The Career Portfolio Workbook

Closing

The order may vary, and stages may be skipped.The helloing stage

of a job interview will happen at the beginning of every job interview,

and the closing stage will inevitably come at the end. The other stages

of the job interview process, however, may not come in the above order.

One or more of the engaging, opportunity-finding, or involving stages,

in fact, may not happen at all.

But if you are able to recognize the stages that dooccur in an in-

terview and you know what can be achieved with your portfolio in each

of these stages, you should be able to make good use of your portfolio.

Help the interviewer through each stage. It is important to know

that while the interviewer is responsible for conducting the interview,

and as such, is ostensibly in charge of the process, you, as an intervie-

wee, can play an important role in assuring that the interview proceeds

smoothly and successfully. Perhaps it is best to think of yourself, not as

being interviewed, but instead as participatingin an interview.

The idea is certainly not to try to seize control of the interview in

any obvious way. Much to the contrary, you will want to make the in-

terviewer feel that he or she is in control of the process at every step of

the way. Never lose sight of the fact that the person who is interview-

ing you wants to feel that he or she is being a skillful interviewer. Any-

thing you can do to subtly help the interviewer achieve a feeling of com-

petence can only work to your advantage. The interviewer is likely to

conclude that the easier it is to interview you, the easier it will be to

work with you.

The person who interviews you will most likely have a particular

approach that he or she wants to take during the interview. And more

often than not, the interviewer will have a specific set of topics that he

or she will want to cover, and a specific set of questions that all candi-

dates will be asked to respond to.

The interviewer will probably not be thinking about the “stages”of

the interview in any conscious way. But if you understand the different

stages that job interviews typically pass through and the order in

which these stages are likely to occur, you will be able to discern which

stage you are in. You will know what you hope to achieve in each stage

and how your career portfolio can be used to best advantage during job

interviews.

How to Use Your Portfolio During Each Stage of the Interview

Let’s take a look now at how you can make the best use of your portfo-

lio during each of the stages that are likely to occur during a job inter-

view, beginning with the helloing stage.

Stage 1: Helloing

Many interviewers will admit that they have largely made up

their minds about a candidate within the first five minutes of meeting

the person. So it is very important to make a good first impression. As

noted earlier, looking professional with regard to your clothes and

Chapter 6: Using Your Portfolio to Get That Job 85