Human Resource (HR)

Let’s face it most of us wouldn’t work for anyone else if we didn’t need the money. So money is an important part of the employment relationship. If your current salary is far below the salary range of the job that you are interviewing for, the hiring manager will want to understand why. Perhaps your current employer pays below market rate$ Or, it could mean that your skill set isn’t as developed as the job requires. If you are selected for a job that pays significantly more than you are currently making an employer may make you a salary offer that falls near the bottom of the salary range. The reason that some employers do this is so that they have more latitude to reward you for good performance with merit increases and promotions than if they had paid you at the top of the salary range. If your current salary is higher than the range for the job you are interviewing for, you may not want to interview for a job that pays so much less. On the other hand, maybe you are willing to take a pay cut to join a really elite team. If that is the case this topic needs to be discussed in an interview.

This is the classic question most of us hear during an interview. It’s often preceded by the phrase, “I’ve already interviewed another person for this position who looks perfect.” Then the killer question, “Why should I hire YOU$”

Be careful to avoid clever retorts or comedic one-liners here. Your interview is serious business and a wrong answer will send you packing. This is, in fact, the one question that interviewers like to ask because the answer can so easily separate the contenders from the also-rans. Give a wrong answer and the large “Game Over” sign flashes above your head.

What they really want to know is, “What’s special or different about you$”, or “How are you different than all the other candidates who have applied for this position$”. With this in mind, a good way to approach your answer here is to launch into your best “story” that answers this question, “Will you go the extra mile$”

Why is the employer asking why they should hire you$ Because there are only 5 areas of interest that they have about you as a candidate:

1. Your skills

2. Your knowledge about the company

3. Your manageability

4. Your affordability

5. Whether you can go above and beyond your job description.

Develop some initial thoughts about problems the company might be facing and how you and your expertise represent solutions.

Clarify your value.

What do you have to offer$ Think about what you know, what you can do, and how you can help a company. Make a list of the three, four, or five most important assets you bring to the table and be sure you phrase these in terms of value/benefit to the company, not simply knowledge or experience. For example, “five years of experience in business development within IT services industry” is not particularly meaningful to an employer. Instead, phrase it this way: “five-year track record of developing new IT services business with Fortune 1 clients in every major market in the Midwest.” Now that’s something a company will be interested in acquiring.

You might come up with six, ten, or even more areas of value or expertise. (Hint: Most of these should be present in your resume.) In preparing for your interview, pare your list to those that are most relevant to the company and the position at hand. Focus your interview preparation on these critical areas.

Prepare CAR stories that communicate your value.

All is not lost! Just because they know your current salary or salary expectations doesn’t mean you can’t negotiate for a fair market value.

Once you’ve broken the sound barrier, so to speak, on your salary, you at least have one advantage: no more tug-o-war between you and your potential employer about revealing salary.

If salary bumped you out of interviewing, it will be hard to gain reentry at all, and even if you do, it might be at the price of an informal pre-interview agreement that if chosen, you’ll consider a pay cut.

If you’re still in the running, however, your “disclosed” circumstances make it doubly important to do your research well. In this case, you don’t need to address salary again until there’s an offer. At that point use researched facts, not your past salary, to substantiate your salary request.

When they’ve decided on YOU, that is, when they’re making you the offer, not your competitor(s), then it’s time to make the move away from the number you disclosed to your ideal compensation. Don’t let your past salary be the starting point for negotiations. Let your own satisfaction and joy of receiving great pay is the motivating force behind you at this point.

Posted in EJB Interview Questions, HR Interview Questions

Because an EJB consists of multiple “parts”, inheritance is achievable in a rather limited fashion (see FAQ answer on inheritance here). There have been noteworthy suggestions on using multiple inheritance of the remote interface to achieve polymorphism, but the problem of how to share method signatures across whole EJBs remains to be addressed. The following is one solution to achieving polymorphism with Session Beans. It has been tried and tested on Web Logic Apps Server 4.50 with no problems so far.

We will use an example to show how it’s done. Say, there are 2 session beans, Tiger and Lion that share some method signatures but provide different implementations of the methods.

• Animal Home and Animal are the home and remote interfaces. The signatures of the polymorphic methods are in Animal.

• Animal Bean is the base implementation bean.

• Tiger Bean and Lion Bean extend from Animal Bean. They may override the methods of Animal Bean, implementing different behaviors.

Do your homework before the interview! Spend some time online or at the library researching the company. Find out as much as you can, including products, size, income, reputation, image, management talent, people, skills, history, and philosophy. Project an informed interest; let the interviewer tell you about the company.

Tell me about yourself.

Since this is often the opening question in an interview, be extra careful that you don’t run off at the mouth. Keep your answer to a minute or two at most. Cover four topics: early years, education, work history, and recent career experience. Emphasize this last subject. Remember that this is likely to be a warm-up question. Don’t waste your best points on it.

You should be able to discuss products or services, revenues, reputation, image, goals, problems, management style, people, history and philosophy. But don’t act as if you know everything about the place. Let your answer show that you have taken the time to do some research, but don’t overwhelm the interviewer, and make it clear that you wish to learn more.

You might start your answer in this manner: “In my job search, I’ve investigated a number of companies.

Yours is one of the few that interests me, for these reasons…”

Give your answer a positive tone. Don’t say, “Well, everyone tells me that you’re in all sorts of trouble, and that’s why I’m here”, even if that is why you’re there.

You should know enough about the company’s style to know that your management style will complement it. Possible styles include: task oriented (I’ll enjoy problem-solving identifying what’s wrong, choosing a solution and implementing it”), results-oriented (”Every management decision I make is determined by how it will affect the bottom line”), or even paternalistic (”I’m committed to taking care of my subordinates and pointing them in the right direction”).

A participative style is currently quite popular: an open-door method of managing in which you get things done by motivating people and delegating responsibility.

As you consider this question, think about whether your style will let you work happily and effectively within the organization.