Job interview lesson from Obama

As you will probably be aware, Americans will be going to polls next month to elect a new president that will run their country for the next four years. President Barack Obama is seeking re-election and his main opponent is Mitt Romney, representing the Republican Party. As is always the case with American elections, this has been a very gruesome competition. Reports indicate that huge sums of money have been put into the election.

This is so because the stakes are very high. Competing for or bidding for the presidency over America should be viewed like bidding for a chief executive officer (CEO) job for a company bigger than any company we know on earth. The CEO of USA Limited is a very important person and so becomes very powerful. This fact makes the candidates for this top job to prepare thoroughly for the election process.

One of the big stages of the election cycle for the USA presidency is the presidential debates, when the final candidates face each other on stage and are asked numerous policy and manifesto questions by a convenor. This debate is broadcast live on television. The first of the three presidential debates for this year’s election occurred on October 3.

As is usually the case, many people rated and compared the performances of President Obama and Governor Romney in the debate. The majority of the people who watched the debate thought Romney was the overall winner. I watched the debate, but being a very staunch supporter, if not a big admirer of Obama, I preserve my opinion for fear of being viewed biased.

However, there is one thing that I want us to pull out from the pundits and then customise it to the situation of applying a big lesson from Obama to our real career situations. Basically, in the presidential debate, Obama and Romney were going through one in a series of job interviews for the office of CEO for USA Limited. Several analysts said that while Obamas performance during the bulk of the debate could have been done much better by him, he did a splendid job on the final question.

The final question sought general last comments from each of the candidates. This was an open-ended question and one that any candidate would ordinarily expect to be asked on. The analysts claimed that Obama did very well on this question because he had expected the question, he had planned his answer thoroughly and he had probably rehearsed his answer several times. I agree.  And, this takes us to typical job interviews.

When you go for a job interview, there are questions that you cannot predict to be asked on. However, there are a couple of questions that you almost definitely expect to be asked. Learning from Obama, we can prepare thoroughly for the questions that we expect to be asked so that in case we do not perform outstandingly on the other unexpected questions, we could compensate with the polished and outstanding answers to the expected questions.

Some of the areas that we would expect to almost always be asked about in a job interview include:

a)  Our knowledge about the recruiting organisation

b)  How and why we think we fit in the job advertised

c)  Why should the recruiting company employ you and not any of the other candidates

For any job that you are bidding for, do your best to prepare thoroughly and to rehearse many times your answers to the three questions above, among other questions that you definitely expect to be asked about. Good luck as you work to implement a big lesson that we have drawn from Obama’s job interview for the position of CEO of USA Ltd.