There are many indications which tell you whethre your job interview will be successful or not. As there are several steps, I use the following 2 criteria to find out how the potential employer is interested in bringing me into their team.

When they call me after reviewing my resume from the job board or else, they usually call and email me. As they know where I live based on my contact phone number, they either give their 1-800 number or local number if they are within the same area.

Occasionally I find some companies leaving me with their long distance local number, which I need to call long distance call which costs me. Most business has 1-800 number to minimize the cost to the client.

It's an easy indication that to save them little money by having me call long distance, I will be penny-pinched at their location if I'm hired for the project.

I also have a consulting company myself, and I don't ask my clients to call long distance to discuss the business with me, as I provide them with 1-800 number, a collect call or a phone card.

If a potential employer leave me a message with their local number without 1-800 number for an out-of-where I live area, I've stopped to return their call anymore. I used to return their calls regardless of the number, but after years in the industry, I've found that all bad experience with clients started with returning those long distance calls from me.

The second criteria is whether the potential employer pay for the parking when I visit their site for an initial talk or interview.

As I do most of my consulting business in downtown Los Angeles or downtown San Francisco, where the parking is notoriously difficult and expensive, providing parking is a measure on how the employer treat their clients or potential employees. Paying $10 or $15 for a parking is not a burden at all, but I can measure the potential employer's attitude on trying to save (or rip off) potential employee's pocket money. How much can they save it. When they don't provide parking, it says they don't care about the visitor.

During the call to setup an interview, when they say they don't provide parking, and I need to find parking myself, I simply refuse continuing the talk at that moment how the deal looks attractive at that point. After years in the industry, I've found I was treated badly once I was on their premises. I paid for parking to enter their premises and to be treated badly.

In doing any kind of business, clients and potential employees are key in doing their business. Even if they have developed best product, without clients or employees, they will never be able to promote or sell their product to continue their business.

All companies say they care for their clients or employees, but by noticing a simple thing, we can tell whether they are really doing it.

Above two indications are a critical screening tool for me whether to continue talking with them.

There are hundreds of companies I consulted for and talked trying to consult, and there are other indications that the company could not make it at all.

A few companies refuse to compensate for travelling expense. That travel expense was occurred to proceed with the project and they refused to pay for it. They made me to travel to finish up the project and didn't even allow me to turning in expense report. All those companies went bankrupt in a short period time. With such obnoxious attitude, they couldn't hire talents and they couldn't continue with good business.

For good companies, they provide prior arrangement on travel expense on how it should be compensated. For management consulting role, which charges heavily as both parties agreed on, I usually don't turning in expense report, as those were included with the rate we agreed on to start the project.

If there's an unexpected travel expense, they usually advised me how it would be compensated later on. With such prior arrangement, I felt I was treated fairly and appreicated the company's efforts.

Defraying for a parking fee is a part of such case.

Several years ago when I lived in San Jose, one company in LA was hiring actively and tried to recruit all over America for the best talents. But they said they won't compensate for travel expense wherever the candidate was.

Although spending $300 for that interview process was manageable, I didn't like their attitude and refused to go gor an interview, which they kept trying to persuade me to come for an interview at my own expense, as their company was well-funded and treated employees well.

The company didn't make it as I noticed the company's ownership was changed pretty shortly and the business type was changed.

Another inidication is a long delay in decision making to finalize the contract. That means the management or project team doesn't know what they need to do, thus delaying the decision hoping the magic comes into play to make them fee better. The final answer should be either Yes or No in quick time or they should project the certain deadline from the beginning.

Occasionally I gtt calls from some past potential clients or employers whether I was still interested in it, and my flat answer was No regradless of the current situation at the time.

They delayed the decision so much, and by the time they thought they were ready, they couldn't find one they had in mind, and kept calling second candidate, third candidate like that, thus ended up not getting any of their candidates on board at all and starting the initial consulting or interview process again.

As I consulted and visited hundreds of companies in the past, I've found all above mentioned factors inter-related without exceptions. Depending on the situation, I put one of mentioned factors as an exception, but I found the bad pattern easily without exceptions.

(June 1, 2005)

Copyright© 2005 Daniel SW Kim