So you have an amazing resume. Next up is, for most applicants, the most terrifying and stressful stage of a job application - the interview. We speak to some of the top recruiters in Malaysia. Here are their best-kept secrets and hacks that have proven to work in every single interview.

Know your audience – Familiarize yourself with the company, its presence, core business, its financials, and just as importantly, your interviewer/s. Doing your research prior to an interview shows interest and effort. Checking out your interviewers profiles on LinkedIn can be useful for getting a positive word in or gaining backdoor insight into his/her style of interviewing if you have mutual connections. The more you understand about the company, the more you are able to sell yourself in a way that resonates with its business, challenges, and work culture.

Structure your answers for impact – Preparing for an interview is easier with an outcome-focused resume. Yet that is less than half the battle won. How you share your experience matters just as much, if not more. We recommend the STAR method of discussing your achievements: Briefly summarize the Situation (S), state the Task at hand (T), elaborate on specific Actions (A) you took that moved the needle, and tie it all up with your Results ®. Not sure how to make this method work for your unique experiences? Engage us for a 1-on-1 coaching session that focuses on how to deliver your message with impact using this model.

Win at Competency-based interview questions – Questions like these are the most difficult to nail, and tend to benefit people who think fast on their feet. And what if you aren’t one of those? Our career experts recommend making a list of key competencies that matter to the job you are interviewing for, and can brainstorm with you on 1-2 solid examples to cite for each competency or skill set. The more you rehearse your answers, the more confident you feel.

Impress with questions – An interview always works two ways. You too, need to decide if this company is worth joining. When doing your research about the job and company, prepare a list of strong, burning questions that you need answered during your interview. Never wait till the end of your session to ask them. Asking well-researched and intelligent questions forces your interviewers to sell the company and job to you, making it far more likely that they leave the interview with a positive impression of you. It’s the oldest psychological trick in the book: to make people like you, get them to do something for you.

Own the room – Practice in front of a mirror, role-play with someone you trust, pay attention to all verbal and non-verbal cues that you use when speaking. Interviewers make hiring decisions in the first 2 minutes of the interview. As such, you want to own the room with strong eye contact, a solid handshake, a steady tone of voice, an upright posture, and a confident aura. Our career specialists will work with you on specific things to do and not do in the first few minutes of an interview to make a lasting impression.

As someone who interviews countless candidates every day and preps them before putting them in front of a hiring committee, I'm a fan of both answers but it really depends on your specific context too.

Leaving for business reasons as you mentioned is typically a watertight answer but definitely prepare to answer the question of why not wait to receive your MSS/VSS before looking out. Obviously if it's a last-in first-out situation for you then by all means mention that your separation package won't amount to a lot and you'd like to keep your options open early. The only potential downside or risk with this reason for leaving is that a future employer may use it to negotiate you down when it comes to making an offer. Hence you really want to make sure you are also interviewing at other companies so you can time your offers, if lucky.

With the 'new challenge' answer, definitely be ready to specify what you mean exactly. Are you looking for bigger exposure, a regional scope, trying out a new technology or job function that complements your current one, do you want to manage people? Many possibilities. Just never leave it at 'new challenge' as I absolutely hate it and always force candidates to specify. If they cannot convince me as a recruiter, they are not going to convince the hiring team. The other thing to do is to prepare also to explain why your current job/company won't be able to offer you these challenges that you seek.

So I've been on both ends before, as a headhunter and right now as an APAC recruiter for a chemical MNC.

The short answer to your first question is that there is very little difference where the candidate is from so long as either way, you are being put in front of a hiring committee and interviewed.

The only instance that it matters is I find sometimes that agency candidates are assumed to be automatically better by HR themselves or the hiring team. There is a popular perception that agencies or headhunters are market experts who have candidate databases geared specifically towards a particular job function or industry, eg. a headhunter who only hires Plant Managers for the manufacturing sector in Malaysia.

Now this is mostly true, but I'd say it also depends on how strong the internal recruiter is at sourcing for talent and influencing her hiring managers.

In terms of salary negotiations, I'd say that having an agency or headhunter broker a deal tends to work to a candidate's advantage vs. negotiating on their own with the company. This is based on my experience negotiating salaries with candidates in Malaysia and noticing how lousy most people are at pushing for what they deserve.

An interview that is an hour or more tends to be a very good sign. Of course, the odds can still be stacked against you for reasons that have nothing to do with you, eg. the interviewer later meets another candidate and they have mutual friends, or there was an internal applicant, or the role got canceled, or the job specs change and you're no longer the best candidate for the role.

