Chapter 5
Seven Ways to Stand Out During the Interview

Interview preparation is essential. Laying the groundwork for a successful interview minimizes your anxiety and boosts your confidence, as well as your ability to think on your feet and provide the information interviewers need to make an educated hiring decision. Advanced preparation sets you up to deliver concise, competency-filled responses that address the requirements of the open position.

Advanced preparation will also allow you to stand out from the crowd—to differentiate yourself from all the other applicants, most of whom won’t have done their homework. For instance, with a little preparation before the interview, you can determine your personal brand, find ways to control your anxiety, fine-tune your speaking voice to remove kinks or inflections that make you sound unprofessional, choose words in advance that will convey your message while also avoiding words that could sabotage your efforts, refine and reshape overly general statements, and script your answers so they are ready when you need them. This chapter helps you tackle these jobs and run toward the goal line.

Write a Personal Brand Statement

Whether you deliberately shaped your career with a personal brand in mind or not, you are recognized for your specific core competencies and personal characteristics. If your past is replete with proficiencies, you can easily draw a picture of yourself for each interview. If not, then you need to work up an image of yourself that constitutes a substantial brand—one that will be remembered after the interview.

Because your professional reputation hinges on your experience, it is important to follow two steps in creating your personal brand: (1) choose core competencies that describe your experience (revisit Chapter 1 to determine these); and (2) mention specific accomplishments that will pique the interest of a potential employer. Branding statements can also be used as the objective or profile for your résumé. For additional résumé objective samples, revisit Chapter 3.

Here are some examples of branding statements:

Sample 1: Marketing Professional. Comprehensive experience in directing and executing integrated marketing programs, including database modeling, direct mail, telemarketing initiatives, and Web site tracking. Established customer-driven objectives that included acquisition, value increase, and life-long retention.

Sample 2: Senior Consultant. Oversee engagements that involve multi-day, on-site interviews with key client team members from various departments, gathering data on policies/practices for record retention/management, regulatory compliance, and data review/production regarding legal data discovery requests. Contribute to the development of comprehensive recommendations to strengthen underperforming areas. Proven experience in negotiating services packages for deployment of e-mail archiving and electronic discovery solutions.

Sample 3: Sales Manager. Developed and implemented client acquisition, business development, and marketing strategies. Created partnership channels, secured corporate sponsorships, and participated in business development organizations to drive growth for start-up business.

Sample 4: Operations Management. Results-driven senior operating executive offering over fifteen years of experience and success in driving operational growth, leading start-up and turnaround efforts, maximizing business opportunities, and ensuring compliance w/ legal and regulatory requirements. Recognized agent for change with documented ability to lead reengineering activities that fulfilled strategic objectives. Hold JD and BA degrees.

Reduce Your Anxiety

Anxiety can place a chokehold on your interview performance. This affliction can be especially deadly during a competency-based interview, when you need to show clear understanding of the questions being asked and remain focused while you provide the answers to those questions. Apprehension usually creeps up when you lack the ability to adapt to the interview setting: you are being “tested,” your knowledge or ability is being questioned, you are afraid of failing.

We are all individuals and we have different things that trigger our feelings of anxiety. It is up to you to recognize your own anxiety triggers and learn to minimize them before your heart begins to pound, you feel flushed, or you get tense and start to sweat.

To begin, remind yourself of the preparations you have made to be ready for the interview. There’s another step you can take, once your appointment for the interview is set. Many times jobseekers are so excited to get an interview that they forget to ask who they are interviewing with. When you know the name of the interviewer, Google her name to find any information on the Internet regarding interview questions the person normally asks.

Then, you can control your anxiety to some extent by keeping the following thoughts in mind:

Realize that the interviewer wants you to succeed. She wants the search for a hiree to end just as much as you want a job offer.

Let go of the dream, and focus on the reality. Don’t want the job so desperately before the interview that it clouds your perspective. In truth, you cannot know whether you want the position without discussing the specifics of the job with the hiring manager. For all you know, you may not be impressed by what the company has to offer.

A no result is not necessarily the worst thing that can happen to you because there is nothing worse than accepting a position that is not the right fit. You have probably been stuck in a job in which you did not get along with the manager or your values were not aligned with the corporation; that’s a sticky situation and one that causes great stress. Receiving a no at the get-go may avoid that for you.

Improve Your Speaking Voice

Most of us are surprised to hear our own voice—and often we don’t like how it sounds. Yet your speaking voice is important for a successful interview, that it not sound harsh or squeaky or even be just too loud or too soft. There’s much about your voice you cannot change, but you certainly can make certain you project clarity and confidence at all times.

There are some easy steps you can take to improve the quality of your speaking voice. Beth Mann, of Hot Buttered Media, a full-service media and public relations firm, suggests the following techniques:

Humming. This is one of the easiest and most accessible ways to improve the quality of your voice. Rumor has it that Frank Sinatra used this technique as his only warm-up before singing onstage. To prove its efficacy, speak a sentence prior to humming, then hum for five minutes. Feel your lips vibrate. Hum high, hum low. Then speak the same sentence again. You will notice a cleaner, more forward sound. That is the natural sound and placement of your voice.

Yawning. Could this get any easier? That is right, yawn with sound (that natural “slide” sound from a high note to a low note). Do not feel like yawning? Then fake it. Try this a few times in a row. Notice the relaxed opening in the back of your throat. Most of us restrict this part of our throat, due to stress and fatigue. The idea is to keep the same open “yawn” sensation when we speak throughout the day.

