How 3 college students won acclaim for their job-interview skills
A year ago, Chan Park worried that he couldn't master retail sales. Then the college junior found a way to thrive. Last month, Park took a bold step forward by sharing his struggles and triumph in a one-minute video posted to his LinkedIn profile. Among the people that noticed was Michael Junge, a seasoned corporate recruiter and author of "Purple Squirrel," a book about mastering the job-hunting process.
Ordinarily, there's no way the two men would cross paths. Junge now works in southern California; Park attends the University of Central Florida. But they connected via #AceThatInterview, a new LinkedIn experiment in which college students and other career starters practice their answers to common job-interview questions. Once video responses are posted on LinkedIn, top-tier recruiters such as Junge then provide feedback and public recognition of the best entries.
"One of the things I particularly liked about Park's answer was his willingness to talk about vulnerability," Junge told me. "That's fairly rare, but it can be one of the most effective techniques if done well. Showing vulnerability is a way of getting people to trust us." You can see Park's video -- and find out what he did right -- by checking out the link below.
Junge, a former Google recruiter, identified two other videos that impressed him, too. One was submitted by Dyllan Brown-Bramble, a student at Rutgers University's Newark, N.J., campus. In that video, Brown-Bramble started with the basic prompt that was offered to all students: "Tell me about a time that you showed initiative."
Highlighting his experience in a summer internship, Brown-Bramble talked about the ways he helped a corporate hiring team become more efficient. His key move: developing a standard protocol that made it easier to keep track of candidates and makes sure that key interviewing and assessment steps were being carried out.
Also winning Junge's praise was a video submitted by Jacob Johnson, another student at the University of Central Florida. Johnson shared his response to an alarming summer-camp situation, in which another student began shivering uncontrollably in the course of a swimming session in cold water.
Johnson took the lead in steering the other camper toward medical personnel, who identified the symptoms of hypothermia. Grateful camp officials awarded special recognition to Johnson for his initiative.
Both students' answers "did an admirably good job" of answering the question at hand, Junge said. "They followed the guidelines. They had a narrative arc. They made eye contact with the camera, so that I felt I was seeing the person."
As Junge observes, recruiters pay attention to the way job candidates express themselves, as well as the substance of each answer. Successful candidates don't need to dazzle with their personalities, but they do need to convey a certain amount of confidence and clarity. That's a good way, at least in recruiters' minds, of establishing that candidates could connect well with peers, bosses and subordinates inside the company, as well as with potential business partners.
Junge's feedback, in this article, represents the first of three reports from #AceThatInterview judges. In the next few days, look for similar assessments -- and call-outs -- by Colleen McCreary Wheeler, chief people officer at Vevo and the former head of talent at Zynga, and by AJ Walker, human resources manager at First Merchants Corp.
If you're interested in participating in a future edition of #AceThatInterview, stay tuned. New interview prompts and additional judges are being readied for 2018.
