5 Kinds Of Interviewers You Will Come Across During Your Job Interviews

Mostly when you are looking for interview tips, the focus is on the type of questions and how to answer them. But one more important aspect of any interview, which is often overlooked, is the interviewer.

The quality of your interview considerably depends on your interviewers’ interrogating techniques and dialogue skills and how you are able to handle them.

To be able to deliver a great interview, you need to identify the type of interviewer first. A quick identification can help you understand their answer requirements and hence hail the interview.

So, based on particular traits and ways of interviewing, we have jotted down the 5 kinds of interviewers you will come across during your job interview(s):

The friendly one

Traits: The interviewer smiles all the way along and makes you feel comfortable. They will crack a joke or two and will patiently give you chances to improve your answer if they do not agree with it. Within a few minutes, it will feel like you had known the interviewer since quite some time and it isn’t actually a formal interview.

How to Handle: Friendly interviewers help lighten the overall decorum of the interview but you need to draw a line and answer appropriately. The interviewer can act as your friend but you are not supposed to reciprocate it. One of the essential interview tips to keep in mind is to not inappropriately reply to their jokes or light remarks. You should be cordial in your tone too but remember throughout the interview that they might be friendly but not your friends!

The Rule Book Type

Traits: They will judge everything from your tie to shoes, to the cover of your document holder. They are a breathing rulebook! So, if you just happened to casually show up for the interview and end up getting one of these, that’s probably a bad news.

How to Handle: Even if you end up wearing an inappropriate tie, make sure you make it up showing you aren’t actually a rule-breaker. And you just need to imply it through your answers (never directly). Be very exact with your answers and go as per industry norms. Do not be casual with these interviewers or try to crack a joke in between.

The Conversationalist

Traits: More than a question-answer session, your interview will feel like an extended conversation. All of it starts with the first question. You answer something and the conversation goes on. It can include instances from your personal life, your professional choices, etc.

How to Handle: These interviews are easy to handle as you just need to go with the flow. However, one of the interview tips you must be aware, and which may help you dearly in this situation is what you are speaking. One of the talents of a loquitous interviewer is to get to know things through these regular conversations.

The Question Mark

Traits: Before you answer a given question, they will shoot up another. It’s not that they have a long list of questions but they will somehow find a new question from your every answer.

How to Handle: Just go with the flow and answer whatever thrown upon. Do not complain or show signs of irritation. You need to be quick with the answers as they might skip a known question because you are taking too much time. Stay calm as it is also one of the ways of the interviewer to test your patience.

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The Uninterested One

Traits: Yes, your interviewer can be indifferent too. Sometimes you might end up blaming yourself but it has nothing to do with you. It might be something personal or maybe he/she was just appointed by their boss to take the interview without them being really involved.

How to handle: You can’t really do anything to gain their interest so just be honest to yourself and answer straight forward. Adding to interview tips for freshers, irritating such interviewers further should be avoided or you might lose the chances of getting the job no matter how qualified you are.

Conclusion

Even though you don’t really need to consider the kind of interviewers for your job interview preparation but the best of interview tips suggests answering questions in a tone and form which syncs with the interviewer’s personality. So, the first task once you enter the interview room should be to identify the kind of interviewer(s) you have got. But be careful not to spend your interview just doing that and missing out on the real thing!

Also Read: Most Common HR Interview Questions With Answers For Freshers