Communicate Your Way into a Job

So far, this book has focused on knowing, understanding, and applying communication essentials, but this chapter takes a deep dive into how you can communicate effectively in order to get the job you want. More specifically, we will explore how to employ communication essentials when networking, applying, and interviewing.

As a first order of business, consider that communication is both representational (i.e., just the facts) and presentational (i.e., providing purposeful perspective about those facts). Representational communication says, “just the facts, ma’am.” But presentational communication argues that “facts don’t speak for themselves.”

Many job seekers who fail at the application or interview stage may actually be representing themselves well (by conveying accurate facts), but are failing because they don’t present themselves effectively. To win your dream job, you must present yourself, in a way that doesn’t just “represent” the facts of who you are and what you’ve done, but actually motivates others to vouch for you, sponsor you, and hire you.

Importantly, you must be both an ethical communicator who does not misrepresent the facts and a persuasive communicator who presents yourself in a way that enables you to accomplish your career goals. Our word choices and nonverbal cues as well as how we frame and filter information are all examples of presentational communication at play. Scroll through your social media feed for a plethora of examples. While a 24-hour surveillance camera would be representational of my life and give you the play-by-play of my day without any editing, social media uploads are presentational and highlight the facts of my day as I want you to see and interpret them.

Just like social media uploads are a chosen presentation of self, it is expected that job candidates are wisely choosing how to present themselves on paper and in person. When a hiring manager says, “Walk me through your résumé,” I certainly hope you don’t blandly represent each fact of your work history. A savvy communicator recognizes this as the opportunity to present résumé details in a light most favorable for the goal of getting the job. Same is true of your actual résumé. Did you prepare that résumé to be an unbiased representation of your actual experiences at work and beyond? Or, did you emphasize those details that present your professional history in a way that will capture the reviewer’s attention?

For example, consider a first-round interview with a hiring manager who is inquiring about your job history. Candidate A offers an honest representation of the facts as he remembers them: “Yeah, so, after coming out of college, I was finally able to land a job with . . .” Candidate B offers those same facts but provides a more inspiring presentation of them: “Gladly. Coming out of college, I was recruited into an exciting role with a team . . .” Remember, nothing about the facts has changed per se, but the presentation of those facts in just those five seconds has shaped the message.

To be clear, I do not endorse unethical representation of facts. I am endorsing that people represent themselves with honesty and integrity while simultaneously presenting themselves in a way that helps with goal attainment. A person on a date can be authentic and charming all at once. Someone leading a meeting can deliver information ethically and persuasively. So too can a person networking and interviewing for a job.

WORK YOUR NETWORK

I have clients who contact me and say their job searches are going nowhere. They’ve dropped more than 100 résumés and contacted dozens of people, but gotten zero bites. I ask them what steps they’ve taken, and they boast about upgrading their LinkedIn account, searching the site for jobs, and then messaging people (whom they’ve never met or been introduced to) who work at those companies. When I ask to see an example message that they are sending these unknown others, they show me what appears to be something between a talk track for a sales call and a full-blown cover letter. Please note that I don’t know a single person who replies to those messages—because they come across like a phishing scam. It’s possible that some lonely reader will find the message and think, Hey, a new friend, but chances are that person doesn’t have a job lead for you.

If you called to tell me you had only one working day to jump-start your job search, I would advise you to spend 30 minutes or so sipping coffee and dreaming about your career. Next, I’d encourage you to research some of your ideas online and get a sense of trends in the job market. I would then advise you to invest the remainder of your day contacting people in your network to inquire about any possible ideas or opportunities they know about and are willing to share with you. I’d urge you to be straightforward about the fact you are exploring new opportunities and turning to them for advice.