Now that doesn't mean though that an interview that is less than an hour in length is a bad sign. It's just a longer interview is more likely a good sign, than a shorter interview is a good sign.

So I've been on both ends before, as a headhunter and right now as an APAC recruiter for a chemical MNC.

The short answer to your first question is that agency candidates can sometimes stand a higher chance of getting shortlisted for interviews vs. direct applicants.

Agency candidates are often times assumed to be automatically better by HR themselves or the hiring team. This is because there is a popular perception that agencies or headhunters are market experts who have candidate databases geared specifically towards a particular job function or industry, eg. a headhunter who only hires Plant Managers for the manufacturing sector in Malaysia.

When your application is being submitted by a headhunter, it is the headhunter's job to convince the hiring managers or HR to shortlist, and they can be quite persistent in doing so for obvious reasons. Now compare that to a direct applicant's limited access to the hiring team or HR.

Now this is mostly true, but I'd say it also depends on how strong the internal recruiter is at sourcing for talent and influencing her hiring managers. As internal recruiters, some of us have targets to work on in terms of reducing hiring costs, to which agency fees contribute A LOT.

What about at the interview stage? There is very little difference where the candidate is from so long as either way, you are being put in front of a hiring committee and interviewed.

In terms of salary negotiations, I'd say that having an agency or headhunter broker a deal tends to work to a candidate's advantage vs. negotiating on their own with the company. This is based on my experience negotiating salaries with candidates in Malaysia and noticing how lousy most people are at pushing for what they deserve.

An interview that is an hour or more tends to be a very good sign. Of course, the odds can still be stacked against you for reasons that have nothing to do with you, eg. the interviewer later meets another candidate and they have mutual friends, or there was an internal applicant, or the role got canceled, or the job specs change and you're no longer the best candidate for the role.

Now that doesn't mean though that an interview that is less than an hour in length is a bad sign. It's just a longer interview is more likely a good sign, than a shorter interview is a good sign.

Have you tried sending a friendly email to the recruiter or hiring manager/s? Thank them for their time, emphasize how excited you are about joining the organisation, and ask if they've made a decision regarding your application.

This 1-2 week waiting period is perfectly normal although I'd say that if you're a yes chances are the employer would've reached out within 2-3 days after an interview.

A few possible scenarios are: the role has been put on hold for business reasons, they had an internal candidate, there were last minute changes to the job specs, they are making an offer to their first choice candidate and waiting for him/her to decide before moving to other candidates like you, the role is still in the midst of being approved, etc. Endless possibilities as you can tell.

Her best bet for now might be to get into taxation even if she doesn't enjoy it, and later on request for a transfer into accounting. The Big 4 or second tier accounting firms tend to have large enough departments that might allow that.

A few other things to try:

1. Leverage your network and her network. It is generally easier to get a job with someone referring you in as you get the 'skip the queue' so to speak.

2. Be as open to other kinds of opportunities for now: entry-level work, part-time, contract positions, internships, trainee programs. The longer a candidate is unemployed, the harder it is to be employed. Funny but true, something I noticed after years of recruiting people in Malaysia.

3. Get her to focus not just on job hunting but also on picking up the skills necessary or critical to the job she wants to do. Not sure which kind of accounting she wants to get into, but are there certifications, online courses, diplomas, or professional accreditation that she can obtain in the meantime? When jobless and seeking jobs, I find it's useful to limit say 2 hours daily to the search, and spend the bulk of your time instead on gaining and sharpening the skills that will get you the job you want. Also helps with the sanity. Extra true if you are looking to switch career paths.

4. Does she have a proper and updated LinkedIn profile? If not do it already. Plenty of LinkedIn hacks you can find here, here, and here.

5. It sounds like her issue isn't getting shortlisted for interviews, but getting the job after interviews. You're on the right track already doing simulations and plenty of practice with her prior. There's plenty of free tips out there - read Glassdoor reviews or other forum, learn from mistakes, and just don't give up.

https://www.careersifu.com/interviewing-sec...d-awesome-jobs/

https://www.careersifu.com/psychological-ha...-in-interviews/

https://www.careersifu.com/30-minute-linked...at-lunch-today/

https://www.careersifu.com/optimizing-your-...and-executives/

Typically we are recruiters hate that candidates have more than one option at hand, but actually as a candidate that's amazing news!

