Free 101 Smart Questions to Ask on Your Interview by Ron Fry Page B

and accepted his brush-off, then the interviewer would conclude you couldn’t handle rejection (a huge factor in sales) and wouldn’t be right for the job after all. Respond to an aggressive brush-off by being equally aggressive. The alternative is unappetizing—to hang up and move on to the next interview.
    Many personnel professionals fall into a different category—human screens. For them, interviewing is not simply a once-a-quarter or once-a-month event, but rather a key part of their daily job descriptions. They meet and interview many people, and are more likely than a telephone screener to consider an exceptional applicant for more than one opening within the organization.
    A primary objective of a human screen is to develop a strong group of candidates for managers (the third kind of interviewer) to interview in person. To do this, of course, they must fend off many applicants and callers, a daunting task, because the human screen or the department in which he works is often the only contact provided in employment advertisements.
    Among the most common reasons for removal from a human screen’s “hot” list are: lack of the formal or informal qualifications outlined in the organization’s job description; sudden changes in hiring priorities and/or personnel requirements; poor performance during the in-person interview itself; or inaction due to uncertainty about your current status or contact information. That last reason is more common than you might imagine. Human screens are constantly swamped with phone calls, resumes, and unannounced visits from hopeful applicants. Despite their best efforts, they sometimes lose track of qualified people.
    Human screens excel at separating the wheat from the chaff. Because they are exposed to a wide variety of candidates on a regular basis, they usually boast more face-to-face interviewing experience than other interviewers. They may be more likely to spot inconsistencies or outright lies on resumes, simply because they’ve seen so many over the years that they know when a candidate’s credentials for a given position don’t quite pass the “smell test.”
    And while interviews with a telephone screener or the hiring manager may be rushed because of their hectic schedules, human screens are often able to spend a comparatively long amount of time with particularly qualified candidates.
    However, these interviewers often do not have direct knowledge of the day-to-day requirements of the job to be filled. They have formal summaries, of course, but they often don’t possess the same firsthand familiarity with the skills, temperament, and outlook necessary for success on the job. Typically one step away from the action, they’re reliant on job postings and experience summaries (often composed by managers).
    If those formal outlines are imperfectly written, and if human screens receive no direct input from supervisors on the kinds of people they’re seeking, you may be passed through the process even though you’re not particularly qualified (or eliminated even though you are).
    Not surprisingly, human screens often react with a puzzled look if others ask them to offer their gut reaction to a particular candidate. Because they’re generally removed from the work itself, they often prefer quantifying their assessments of candidates in hard numbers: Either the candidate does have three years of appropriate experience, or she doesn’t. Either she has been trained in computer design, or she hasn’t. Of course, this analysis may overlook important interpersonal issues.
    Don’t Believe Everything You Read
    And don’t believe everything company representatives tell you. Just as employees have been known to “forget” a job when writing their resume and slightly exaggerate their responsibilities, employers have been known to tell attractive candidates what they want to hear. “Need your space and independence? Like to work in a freewheeling, open kind of atmosphere? Hey,