Please note my intentional use of the word “advice,” as opposed to “help.” Dr. John Daly of The University of Texas at Austin taught me many things during my time as his student, and this slight yet important distinction of the words we use is one of them. My attempt to sum up his brilliant lecture is: Whereas asking people for help may immediately feel like you are taxing their time and effort (like you’ve just asked them to help you unpack your U-Haul), asking for advice is to invite them to play the role of a wise sage. Given those options and when appropriate to do so, I prefer to ask for “advice” rather than “help.” Your goal is to convert each interaction into a next step, by saying things like this:

“Javier, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate you chatting with me. Before we say goodbye, I’d really appreciate it if you would give me an action item—something you’d advise me to do or someone you’d encourage me to connect with.”

ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN A ROBUST NETWORK

Of course, the challenge is that you can’t work a network you don’t have. For this reason, it is imperative to get in the habit of establishing and maintaining a robust network. A few years ago, an organization I presided over was hosting a gala. I had invited quite a crowd to attend, which included dignitaries and politicians. Two days after the event, I checked my mail and found a handwritten thank-you card from a well-known congressional leader. He had written to thank me for inviting him and his wife to join my table. He commented on the food, the event itself, and the enjoyable table conversations. He offered to buy me a meal next time we were in the same town. So I took him up on it.

The next month, while joining him for a breakfast taco at his favorite establishment, I inquired about the thank-you card. With genuine curiosity, I wanted to know if he actually wrote it—and if so, how he found time for such things, given the enormous demands on his time. With the kindest smile and twinkle in his eye, he shared that, in fact, he had written the letter. He then showed me his work bag, which included congressional work, a notepad, a newspaper, a very nice pen, and some stationery. He said that he made it a point throughout the day, but mostly in the morning over breakfast, to handwrite notes to a select few individuals he had encountered the day before. As he saw it, this daily habit took very little time, and in exchange, it kept his mind in a state of gratitude and with a focus on other people. As I saw it, he was also establishing a routine for surprising and delighting others around him.

You might not choose to carry stationery with you wherever you go, but I bet you have a smartphone with some pretty handy applications. Try this:

1.   Start a new notebook on your phone where you can log information from your daily interactions.

2.   Each time someone you’d like to stay connected with shares something with you that seems important to him or her, quickly jot it down in your new notebook (ideally, without the other person knowing you are doing so).

3.   Every 48 to 72 hours, check your notes and do something with them. If you don’t have anything in your notes, you need to start interacting with more people and do more listening. If you do have items in your notes, decide on a simple and smart action for how to support and encourage the people on your list.

Let me give you an example of how this works. On Monday, your colleague Fernando mentions to you that he can’t make the meeting tomorrow because he is attending a GMAT prep course. You could let that piece of information go, or you could inquire about the course. By inquiring, you learn that he is eager to go back to school and get his MBA, but he is a bit nervous about the GMAT, which is why he enrolled in this GMAT prep course that meets every other Tuesday afternoon. Aha! You now have a piece of information to add to your notebook.

When checking your notebook two days later, you decide that a simple and smart action for how to support and encourage Fernando is to set a reminder in your phone for every other Tuesday to send a quick one-liner of encouragement to Fernando. Over the next three months, you send him a total of six encouraging text messages (e.g., Happy GMAT Tuesday! Proud of you for pursuing your dreams!).

In the example of Fernando, the cost is nominal. It’s just six text messages that you didn’t even have to remember. The calendar reminder did all the work. But the impact is huge. You have become a bit of surprise and delight to Fernando at a time when he needs it most. And, as a side note, the Fernando reminders simultaneously encouraged you to be less self-absorbed and more aware of others and their needs.

Now, multiply this habit by all the interactions in your life. By actively listening to others to understand their needs and looking for simple ways to cheer people on, you are becoming a happier and healthier person. You are becoming the kind of individual others want to know and network with. This fun and easy habit not only strengthens your interpersonal relationships, but it builds your empathy. The truth is building and maintaining healthy social and professional networks happens to be far better for you than you may realize. That your networks help you climb the ladder professionally is really just a bonus.

