Tricks Of The Trade: Prepping For An Interview

By James C. Elledge, IFMA Fellow, CFM, FMA, RPA, RIAQM
Published in the April 2008 issue of Today’s Facility Manager

Q Iam interviewing for a position with a medium sized holding firm thatspecializes in cold storage. In my first interview with this company,the question was asked, “How would you handle your first week here?” Iwas somewhat at a loss for words. How would you answer this question,having had years of experience in this field?

Brian Harrier
Claybridge Farm

A Ifthe position has little direct supervision, your first week would bespent on learning as much as possible about the property. You’d want toschedule a complete walk through (or several, if there are multipleproperties) as well as visits with maintenance staff and/or vendors toget a snapshot of the properties’ condition and maintenance history.You’ll need to demonstrate you are quite capable of managing propertiesand want to understand what it is you are going to manage.

Afterthe walk through is complete, you’ll want to review the current andpast budgets as well as capital improvement plans. This will give youan assessment of how well the properties have been maintained (orneglected) in the past.

By suggesting these steps, you wouldassure the interviewer that you would not require a lot of hand holdingif you were selected for the position.

Elledge,facility/office services manager for Dallas, TX-based Summit AllianceCompanies, is the recipient of the Distinguished Author Award from theInternational Facility Management Association (IFMA), is an IFMA Fellow, and isa member of TFM’sEditorial Advisory Board. All questions have been submitted via the “Ask TheExpert” portion of the magazine’s Web site. To pose a question, visit this link.