 11 pm. That’s about the latest you want to go to bed to be fresh the next morning.


• If you are travelling from the east coast to the west coast, you should be able to take a flight as late as 6 pm and get to your west coast hotel by 11. However, late afternoon & early evening flights tend to be busy and heavily booked, so you might want to take an earlier flight.


• Make sure you have a clear understanding with the company as to whether you should rent a car or take a cab from the airport. If they expect you to take a cab, the bean counters may not reimburse you for a rental car (yes, I’ve seen it happen).


• If you arrive early in the target city and have a rental car, make a test run from the hotel to the target company so the drive will be familiar the next morning.


• Don’t skip breakfast the morning of the interview. It will be the most important meal of your day.


• Make sure your schedule allows at least 3 hours after the completion of your interview before the return flight. Interviews often get delayed or run long, and traffic can slow you down returning to the airport. Not to mention the time spent returning your rental car, if you have one.


• You’ll be told this by the hiring company of course, but keep track of all receipts so you can be reimbursed for them later.


• Depending on the company, it may take 30-60 days for you to be reimbursed for miscellaneous expense you submit after your interview trip.