But without strong networks, climbing a professional ladder is nearly impossible. When it comes to job seeking, a mostly generic and lengthy note on LinkedIn outlining your skills and qualifications sent to dozens of people who don’t know you and have zero reason to talk to you is far less promising than one phone call to someone who already knows you and likes you. Your quality contacts have a reason to support and sponsor your job search. They might have no ability to hire you, but they likely know someone who does, and that e-introduction is worth far more than a cold call or shotgun email. For these reasons, I urge all my clients to avoid spinning their wheels unnecessarily and to instead establish, maintain, and then work their networks.

WRITE YOUR WAY INTO AN INTERVIEW

In addition to gaining quality leads, scheduling calls, and booking some coffee chats, it’s imperative that job seekers develop smart written application materials. While I have never known someone to get a job solely because of a cover letter and résumé, I have known many people to be extended interviews because their cover letters and résumés put them through to the interview phase. This is important to consider. If communication is about goal attainment, do your résumé and cover letter scream “give me any job” or are they written to motivate a specific person and organization to give you an interview? If you like wasting paper, write a generic brag reel and send it to every company with an opening.

Winning applicants realize that a cover letter is not the medium to toot your horn, prove your worth, or put readers to sleep by listing generic accomplishments. Instead, a cover letter is a chance to connect with your readers, declare clear interests in a specific career opportunity, and help a reader connect the dots between your qualifications, career goals, and the opportunity you are seeking. One solid cover letter written to apply for a specific position is better than a generic letter submitted to a hundred job postings with just the company name swapped.

A human or machine will try to make sense of your résumé in seconds. So while it may not always require the same level of exactness for the position and reader, it should always highlight the right experiences and credentials in a clear, concise, and compelling manner. It should also emphasize verbiage found on the job description. For example, if your current employer has labeled you and your colleagues a “core group,” but the job you are seeking is looking for someone who has experience being part of a “high-performing team,” it would be worth the two seconds to amend your résumé to make sure you are describing your experience using the language of your potential employer. There is no pride to be won in sticking to your terminology when you know your future employer uses different terms. If your boss offered you a seat on a sofa, would you correct your boss and call it a couch? I doubt it. My guess is that you will refer to the couch as a sofa—at least when your boss is around.

The essential takeaway here is to not get attached to your own way of describing information. Instead, learn and incorporate the language and jargon of your future employer, throughout your application materials and interviews. This is especially true in an era when artificial intelligence software is reading more résumés than humans.

INTERVIEW YOUR WAY INTO A JOB

There are any number of possible interview questions that a job candidate may be asked. For those who do not wish to memorize hundreds of answers to possible questions, I recommend a more viable preparation plan. Start with the basics. In most cases, an interviewer will spend the first part of the interview trying to gain a better understanding about who you are and why you want this opportunity. So, to make a good first impression, it’s important to nail these.

The “who are you” prompt will often be the first real interview question and is usually posed like this: “Walk me through your résumé” or “Tell me about yourself” or “What’s your story?” One trick is gauging time and tone. For a simple rule of thumb, walking someone through your résumé can take up to two minutes, whereas telling someone about yourself should be done in about one minute. As for tone, given that this is usually the opening to an interview, it’s important to establish your core messaging during this exchange. If I were interviewing for a job, I would want the interviewer to know that I am a grateful and humble human who is capable and confident in my abilities, and mostly that I am excited to be interviewing for this job and would be eager to drive value in the position. So while I might be walking the interviewer through my résumé, my core messaging must convey gratitude, humility, capability, confidence, excitement, and eagerness.

Thus, if I were being interviewed as a possible candidate for writing this book, and if I were asked at the start of the interview, “Walk me through your résumé,” I might say:

“Cheryl, first, thank you so much for making time to visit with me. The opportunity to write a book for McGraw Hill would be an absolute thrill, and I am so grateful to be considered.

“I’d love to walk you through my résumé, and I believe you will find that my background, education, and experiences have prepared me well for this role. Likewise, this opportunity is directly aligned with my career goals. So, all together, it’s an ideal fit.

