Interview or Reference?

“Hey hina tomorrow is my interview please pray for me I am very confused and I don’t know what are they going to ask, please guide me and give me some tips for the interview as you have done your MBA in HRM so you must know how they are going to recruit me and what types of questions they going to ask”... “Hold on friend take a deep breath, I am absolutely going to help you in your interview preparation” I replied to my anguish friend who has her first interview tomorrow in an organization.

After spending a number of years in studying people got their degrees and see dreams about their future because this is the time when they going to have the fruits of their hard work. Same situation with my friend she recently passed out from a renowned university with an engineering degree and very excited about her job. She wants my help in her interview as I have done my MBA in HRM and working in an organization as HR officer and she thinks that I know everything about the interviews procedures of the all organization. I asked her to catch brief knowledge about the organization and what is going on in the industry and advice her to take a look of her engineering subject. She did everything to make her interview successful. Next day was her interview and I was worried about her though her preparation was very satisfactory in my view, when she came back from interview she was not much pleased I asked her about his interview and I was surprised the interviewer asked questions mostly from her engineering books not only general terms but each term which she red in her 1st to 8th term. Although she managed to answer most of the question but still interview board penal was not gave her good response. She has been a very good student and has A+ through out her academic career. But I was surprised when they did not select her. What are they looking for? Do they want the candidate to crammed whole syllabus of 4 year of engineering? What are their interview techniques? Or the seat was already booked?

I do not know very much about the interview procedure and surprised to see that most of the things, which I have red in my HR course seems inapplicable in our organizations. Even I gave an interview in an organization for the post of hr officer and I just surprised when they asked question about the pure banking and marketing field. What are the interview criteria in our Pakistani firms? When students passed out from the different universities they applied in various places in a hope to get a job but mostly they failed in interviews. What should they prepare for the interview?

I am still looking for the interview and recruitment criteria applicable in Pakistani firms. I hope I can find the answer but I have observed that in our country most of the selection is unluckily based on reference not on criteria and merit...