I also wouldn't recommend accepting an offer and then changing your mind, but given your current circumstance (of leaving your previous company without a job and needing a job soon which makes sense), you can try to tell company B that you're at interview stage with other companies and would like to buy some time.

Now if it's a bigger company you might be able to get away with that. But it also sounds like company B is a smaller or local set up, which tend to want people now / immediately / yesterday and probably will try to give you an 'exploding offer' - or an offer that has a timeline during which you MUST decide (2-3 days for example). Which is never fair lah to a candidate if you ask me. But that's just one trick of locking candidates in by threatening to pull back an offer if they don't take it within a set time frame.

So yes your best bet is to take B's offer first, and then kick some ass at company A's interview. If company A wants to make you an offer, use B's offer as leverage to ask for more since you have nothing to lose.

Alternatively, get in touch with company A. See if they can accelerate your interview process, move the interview to this week itself, or try a phone/video interview if the interviewer is traveling. Say you have an offer at hand and would like to be able to make comparisons. Weird psychological trick but works all the time - the more wanted you come across by the labour market, the more a future employer will find you desirable.

And if you take A's offer finally, be the most polite person ever and apologise profusely to the HR and hiring team at company B. Who knows maybe you're so good, company B makes another offer to sweeten the deal for you relative to company A's offer - then that's a happy ending. Either way, candidates are entitled to change their minds even after accepting an offer. How you do it though matters a lot. There's a special place in hell for those that don't bother informing the employer until hours, days or weeks before they are supposed to join.

As soon as you have decided, tell the company immediately that you have opted to turn down their offer because another role that is a better for what you are looking for in terms of prospects, scope, career path, whatever, has just been offered to you. Thank them for their time, recommend another candidate, etc. Be insanely polite because the world is a super small place!

Now what if company B wants you to also start tomorrow? Given you are jobless right now, you should be able to join ASAP right?

If they desperately need you by tomorrow, and company A isn't able to change your interview schedule, then start by all means. But pay attention to what the notice period is for employees that resign while on probation as that's probably the notice you have to give to company A if they actually make an offer to you that you want to accept.

You can say you are able to start a bit later at company A because of travels, family reasons, personal projects, whatever. But honesty works fine too - say you needed the money and security, and so went with the most rational thing to do which is to start at the other company. Don't imagine why any hiring manager will get pissed with a reason like that, and if they do that's a red flag right there.

Most of the time a KIV is a polite way to say second-best or rejected pile that we may revisit if the current pool turns down our offer so honestly that isn't great news.

It sounds like you're a fresh grad which is probably why there's an enrollment period?

No recruiter will wait to make an offer to a candidate that the hiring team is already happy to hire, even if the start date is Jan 2020. In fact if they were going to hire you, they'd want to get you to sign the offer letter ASAP as a way of making you commit to the job and not shop around anymore.

So best thing to do is assume the worst (and secretly hope for the best) and just apply like crazy for other trainee programs or internships/entry level/contract roles.

How old are you by the way / how many years have you been working for?

Definitely take offer B. A few reasons:

1. Offer A is taking way too long - at my company we run mandatory background, reference, and medical checks, in addition to assessments, before issuing offer letters to candidates. Even so, that process doesn't take 3 weeks. You definitely want to check in with HR to find out what's happening. Did they change their mind about you? Is the role on hold? Did you not pass the background check for whatever reason? Whatever their reason for stalling, you have every right to know. Just say you have a competing offer.

2. Your immediate superior (esp. if you report to someone in the same office/locally) matters FAR more than people think. If you have good chemistry already with this hiring manager, that's a damn good sign. With offer A you don't even know who you'll be reporting to. What if you hate that person? Can you afford to move once more to another company in such a short space of time?

3. Never shy away from challenges especially if you're an early career to mid-career professional. Think long-term career prospects rather than the short-term pain that comes with challenges. The more you get to do now, the bigger your pain, the more you learn and master, the faster you also progress in general.

4. Earlier on in your career, better to be a big fish in a small pond because you get to do and learn more. Hence offer B. Later on in your career when you care about title, perks, and prestige and have learnt how to maneuver complex office politics, be at the Fortune 500 companies or the fatcats.

You've listed some really good points which show you are smart enough already to evaluate an offer not just in monetary terms, let us know what you decide in the end, I'm curious.

Hope that helps!

There's no wrong or right paths either way!

Which offer did you end up taking?