“I grew up in Texas and studied communication as an undergraduate student. I was fortunate to have faculty and mentors who invested time in me. They modeled for me what it means to be a best-in-class academic and overall good person.

“Their belief in me gave me the confidence to go on and earn a doctorate in communication. And while doing so, I had the incredible privilege of rapid learning and professional growth. You could say I was drinking water from a firehose. I took doctoral courses, gained research experience, served as a teaching and research assistant, and simultaneously launched my own research projects and picked up teaching positions at nearby colleges. To top it off, I was invited by leaders at our business school to begin facilitating executive education workshops and communication coaching for MBA students.

“All of that was more than a decade ago. And since that time, I have remained a dedicated student of human communication and continue to refine my approach when teaching the communication essentials to students, clients, and people of all ages and various walks of life. I’ve joyfully given hundreds of lectures and talks on communication, and I’ve personally coached over a thousand individuals. Learning about and teaching communication is extremely life-giving for me.

“For these reasons and many others, I am so thrilled for the possibility to publish this book with you. Again, thank you so much for your time. I am very grateful for the opportunity to talk with you today.”

Remember that a “walk me through your résumé” or “tell me about yourself” response should be music to their ears and leave them wanting more. It usually is the beginning of a conversation and should be a high-level overview to assure them you are ready for the opportunity and that you have the attitude of someone they will enjoy working with. Per my example, a smart “walk me through your résumé” should bookend with an attitude of gratitude and eagerness. It has a clear, linear story focused on how my background, education, experiences, and career goals align with the opportunity I seek.

Some may read the example and say, “That doesn’t tell them enough specifics.” In some circumstances, it may benefit you to subtly name-drop appropriate people, places, and things, as well as reference specific achievements or stats that are appropriate for the opportunity being sought, but only if you can do so without sounding like a braggart or getting too deep into the weeds of your background.

If you end the right way, as in my example, your interviewer’s most natural response will be: “Thank you for sharing, and likewise, we are grateful to be visiting with you. Tell me a little more about why you are seeking this particular opportunity.” Or, they might say, “Why do you want to work here?” or “Why this industry?” or “Why our company?” In other words, after getting a feel for you and hearing your story, most interviewers want to know why you want to be part of their team and what they are doing.

The mistake I see most people make when answering the “why us” question (e.g., why this industry, this role, or this company) is they overemphasize themselves and their prior experience rather than focusing on the new opportunity. Imagine you are on a first date and the person across the table asks why you want to go out with them. Would you talk about yourself and your past dating relationships? Would you focus on what’s in it for you? No! I certainly hope not. You should focus on your date. As a general rule of thumb, I encourage clients to develop a full-bodied response to whatever “why us” question they receive.

For example, suppose you are interviewing for a role as a technology consultant with a top firm and I ask, “What do you find appealing about this particular opportunity?” I’d advise you to answer in some way similar to this:

(Intro) “Trey, I appreciate you allowing me a chance to share a bit about my interest in this opportunity. I see myself at a crossroads in my career. I’ve had great experiences thus far, each of which has helped me to discover more of myself and where I thrive best. And because of that, I am exclusively recruiting for roles I know will play to my strengths and where I will be successful. So let me share a few reasons why I am confident that I will thrive in this role at your company.

(Point 1) “First, I know that I thrive when thinking both creatively and analytically—I enjoy diving into the data, solving complicated problems in a fast-paced and project-based environment. I also find that I thrive when working with high-performing colleagues to deliver for clients. These are some of the primary reasons I am targeting consulting as a career move.

(Point 2) “Second, when I think about the various industries that consultants work in, I am particularly drawn to technology because of the rapid rate of change and ambiguity that I would encounter. Also, given my most recent role, I have an empathy for leaders in the tech space and understand their pain points.

