Taking an original approach to a job interview - Germany

I had a few applications in the past few weeks, and usually all these interviews go like „I will tell you about the company first, and then you can tell something about yourself“. Basically these interviews are so enormously standard in terms of how it goes, and that got me thinking about the following thing, which I am not sure if I should do this.

Since I am applying for pre-sales positions in the IT market, I need to be able to present my technical skills, as well as my sales skills. My idea is to prepare an interview as a presentation of myself, as if I was selling a product to a customer. Maybe a few slides (on paper or on my laptop) to show what I have done, how I have done this, and in the same time to show my communication and presentation skills.

Back home, something like this would affect interviews most of the time in a very positive way, as they see it as being original and creative, but as Germans could be a bit more formal, could something like this be successful?

Let them do their thing, briefly introduce yourself and tell them about your presentation. If they say, fire away! then show it. If not, don't.
Next!

Try it, if it works good, if it doesn't go back to being stuffy. But it is polite to listen and appear interested when they explain about the company. This doesn't just happen in interviews, but any kind of relationship exploration

That was the word I was looking for

Better than that, I reckon do a talkie movie into the camera and set it up as an MPEG video on you laptop. Walk in, say hello and then get the movie running whilst you nip off for a coffee.

If it would have been that easy, I could compress it to DivX, send it over, call them up to say hello and to tell there's a file on the way, so I don't even have to take the time of going there...

my view for what it is worth
tell them about what you know about them, and don't wait for them. (web research works)
then ask about exactly what they want, and question it. (normally they actually dont have a clue)
then tell them which bits you can't do (gets it out of the way at the start of the interview and they will forget by the end)
then the bits you can do

also depends on if its face to face or a telephone, if its a telephone I generaly ask if they have net meeting or some sort of file share and ask if they have video confrencing, mostly they so no, it changes the control of the interview from them to you when they dont have the technology

if its face to face take a lap top and have downloaded the web site and have all there data infront of you

Hey sparty,

having done my fair share of interviews in the past few months ( fresh off the market) and seen all my friends do interviews recently, I can assure you that it aint as 'stuffy' in Germany as it is generally made out to be. I personally did those 'selling myself' presentations thrice, two of those occasions being on the interviewers request. Since it is IT, I'd expect folks to give you much more freedom. A 'tip' though is to keep those presentations a bit formal, because I was told once that my presentation was a bit too 'loud' for Germany.

Good Luck

Companies should strive to make the interview process as fair as possible, and so yes, this does mean going through the standardized parts of an interview so that every candidate is assessed against a set of fair basic parameters. Like it or not...

But, initiative is a valuable commodity and so if you have the opportunity to set yourself out from the rest of the pack, then do it. Certain industries (e.g. media, design) encourage candidates to bring in their own portfolio of work , provided it does not violate previous employer/intellectual property rights etc ...

However, remember to always check how the interview process will run before you get there. E.g. if they are doing back-to-back interviews, you'll want to really stand out from all those applicants of the same day without demanding extra interview time from the interviewers. And voila - you've also demonstrated effective time management!

Ask at least if the interview will be split up into sections - this normally illicits either a yes/no response, or a very general indication of what will be covered. Based on that you should be able to quite neatly work out when is the best time to have your "moment" for your presentation.

Skills are increasingly being validated on-the-spot during interview via practical exercises, and I have been involved in a number of interviews where "complete task xyz" was woven into the interview schedule. Normally you'd be informed of assessment components before coming to interview, unless of course the element of surprise "Now, please get up and give me a presentation on topic xyz etc..." is part of the assessment criteria.

Demonstrating your (relevant) IT skills directly is also a great way of substantiating to the interviewers what was mentioned in your initial application for the position.

Depends on the company and your feel of the people interviewing you.

If you are going to try that try it first on a critical but friendly audience and then if possible try it in an interview where you don't care if you don't get the job.

A sad but true fact is making sure you know something about football won't hurt since if it comes up it is a sign they like you and will try to go further (had this twice).

Hey Sparty,

I like your idea, I really like it.

I am a senior recruitment Consultant in Munich - I specialise in IT presales and senior sales roles etc, and I think your idea is a complete gem. Go for it

When I interview top applicants (and a lot in a week) everyone starts sounding the same and to be honest it becomes very boring. With what you are thinking of doing I think will give you a very good chance to get in the top list for a new job

Good luck

I recently 'saw' one of the 'selling myself' presentations, and I thought it was pretty cool, however I would say a couple of things.

The guy I saw went on for 25 mins... too long!! he only had 10 slides, but it went on.

Second point is related to the first, if you think it is cool to do, it may be that so do a lot of others, and if the interviewer has 5 of these in a day, it is pretty tiring. You are forced to listen because the candidate is expecting you to question his ppt... unlike any normal meeting ppt when you can switch off and just try to listen for key words etc...

just my 5 pennies..

PS, I didn't hire him, but not 'cos of the presentation