Donkey bray. That is right, donkey bray. (You may want to do this one in private!) Bray like a donkey—let your lips flap together and include sound (similar to the yawn “slide”). Keep your lips loose and relaxed. Do this several times. Follow it up with some facial stretching—smile hard, then relax. Open your face as if to scream, hold for a second, then relax. Finish up with some gentle head rolls. A relaxed face and neck are necessary vessels for a relaxed, assertive voice.

T-time. Enunciation is one of the weakest elements in most of our speech. Making some small changes in the way you pronounce words can change the way you are perceived. True or not, people who enunciate properly are often considered intelligent and well spoken. So how do you start cleaning up your speech? Say the words notice or little. If you “notice,” you probably say something closer to “nodice” and “liddle,” For one day, focus on your Ts. You do not have to overdo it; small changes make a big difference.

Let your words breathe. Most of us have a tendency to speak in a “slurry” manner, sliding one word into another. Pretty soon, an entire sentence sounds like one word! Grab your nearest magazine or newspaper and read from it. Exaggerate each word, focusing on the separate quality of each and every word. While you may not want to speak like this on a daily basis, you will get a sense of what true enunciation is all about.

Be Concise

Words matter—not only the words you choose but also how you put them together. Since competency-based questions require detailed responses, wordiness—or convoluted and excessive language—can be a common result. You must find a balance between providing the detailed information required and speaking directly and simply become aware of common wordy expressions and avoid them. Figure 5-1 provides examples of wordy phrases and their concise equivalents.

Common Words and Phrases to Avoid

The words and phrases you select to communicate your experiences will impact the interviewer’s perception of your qualifications. Certain common words may seem harmless to you, but they can be ammunition that shoots down the listener’s perception of you. When the interviewer is offended by what you say or has a negative reaction to your use of slang, there’s a breakdown in communication. To avoid this problem, familiarize yourself with the following conversational pitfalls that leave an unintentional negative impression.

Figure 5-1

1. Do not refer to women as girls. Though you may not mean harm, the interviewer may view you as sexist or as someone who may have problems working with women. Instead, refer to co-workers and others as team members or use particular job titles. For example, refer to “the receptionist,” not as “the girl at the front desk.” In a similar way, older candidates should avoid referring to younger co-workers as “kids.” This implies a lack of respect for younger team members.

2. Avoid slang. Very casual talk does not have a place in an interview, and that includes bar talk, sports jargon, and all off-color references. Though many people use “you guys” when referring to co-workers in everyday situations, avoid the phrase.

3. Drop “fillers” from your talk. For example, eliminate any habitual use of just and er and like, as these indicate hesitancy and poor expressive ability. Likewise, using the phrases “I think” and “I guess” send a subliminal message that you lack confidence.

4. Eliminate “qualifiers.” We often add small words that modify the meaning of the nouns that follow, but this is a bad habit because these words minimize the impact of those nouns. For example, do not use the word try. The statement, “I try my hardest to satisfy client expectations” is simply not as effective as, “I have a proven track record in client satisfaction.”

Make Specific Statements

Because the purpose of competency-based questions is to solicit in-depth responses, you must steer clear of general statements. As an example, let’s examine a common competency-based question asked of teachers: “Tell me about a time when you were proud to be an educator.” Here are several ways to respond to this question:

Version 1: “When I set up a school-wide talent show.”

Version 2: “When I set up a well-received school-wide talent show where students came together for an evening of rappers, guitarists, pianists, and singers.”

Version 3: “As a new music teacher for the Huntington School District, I coordinated the school’s first Music Talent Show Club. Along with club members, we planned the logistics for an evening show, which featured rappers, guitarists, pianists, and singers. Students, parents, teachers, and administrators were energized, and that enthusiasm was felt throughout the school for several weeks.”

Let’s consider each alternative. Version 1 is bland and stops short of providing the interviewer with a well-rounded picture of the event. Though the interviewer may deduce the reason the talent show is an accomplishment the teacher is proud of, it is up to that teacher to offer an explanation.

Version 2 is an improvement. The answer provides the listener with detail; on the other hand, it does not give the interviewer all the information required to fully appreciate the extent of the teacher’s experience. In both versions, the interviewer will most likely have to ask follow-up questions to solicit more information. And those follow-up questions break the momentum of the discussion. Lastly, version 3 offers all the interviewer needs to know: the situation, the action, and the result (SOAR; see Chapter 2). A well-thought-out response leaves the interviewer with a positive impression of experience.

Script or Outline Your Responses

There is no right or wrong method to prepare your answers for interview questions. It is a matter of preference and comfort. You can choose to script your responses whereby you flesh out your thoughts, or you can create an outline with answers for the questions that may be asked.

There is a sense of security to be gained in writing down, word-for-word, your answers to potential interview questions. This method will make you brainstorm your answers and to think through your work experiences. There’s a caveat, however: becoming too accustomed to delivering perfect answers may cause you to freeze during the actual interview and you may “go blank” when off-the-cuff answers are required. Also, following a script too closely may make you sound stiff. On the other hand, scripting your responses keeps your professional history and accomplishments at the forefront of your thinking. You will find scripted responses in Chapters 6 through 10.

In contrast, outlining your responses—say, on index cards, on which you write a question and a short list of answers—may allow you more flexibility during the interview. With ready answers, during the interview you won’t trip over your words trying to remember every detail. Also, you will sound more natural. See Figure 5-2 for an example of an index card prepared as an outline response.

In short, anything that you can do to make yourself stand out from the other candidates is a step in the right direction. By following the suggestions in this chapter, you will approach the competency-based interview confident and prepared.

Figure 5-2