(Point 3) “Lastly, while tech consulting is my career target, your firm is my top choice for several reasons. I’ll start with the people. In visiting with people like Monisha and Tarun from the New York office, I’m absolutely wowed by the caliber of colleagues I would be working alongside and learning from in your firm. Also, it’s the projects and clients. From an information session I attended last month, I got a peek behind the curtain of some of the work you all are doing in the Chicago and New York offices. I’d be thrilled to land in either. Bringing it all together, it’s about mission and culture. Your commitment to being a firm known for excellent work and as leaders in socially responsible business practices speaks to the core of why I came to business school in the first place. I believe companies have an opportunity to drive value that is more than just bottom-line profit.

(Conclusion) “So, for these reasons and many more, I am so grateful to be here today, visiting with you about this opportunity. Truly, it would be a thrill to join your firm, and I’d be eager to work with you all.”

This example above works for a variety of reasons, but let’s focus on the structure and tone. First, the structure is logical for both the speaker and listener. Rather than defend that you deserve to be considered for a position, in this example, you are earnestly revealing to the interviewer the logical thought process and intentionality behind your career search. The idea being that you (the interviewee) are making a rational and convincing explanation for why the interviewer should believe you are a good fit for this position, this company, and this industry.

Second, the tone is right because it allows the interviewee—you—to make confident claims with a sense of humility and vulnerability. This assures the interviewer that you have done your due diligence and know your “why.” It also conveys that you are approaching the position from a posture of good-natured enthusiasm.

After an interviewer has made sense of who you are (e.g., “walk me through your résumé”) and why you are interviewing (i.e., “why did you apply?”), the person will naturally begin inquiring about your prior experience and probable success in the role the organization is seeking to fill. While some interviews will include a series of case questions to measure things like quantitative reasoning, for our purposes, we will focus on behavioral interview questions.

Below, are a few of my must-prepare behavioral interview questions, especially for anyone pursuing a corporate role. I could make the list a mile long, but then so could you by simply searching the web. I focus on these questions first because I believe they allow you to start developing stories that you can adapt for the myriad questions that an interviewer may ask you:

•   Leading others:

   Tell me about a time you led a team through a difficult challenge.

   Tell me about a time you demonstrated leadership without positional authority.

•   Solving problems:

   Tell me about a time you solved a complicated problem using data and thinking creatively.

   Tell me about a time that your intuition was not aligned with the data.

•   Managing conflict:

   Tell me about a time you worked in a team and had to manage a conflict.

   Tell me about a time you had a difficult conversation or disagreement with a client, colleague, or manager.

•   Influencing others:

   Tell me about a time you changed the mind of a decision maker or group of people.

   Tell me about a time that you advocated for an unpopular opinion.

•   Overcoming challenges:

   Tell me about a time that you faced a challenge or weakness you had to push yourself hard to overcome.

   Tell me about a time that you failed forward, meaning you made a mistake but managed to recover from it or learned a vital lesson.

As you read this list of possible interview prompts, I hope you started imagining several stories you might tell.

The next step is determining how to tell your story in a way that would make sense to someone who may not know you well, much less have any real working knowledge of your life and work experiences. For these reasons, a lot of people will try to utilize promising frameworks for responding to interview questions.

One popular method encourages individuals to answer questions by speaking to the Situation, Task, Action, and Result. It’s an effective structure because it is commonly known and easy to follow. Some companies will even encourage candidates to utilize this or a similar method because it helps with timing and predictability for both the interviewer and interviewee. Conceptually, the method makes good sense. Operationally, however, the structure often leaves the interviewee struggling to open and close responses effectively, causing the interview to lack a conversational tone. Without a solid opening and closing, a story following this format feels like a song with no intro and outro to set the mood and to leave you feeling good at the end.

I find that most people do a good job identifying a smart story, but they do not prepare the content and delivery very well, causing them to sound unattached from the moment and a bit robotic. I often tell clients, “You have good material, and now we need to tell it better. I want you to get off the courtroom witness stand and into the coffee shop with a friend.” To help people do that, I developed a modified approach for my clients to use. My method doesn’t have a fancy acronym, but it works, and so I encourage you to use it:

•   Introduction/alignment: Connect with the theme of the question. Align with the spirit of the prompt, perhaps revealing a worldview or perspective to set a tone for how you approach related situations generally.

