Page 38 - You're Hired! Interview Answers

where to find information PRePaRing FoR the inteRview
Company website

Clearly, the internet and the organisation’s own website should be your first
port of call. This will usually give you valuable information about the structure
of the organisation, its stated values, its markets and services and the kinds of
people it employs in different roles. You may also find reference to the specific
job you have applied for; if you do, you should read this very thoroughly,
making a note of how the job fits into the wider organisation and any other
information about the job role.

Job and person specifications
It is worth being clear about some of the different terminology organisations
use to define jobs and the people who do them. Typically, there are two main
distinctions to be aware of:

n Job/role specification: this usually describes the nature of the role in terms
of duties and responsibilities. In other words, regardless of the specific
individual doing the job, this is what any job holder would be expected
to deliver. A typical example might be ‘monitor and control expenditure
against department budget’. This doesn’t say anything about the attributes
needed to do this, it simply describes the duty. If the job/role description is
all that is available to you, you need to take the extra step and think about
‘what kind of person would they be looking for to do this well’. In other
words, you need to produce your own ‘person specification’.

n Person specification: this goes further than the job specification, to
describe the kinds of attributes and skills required to do the job well. A
typical example might be ‘detail-conscious and accurate in checking
figures’.

Sometimes organisations muddle these up and you may need to do some
reading between the lines in order to better understand the kind of person the
organisation is likely to be looking for, and not just the duties involved in the
job. The table on page 28 gives some examples.

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