How to face an interview?

Interview Tips
How to face an interview? What are the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) in an interview? How to behave in an interview? What kind of measures are to be taken before and after the interview to be successful and effective? These issues are no longer Greek and Latin for job aspirants. Fortunately, on these issues, nowadays, abundant, freely accessible and qualitative information is available under the sun to these job aspirants. Normally, interviews are conducted by the institutions to hire employees. This is quite a familiar thing; but what is unfamiliar, at least for some, is that it is also being carried out before an employee leaves the organization. The former kind of interview is called `Hiring Interview' and latter one is known as `Exit Interview'.

Interviewed before Quitting

An exit interview is an interview conducted by an employer of departing employees. In other words, it is an interview conducted with departing employees, just before they leave. To be clearer, an exit interview is typically a meeting between at least one representative from a company's Human Resource Department (HRD) and a departing employee. Therefore it is nothing but a formal interaction between two parties. One party will be the representative of the organization and the other will be the departing employee. Generally, the organization's representative will be a relatively neutral party, such as a human resource staff member, so that the departing employee will feel free to express his/her views and share his/her feelings/emotions/grievances about different aspects of the work environment. The answers provided by the departing employee will be noted formally by the neutral party for future reference and for the purpose of rectification. Some organizations execute a questionnaire for the departing employee to personally fill. Other enterprises practice both.

Reasons for Employee Departure

Now the basic question is why employees are leaving the organizations quite frequently in recent times. What are the reasons for shifting from one organization to another? The available reasons for departing may be classified into two categories: voluntary and involuntary.

Voluntary

• Increased pay package.
• Dissatisfaction at the workplace.
• Better position.
• Stagnation in the present job.
• High ambition to grow fast.
• Undervaluation.
• Obsolete knowledge and skill.
• Interest in new technologies and new environment.
• Desire to prove oneself.
• Foreign trip.
• Opportunity to work with a good organization.

Involuntary

• Indiscipline.
• Absenteeism.
• Violation of company policy.
• Lay-off.
• Position eliminated.
• Demotion.
Some of the corporate houses conduct exit interviews for departing employees whether they leave voluntarily or involuntarily.

Purpose

What is the goal/purpose of an exit interview? In what way is it beneficial to the enterprise? How will an employee be benefitted? Will it really do any good to either party? Definitely, exit interviews address the issues of this nature. Both the organization as well as the departing employee, by doing this kind of exercise, will be benefitted a lot in different ways.
From the perspective of the departing employee, an exit interview is a chance to give some constructive and genuine feedback. It also presents an opportunity for the employees to leave on a positive, friendly note while maintaining mutual respect and good relationship with the employer. So the goal of an exit interview, from the side of an employee, is to leave the organization in a dignified manner.
From the organization point of view, the primary aim is to obtain genuine feedback from the departing employee and use the same to strengthen the enterprise. To be more specific, some enterprises consider it a decent act of giving a formal and pleasing farewell to the departing employee. Some believe that it is a healthy sign of promoting the right kind of organization, culture and environment. Others understand it as a chance to obtain vital information with regard to various aspects of the organization and management and use them to formulate effective HR policies and practices. Some enterprises take it as an opportunity to obtain and transfer useful knowledge, contacts, insights, tips and experiences from the departing employee to all those who need to know it, especially successors and replacements. There are organizations who have used the concept of exit interview to retain a valuable employee who would otherwise have left them.
Several organizations have not shown any interest towards the exit interview till now because of various petty reasons such as negative attitude towards the departing employee, having an impression that the departing employee always gives negative feedback, not been practicing in the past, difficulty in conducting such an interview; lack of courage to accept facts and believing that it is not a way to strengthen the organization. But the trend is relatively different today; more and more organizations are coming forward to adopt this kind of practice as they believe it contributes to the growth and development of the enterprise.

Is it a Must?

