Behavioral Interview Success

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During an interview, have you ever been asked questions like:

“What is your typical way of dealing with conflict?”

“Can you describe a problem that you solved in a unique or unusual way?”

“What is the most difficult project you’ve worked on – and how did it help you develop professionally?”

If so, then you’ve taken part in a behavioral interview.  Designed to reveal more than just skills or experience, behavioral interview questions dig deeper than traditional questions – and can be more challenging to answer.  If you’re new to the concept of behavioral interviewing, here is a quick 101 to bring you up to speed:

  • Behavioral interviews operate on the premise that understanding past behavior is the best way to predict future success.  Questions in a behavioral interview focus on experiences, behaviors, knowledge, skills and abilities that are job-related.
  • Questions may be casually inserted into a typical interview, or you may be formally required to answer a set list.  Be prepared for either scenario.
  • Questions will require you to describe situations from your past, as well as your feelings and observations about them.  Depending upon your answers, the interviewer may have follow-up probing questions.
  • The interviewer will look for evidence of desired behavioral traits in your responses, to assess your proficiency in certain job-related areas.

As with all interview questions, preparing for behavioral questions is essential to success.  While you cannot predict the specific questions you will be asked, you can use these tips to ace your next behavioral interview – no matter what type of jobs in Connecticut (link) you’re seeking:

  • Learn about the company.  Do your homework before the interview to learn about the company, its core values and the available position.  Use the job description to determine the most essential behaviors needed to succeed in the position, and then research potential behavioral interview questions that are associated with those traits.
  • Create your behavioral interview arsenal.  Create a list of key accomplishments that exemplify the traits necessary to succeed in the available position.  If you lack work experience, draw upon your school experiences (challenging courses/tests, group projects, research papers, etc.).  Select experiences that reflect well on you, even if the outcome of the situation itself was not favorable.  With a bit of work, you can develop a repertoire of a small number of workplace experiences that you can use to answer a wide range of behavioral questions.
  • Flesh out each experience.  Make sure each of your examples has a beginning, middle and end.  Experts recommend using the STAR technique to communicate your ideas logically and concisely:  the beginning should describe a Situation you were in or the Task you needed to accomplish; the middle should recount the Action that you took; the end should review the measurable Results you achieved.
  • Practice with a friend.  Behavioral interviews can be grueling.  Boost your confidence by rehearsing your workplace stories ahead of time with a friend or relative.  Aim for vivid, concise answers that are one to three minutes long.

Looking for more interview help (link to: http://www.armazzotta.com/blog/2011/12/interviewers-size-you-up-quickly-make-their-snap-decisions-work-in-your-favor/)?  Searching for jobs in Connecticut (link to job board)?  A.R. Mazzotta (link) is here to help.  As a Connecticut employment agency (link) with more than 40 years of experience, we’re uniquely qualified to help you take the next step in your career.  Contact A.R. Mazzotta today (link)!

Working Leaner in IT

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“Do more with less.”

It’s an overused and grossly oversimplified cliché thrown around too often in IT organizations.  Still, as a technology manager, your challenge is to find creative ways to get your projects completed – and maintain the quality of your work – while working lean.

Across industries and around the world, IT organizations are overhauling their budgets by controlling spending and reducing costs.  How can you do it, too?  Here are six tips for working leaner in IT without compromising quality:

Assemble an evaluation team.  Gather your top IT engineers and at least one member from both accounting and legal.  Charge them with examining every aspect of your IT department to identify:

potential areas for savings;
potentially wasteful processes;
shortcuts to your current operational methodologies.

In addition to providing fresh, interdepartmental perspective, this team can also help you prioritize initiatives by assessing feasibility and quantifying potential savings.

Reallocate IT expenditures.  Work with your accounting team member to see if you can push some of your IT budget items into other departmental budgets.  For example, it you support equipment or systems that serve only a single department, you may be able to move those line items off your budget.  While this tactic may not make you more “popular” with other department heads, it will force them to decide if the equipment and systems are worth the additional costs to their budgets.

Offer service level options.  Is a “one size fits all,” premium service model keeping your costs elevated?  Reevaluate your service levels to determine if they are higher, across the board, than necessary.  If so, you may be able to reduce costs by offering different service levels, based upon what users really need – not just what they want.

Consider alternative delivery models.  Not every service is right for outsourcing; however, you may want to review commodity or non-customized applications, to see if cheaper alternatives (such as hosted services or SaaS) are available outside of your organization.  Outsourcing these services can eliminate the cost of servers, software, infrastructure, administrative labor, facilities and everything else associated with that application.

Standardize servers.  If your company is like most, you have a mix of server types and vendors.  Everything from maintenance processes to firmware revisions and upgrade processes can differ from vendor to vendor.  All this variation translates into more complex, time-consuming and costly support – placing a significant strain on your staff and budgets.  Standardizing servers and OS’s can greatly simplify support and reduce procurement costs.  In the long run, the initial investment needed to make the switch will be more than offset by the increases in departmental efficiency.

Convert trash to treasure.  Stop throwing away your old equipment.  Delegate the task of selling your computers, cell phones, peripherals, etc. on eBay, or to a local dealer.  In addition to reclaiming some money from salvaged gear, it also eliminates the cost of disposing of the IT equipment (some cities charge as much as $50 to dispose of a single monitor).

One of the most effective techniques for reducing IT expenses is to convert labor from a fixed to a variable expense through the greater use of flexible staffing.  With over X years in IT staffing, XYZ Staffing can help you design a cost-effective IT staffing solution to help you “do more with less.”  Contact us today to schedule some time to discuss your staffing strategy.

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