How interviews help you understand your strengths and weaknesses?

Of all the Human Resource Management functions, staff selection is arguably one of the most important and vital. In this process, the “interview” tool and technique helps in assessing potential employees’ “fit” in the organization. The 2-fold advantage of such interviews is: assisting in employee selection, and — for the candidates — realizing their own potential. Every time an individual attends an interview, it makes them a better person in terms of career growth by making them more competent, confident, ready and willing to take up challenging assignments. ‘No one is perfect’ and everyone has strengths and weaknesses at their own level. These play an important role during the interview sessions that an individual experiences.

The essential qualities of a person that surface during an interview session are:

• Personality
• Attitude
• Knowledge through education
• Self developed knowledge/Tacit knowledge
• Skills 

These five qualities are a face value portrayal of the basic characteristics of an individual. Among these virtues, most people usually score well on knowledge through education and skills. This is because it is imbibed by us through coaching, while the other qualities are made up of talents, concentration and mental quickness. These qualities, which decide the strengths and weaknesses of any individual, are developed over a period of time and vary from person to person. 

When the interviewer and the candidate meet for a job interview, the demeanor, body language and mannerisms of the candidate are observed. Under these circumstances, it becomes very important to keep up the positive note within us. This will not only create positivism within the candidate, but also in the surrounding environment. It is this positivism that takes people far ahead in life and especially in a career. 

Secondly, the determining factor of one’s personality is attitude. At times the knowledge and talent that an individual acquires blinds them to the world of humanity and this may be termed an ‘attitudinal problem’. This is a common weakness that many people develop because it becomes difficult for them to handle the power they are vested with. This is one characteristic that is very difficult to overcome and becomes obvious in one’s behavior.

It is not necessary that an individual has to get through every interview that they attend, but every interview brings out a better individual to face the next one. Both success and failure during interviews can help an individual understand their own strength and weaknesses. It helps too in leveraging success factors and working on areas needing development. Hence, each interaction like these helps in shortening the learning curve.