Interview Prep - We Are EPC

Congratulations! You've been invited to do an interview with our organization. Now what?

That’s actually a question a lot of people have, especially early in their careers. Then it’s usually followed by things like, “What will they ask me?” or “What should I wear to the interview?”

Let's start with our HR Mission:

To create and foster a stable, inclusive, diverse, and rewarding work environment complete with growth and development opportunities for all levels of employees throughout the organization. We recognize and reward employees based on our Core Values, and in return we expect employees to maintain respect and appreciation for coworkers across the organization.

So that brings us here: To you!

Up to this point, someone in our organization believes you align with our Core Values; either through your work experience, your skills, your expertise or knowledge, your personality, or a combination of these items.

⇓ FIRST THING'S FIRST ⇓

We believe in treating people the right way, and that starts from the very first interaction you have with our organization through the recruiting efforts. We’re respectful, considerate, and accommodating as best as possible. That approach is continued through the interview process and beyond to the offer and pre-hire process, onboarding, active employment, and beyond!

Our hiring process is designed to be quick and to the point. For most positions, the hiring process will consist of a conversation with Human Resources, which might be in-person or via telephone. The second (and typically final) interview is normally in-person or virtual with the hiring manager. This allows us to streamline the process, eliminating required time for the candidate to be away from important things such as family or their current jobs.

We typically interview in two different ways: In-Person or Virtual via Teams. If in-person, you’ll likely be at one of the addresses below for your interview. If you are unsure which location, reach back out to your recruiter to confirm the location.

411 Camp Rd, West Monroe, LA 71291

1110 W First St, Delhi, LA 71232

⇓ THE INTERVIEW PROCESS ⇓

QUESTIONS

What to Wear When to Arrive What to Expect After the Interview

What to Wear

We recommend dressing appropriately for all interviews, regardless the company you’re interviewing with. While this can be interpreted loosely, for us appropriate attire for an interview would be jeans, a polo, and shoes/boots. We recognize the nature of work we do and don’t expect candidates to show in a suit and tie. However, if you’re coming in for an interview for a leadership role, you may want to consider upgrading the jeans to a pair of khakis or similar pants. We recommend this approach regardless the interview format. Being properly dressed, even for virtual interviews, can increase your confidence as you feel more prepared and comfortable when having the interview conversation.

When to Arrive

We love punctuality! Punctuality drives our business and helps us more efficiently plan our days. With that said, we recommend arriving 10-15 minutes prior to your scheduled interview time for an in-person interview, and 3-5 minutes prior to your interview time for a virtual (Teams) interview. Arriving too early can cause you to get bored and frustrated waiting around for the interviewer or interview team, while arriving too late can cause the interviewer or interview team to risk being late to other meetings after your scheduled interview, or having to cut your interview short all together.

What to Expect

This is where things get fun. All of our interviews are behavior-based interviews, used to focus on you, your experiences, your expertise, and how you handle things related to the position for which you’re applying. You can learn more about behavior-based interviews and how to answer them with the EPC Guide on Interview Responses.

Because we want to streamline our interview process, it is likely you’ll experience a panel interview for some roles. We utilize panel interviews to all more conversational design in our interview process as well as help us get the most out of our time, all while wasting as little of your time as possible.

We highly recommend understanding the role for which you’re interviewing. You can do that by familiarizing yourself with the job description for the role, by researching our company and understanding more of what we need, and by preparing examples of things you’ve done in your career to contribute to improvements in prior organizations.

Know who you are and your story. Surely you’ve been in interviews where they asked you to tell them about yourself. We all do it. It’s just a way of breaking the ice and getting the conversation going, but it’s also important for us as interviewers to get you to talking about the types of experiences you’ve had. We can quickly tell the level of involvement you had at each step based on the level of detail you’re voluntarily giving. We want to know specifics too. Give us things you accomplished in those roles, not just the title you held. That’s certainly helps you stand out!

Our interview structure is common throughout organizations. We want to know about you: your skills, experiences, qualifications, educational background, certifications, capabilities, all that fun stuff. This should be a two-way dialogue most of the time, as we’ll be probing on some of the responses you’re giving us. With that said, we want you to feel good about our company and offerings as well. We normally wrap up our interviews by giving the candidate the floor to ask questions. It is absolutely expected, when the interviewer turns things over to you by asking, “Do you have any questions for me/us?” that you have questions.

Asking questions does 2 things:
1. Most importantly, it gives you answers to the questions you have about the company,
leadership, the role, the expectations, etc. This is the reason you’re here.

2. Secondly, asking questions shows the interviewer/s you’re interested in all these things as well. It shows them you’re interested in the company, the leadership, the role, expectations, growth, and everything else that comes with it.

After the Interview

Now that the interview is over, there are a few different things that can happen. Let’s look through each of those scenarios and what the timing looks like.

1. Your interview went well and we want to consider you further for the position, but we have other candidates we’re still considering. When we talked about questions earlier, this is the perfect question you should be asking at an absolute minimum. “What is the next step?”
This gives you understanding of where EPC is in the interview/selection process. We could have 8 candidates for consideration which could take us 2-3 weeks to get through the interview process when you factor in interviewer and candidate availability, schedules, travel, etc. If this
is the case, feel free to reach out after a week or two to check in on the status of the process. Just know, we always send updates to our candidate regardless the decision made.

2. Your interview went well and a) there are no other candidates or b) you’re one of the last candidates to interview for the role. This scenario happens often. Usually, once we conduct the final interview for a position, we can make a decision within 2-3 days and get information out to the impacted candidates shortly after.

3. It was determined you weren’t a good fit for the organization/role based on your skills, background, qualification, or experience. Believe it or not, this decision can be yours or the organizations. That’s the beauty of the interview, you should be evaluating the company to see if this is a place you truly want to work. The employment relationship is mutual, and
appreciating your work culture/environment is just as important as you being a good fit for us.

Now that you’re prepared for your next interview with us, or with anyone for that matter, we wish you the best luck possible and we’re looking forward to meeting with you. In the meantime, you should definitely check out the perks and benefits of working for our organization! You can do that by visiting our Careers page.