Overhiring vs. Underfitting
Having been through more than 15+ (Fifteen Plus) interviews in the last year; it helped to have mentors in global organizations, tech thought-leaders in startup segments, and inspiration from some of the most competitively creative people & firms in the world.
Stories are much like this, see a dream, visualize, approach, and achieve the tangible element to build to such. Post-collegiate job spaces were much easier to approach. Numerous opportunities arrived via phone, email, and friends that I would never have imagined — still, on a rare occasion, they occur as simply today.
Learning how to speak in candor, wave into space, and approach job opportunities with grace is a curious endeavor. Mentioning previously some of the occurrences with top-tier startups, the difference between almost making the cut and making the move is the sphere of comfortability.
Connecting Dots
If experience tells any at all, client work revolves around getting people from businesses to commit to objectives that fit their budget as well as a macro strategy for their brand. Beginning this objective begins with a rapport that makes everyone comfortable with the solution.
Interviewing in the job market is similar, from adjusting a resume to providing live thought, whether it be code or strategy, people dig the ability to feel comfortable in one’s presence.
Public speaking I have found is one of the most successful components of an interview, that can be fitted outside of the environment itself. A pitch is when this strength becomes a reflection at the moment and then turns to communication models through the exercise. People enjoy talking, about themselves, their products, and especially their business, help them do that while imagining yourself in that light.
Imagine every moment spent talking in the interview setting is a moment of growing doubt, the task is to ease this doubt, and turn the scenario for the sake of making it fit the success narrative.
Plotting Story
History is a story — as the primary school teaches many ancient cultures began handing these traditions down from the wisdom speaker, storyteller, even the leads of the tribes. Focusing the story from this perspective enables the sense of hierarchy and objectivity of one to work within the confines of a community.
Telling the story of work, beyond the titles & tasks aligns the operative components of success with that of the business in mention. Converting the audience to a believer means positioning them within the opportunity space to become the partner of success. The arch as famously mentioned, as well, experienced in common literature — the heroes’ journey is a successful variant of this method. Strengths and weaknesses are always inherent, how they fit that culture and method is what is at stake.
Measuring the curve of fitting along with the archetype of the business being pitched to, one can understand how they fit into these roles, with those people, and on these teams through their story.
Defining Value
Omitting skill-based tasks, as they are assumed from the resume — one has to seek to create comfort within the stakeholders of the meeting to presume themselves as part of that team. In idea, this is functionally creating confidence within the decision-makers to accept your story and process the efforts as aligned with their own.
These focuses of human connection are not easily miffed, sewn, or even applied — creating any doubt within these confines makes it even harder to compose the story and even more challenging then for the audience to believe. You will notice that questions inspire confidence, that is questions that align with the business objectives — experience solidifies transitory parts of the story, and all of these connect you to the business.
When defining the value of an individual the paramount importance of this moment is on one’s ability to take the brief opportunity to navigate the complex moments of such a short-tail experience and align themselves. Interviews are short — small windows into a business’s ear, all as important as the next, as they reflect your ability; even with the smallest of firms.
The value becomes a narrative through a story that relays comfort, establishes trust, and defines how a person can fit into a small to a large team within a short amount of time.
Pitch Perfect
Knowing everything, thinking through it all, and doing research is what one could hope for entering every situation. Though these instances, with multiple interviews lined up, and only so much time, will rely on skill and fluency to provide concise outcomes.
“Skills direct behavior for a known situation.” — Rich Diviney
When meeting with the people in the interview, take into account the task of the moment, measure the room, and apply your “attributes” to the stories from your experience in which fit the role. Adaptability is imperative in these scenarios, as aforementioned, the resume is the list, your experiences are the notes, and your thoughts and speech at this moment are the acting forces that inspire confidence and affirm them all.
Competitive Returns
Adaptability & confidence aside, interviews are often held throughout a week a month, or even a quarter depending on the demand of the role. Whether internal or external, the quotient of skills & experience adapt as the number of candidates scales to fill.
Mentioning overhiring & underfitting is this point in particular. Often business finds themselves most comfortable with someone who is over capable and fits the role with skills beyond.
In mathematics and logic, this is adverse to efficiency, though, in a human capital sense, it is comforting knowing someone is overqualified and not simply parting together offerings to fit an agenda.
There will be moments in which reflection yields an emotion like the one above, looking back one may feel completely qualified, understand the role particularly well and see that the person fulfilling that role has taken their spin. A percentage of this contribution, in the losing scenario [one in which someone else got the job] which happens more often than not, is that the person had 20%-30% (Twenty to Thirty Percent) more subjective experience in the sought role of this role than the skills that facilitate it.
Businesses plan to develop through time, which means each role has a next step, iteration, and even an objective within that business that will become more through each step. Often the decline of your experience is not an actual denial of your experience, though more so a distinction between you and the role proceeding the role in which you applied. As specialization overtook piece-work, overhiring & underfitting overtook direct impact.
The theory from the business perspective is often not of fitting the job perfectly, but fitting the community & culture, then the future role, and accomplishing the tasks of the current job with ease. If other candidates push the bar of skill [practiced & inherent traits] upwards, the comparative factors reach beyond comfortability and into 5 (five) year plans.
Establishing Longevity
What is learned through each of these instances is not that the skill is less important, though on a graph of skill v. intuition — many factor the longevity of forecasted suiters into the equation, as the leading factor, because the top candidates are all equally as skilled.
This may be true or untrue, there may be bias or reference, it may rain during your interview or the sun may shine during others. The fact of the matter is more about the contingency of your attributes and experience that embolden itself past that of the others. Where you attended school is important, whom you worked for is important, how big the teams & projects you worked with are even more so.
Aptitude in this sense is a human equation, from big schools to big companies, plus skill, adding in the layers of hierarchy within an experience, and following, the ability to present this in a friendly and inspiring nature within the confines of time allotted.
Even if you feel and know you are the best candidate, often your ability to establish this thought within the hiring agent is the most woeful skill in the book; whether you worked at a small firm last year or the largest in the world, it comes down to the brief moments in which you have to prove it.
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