Alex had an impressive résumé. He had excellent grades in school, a string of technical projects that won recognition, and concrete results from his first two jobs. Yet when he interviewed at a new high-tech startup, the company turned him down. Luckily for Alex, he learned the reason for his rejection from an unofficial source — a colleague who didn’t agree with the decision. It turned out that the interviewers thought Alex lacked passion.
Alex had grown up in Hong Kong, where he had been taught to downplay accomplishments and lead with results. Unfortunately, the company where he was interviewing was in the U.S. The interviewers had a blind spot: they believed that passionate candidates would speak loudly and at length about their achievements. Alex needed to figure out how to communicate excitement and commitment in interviews without fundamentally changing his personality or culturally ingrained mannerisms.
Demonstrating passion is not the only predictor of a great job candidate, however hiring managers reference this trait repeatedly in their interview feedback. Here’s how.Most résumés and interview responses are a long list of “what” someone did without ever delving into “why.” Instead of telling hiring managers what you’ve done, begin by explaining your motivations — why you chose that activity — and the impact of your work.
After using these techniques during interviews, Alex was hired by a competitor of the company that had turned him down. At his new job, he worked hard, won five patents, and was a prolific coder. Don’t get overlooked during your next job interview because you don’t display the kind of full-throated, table-thumping behaviors companies tend to equate with passion. Help employers to see the commitment underlying your actions and words. Show them that passion comes in different forms and yields impressive results — the kind of results you’ve already nailed.Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®.
It is ridiculous not hire such a guy in the story..
Passion is important, but it can be faked in an interview. For Technical jobs, Knowledge, & 'Application of Knowledge' is important. Sometimes top rankers have knowledge, but fail in qts related to Application of knowledge
These are good insights, but unfortunately many of the interviewers are beginners, and lack of experience and expertise to assess candidates, many of the interviewers apparently do interviews/selections based on aged guidelines/procedures and other not much reasoning factors.