Four Useless Assumptions That Could Sabotage a Round One Interview

“More than 50% of the people currently in Human Resources were once contributors in business units outside of HR” shared a former COO of the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). This statement made me think about the assumptions we may go into a first round interview with (i.e. your screening interview).

Here are 4 useless assumptions I’ve heard recently from less successful job seekers:

1. HR professionals are costs within a company’s income statement (rather than potential contributors to it)
2. HR professionals rarely behave as employee advocates
3. HR professionals do not have a seat at the table when it comes to strategic business decisions
4. HR is a functional area with an un-quantifiable impact

In my 10-plus years of coaching great candidates, the more successful ones consider how HR professionals are driving growth within their respective organisations.

These are 4 significantly more productive assumptions that more successful job seekers consider:

1. HR leaders today have broader and richer responsibilities and are influencing business decisions at varying levels, including whether you make it into a candidate pool
2. HR professionals are being held to higher standards today and are working towards tangible results that you should know about beforehand
3. Your level of commitment will be evaluated as the cost of recruiting top talent has escalated. The competition to lure the right professionals who stay with organisations is higher than it has ever been.
4. It takes creativity and business acumen to source top talent. Then, seemingly herculean efforts to keep them so expect to have business conversations even during round one.

Here’s a bonus consideration: There are plenty of leaders transitioning into HR roles from various lines of business. I am seeing this across top-tier organisations in a myriad of industries around the globe.  Therefore, it is crucial to realise that your next HR interviewer could once have been a P&L owner like you aspire to become.

As a result, it’s time to step up your interview preparations to impress modern-day HR professionals to break past round one.

Given this necessity, I am currently on the path towards creating a product that will not only help you better understand a myriad of interests that HR professionals have but also to provide you with tools to help you play up to these interests and hack your next round one interview.

Stay tuned…I’m excited about this one and am challenging myself to keep it simple (once again, as simple as my 90-day plan blueprint) and effective (leveraging candid insights from my top HR clients and heroes) across a broad range of industries.

My product has launched!

Click here to learn more! You can get through this kit  – up to the night before an interview.

From the author of Forbes articles entitled “What to Expect In An HR Interview” and Don’t Know What to Ask Human Resources Professionals.”