The decision whether or not to participate in an exit interview is ultimately up to the departing employee. There is no compulsion that every departing employee should participate in it. Some reputed companies honor the decision of the employees even if it is negative to the exit interview and some companies insist on the participation of the departing employee. Opinions have been divided over the participation of the departing employee in the exit interview.
Some HR Consultants stated that it is a great opportunity to the departing employee to leave his genuine feelings, impressions on various aspects of the organization and management, and to leave the organization in a dignified manner. Some practicing managers, on the other hand, categorically state that although it doesn't help the departing employee much, it definitely helps the sincere employers to improve the working conditions for the rest of the people who are still working. So, it is the responsibility of every departing employee to share his genuine feelings before leaving.
Some career experts argue that exit interviews hurt the career prospects of the departing employee rather than helping him/her. Some departing employees in the exit interviews lose their temper, raise their voice and are prone to outbursts. This, in a way, puts a black mark on the career prospects of the departing employee. Some practicing HR managers confess that there are cases where companies take the sincere feedback of the departing employee in a negative way and spoil their prospects by giving negative information during a background check. Some affected employees revealed that the hidden purpose of an exit interview was to help the employers avoid costly litigations from departing employees in the sense that some companies use the feedback provided by the departing employee as evidence in court.

The Process

An organization that wishes to carry out the concept of `exit interview', should be very clear about certain aspects such as `who are responsible for this event, who will organize it, in what way it is to be conducted, what the aspects are that are to be highlighted in the interview, at what time it is relevant,' and so on and so forth.
With regard to the responsibility of handling an exit interview, a majority of the organizations have been entrusting this responsibility to HRD. HRDs of various organizations normally take up issues relating to the exit interviews such as issuing guidelines, designing and drafting questionnaires, execution of interviews, collection of information, maintaining confidentiality, analysis of the data, reporting the findings to the concerned people, etc.
Companies differ in their practices when it comes to the method of conducting this kind of interview. Some companies stick to the traditional practice of conducting it verbally or face to face. Career experts believe that face to face interaction is the best form of conducting an exit interview when compared with others because it enables better communication, understanding, interpretation, etc., and it provides far better opportunity to probe and get to the root of the sensitive or reluctant feelings. Some companies designing and drafting questionnaires meticulously, send it to the departing employees either by post or through e-mail and get the required feedback from them.
Whatever may be the method or practice of conducting the interview, the significant aspects here are what kind of questions are to be posed and in what sequence/order they are to be posed. So the effectiveness and usefulness of the exit interview depends basically on these two aspects. HRD should take utmost care in designing as well as executing these questions to get genuine feedback from the departing employee. Aspects that are to be highlighted in the exit interview questions are:
• Personal likes and dislikes (towards organization).
• Personal likes and dislikes (towards job).
• Effectiveness of selection procedure.
• Usefulness of the training and development programs.
• Performance evaluation practices.
• Compensation practices.
• Interpersonal relations with superiors, peers and subordinates.
• Stress levels.
• Opportunity for advancement.
• Company policies, procedures, methods and systems.
• Motivational practices.
• Career prospects within the company.
• Environment at workplace.
• Personal efforts to change certain aspects.
• Main reasons for leaving.
• Other significant reasons for leaving.
• Suggestions to improve the situation.
• About personal recommendation to friends and relatives about the organization.
• Future cooperation.
HR department should draft the questions for the exit interview by highlighting the above issues; and it is better to execute it in the same sequence to obtain proper feedback from the departing employee. Generally, most of the organizations entrust the responsibility of executing this event to skilled interviewers in HRD/Personnel department. Some organizations utilize the services of some senior employee who is in no way concerned with the departing employee to maintain neutrality. Whoever be the neutral person, what is most important is that he/she should be trained to interview, just as for normal job interviews.
Another important dimension with regard to the exit interview is that it should be conducted in the best interests of the organization. It should not be in any way misappropriated. One should not intimidate the departing employee in the name of an exit interview. If it is used with ulterior motives, the very purpose of the exit interview will be lost. While conducting this kind of interview, the organization should instill the necessary confidence in the departing employee that it is in no way misappropriated or it will not get into the wrong hands. Confidentiality is to be maintained in such a way that even the departing employee's immediate boss does not come to know about the feedback provided by him.
After securing the required information from the departing employee through the exit interview, the information should be analyzed properly and some relevant inferences should be drawn from it. Mere drawing of inferences about the various facets of organization and management is of no use at all, if it is not followed by appropriate action. Depending on the nature of issues raised during the exit interview, every organization should be ready to take certain concrete steps to correct those mistakes, if any, or stop the recurrence of such problems by taking certain preventive measures.