First impression matters

If I have an appointment with some human resource people to ask for their expert advice and skills for interview, one thing they won’t forget mentioning is that “First impression matters!” Some of them will even tell you that an experienced interviewer will know whether to hire you or not within the first 30 seconds or less. Honestly, I am always skeptical about statement like this from HRs until my very recent project experiences with CitiMortgage.

As I written previously that my project involves with interviewing and hiring new people to an operation center in Illinois. Therefore, I had this great opportunity to sit at the side of the interview table that I am not usually used to and to interview candidates. After conducted over 50 interviews over the past three weeks, I suddenly realized that HR people’s words are true. From the meet and greet moment with candidates to the time they sit down and start to talk, in most cases, both my manager and myself have about 70% of certainty of whether to hire the person or not. The rest of the interview process is about seeking information and clues to justify the decisions that we made in our minds during that first half minute. The interview experience will be extremely valuable and relevant to me for my full time interview process later this year. I experienced the importance about the first impression as an interviewer and I learned few lessons that I should definitely avoid during the interview process from mistakes that others made.

My message to my fellow Rossers, first impression matters a lot, trust me! Every effort should be made to stand you out from others at the beginning of the interviews.

In the following two weeks, I will be in New York for the group projects that involve with all the other summer interns from different business functions in the commercial banking division of Citi. So it should be very exciting and I am definitely looking forward to the group project and good social life in New York.