•   Context/situation: Introduce a single event that will serve as representative, providing only the context necessary to dive into the story.

•   Problem/task: Emphasize the crux of the problem you (and your team) were facing. As this is likely the middle of your story, be sure you are keeping your listener engaged by giving this part of the story some spark. You can do this by pulling your listener in as you emphasize the drama in your story. For example, you might say, “As you can imagine, Trey, this was quite challenging for our team, given we didn’t yet have a manager or know who was supposed to be taking the lead on this project.” The listener must understand and feel the challenge you faced during this situation, or else your action and result will fall flat.

•   Approach/action/solution: Explain the action you decisively took and give a quick reference to why this was the most logical and appropriate thing to do.

•   Results/impact: State the benefits and/or consequences, whether that be to a client, your company, your team, the bottom line, or yourself.

•   Lessons/conclusion: Conclude with the lessons you learned and how this experience has sharpened and readied you for the opportunities ahead.

Here’s an example of this method in action. It’s imperfect and lacks specificity, but it gives you the gist and draws your attention to the structure and tone. Suppose an interviewer gives you this interview prompt: “Tell me about a time that you faced a challenge/weakness you had to push yourself hard to overcome.” Following my structure, your response might flow like this:

•   Introduction/alignment: “I love this question, Trey, because everything I am today is because I kept saying yes to challenges. The challenge of moving multiple times in my life, learning multiple languages, working my way through college, and coming to the United States for work. All these challenges have made me the person I am, and the same can be true for workplace challenges.”

•   Context/situation: “I want to tell you about a particular challenge that I worked through that has made the difference in my career. About two years ago, during a performance evaluation with my manager, I reflected with her that I wanted to grow as a public speaker.”

•   Problem/task: “Now, this is noteworthy because, for most of my life, I have avoided public speaking. And truth be told, my manager had let me avoid most public speaking opportunities because she knew I didn’t really like it. But I realized it was hindering my growth and potential for leadership, and I was ready to do something about it.”

•   Approach/action/solution: “So with the support of my manager, I started taking ‘baby steps’ by presenting critical information to key stakeholders in the organization, even giving small parts of speeches. This helped to grow my confidence to the point where I could hold my own during an entire presentation and even during the question-and-answer period after.”

•   Results/impact: “Of course, public speaking is not a skill that you develop overnight. It is something you must nurture regularly, and I continue to do so in my current role. Most recently, during an internal consulting project, I boldly volunteered to present our findings to our executive team.”

•   Lessons/conclusion: “What I hope you know about me is that whether it’s learning languages or learning company cultures, or even overcoming the challenges of public speaking, I never shy away from a challenge that will develop me and help me grow. And I look forward to the kinds of obstacles and challenges that I will face in an exciting position like this one.”

Ask the Right Questions

Either throughout or toward the end of the interview, the interviewer will likely give you (the interviewee) the opportunity to ask a few questions. You should always have questions to ask. To not ask questions is often a signal that you lack interest or forethought, neither of which is regarded positively by the person conducting the interview. While being prepared to ask questions is good, asking the right questions is great. Here are some quick tips on asking the interviewer questions.

First, never ask something that you could learn by searching the company website. Second, avoid questions that cause the interviewer to acknowledge your brilliance (e.g., “I’d like to understand your decline in positioning from Q2 to Q3 on vertical X, given your latest investment in R&D, which has significantly disadvantaged some of your legacy products and their positioning globally.”); prove your intelligence (e.g., “Did you happen to see the latest article in the journal regarding trends in business strategy? I wonder if you find that kind of reasoning consistent with the business model here?”); or defend the company (e.g., “Why do you think me coming to work for your company is in the best interest of my career growth and potential?”). These examples are only a tad exaggerated from real ones I have heard from my clients. I think people mean well but forget interviewers are human and will not enjoy for one minute the thought of stroking your ego, proving their intelligence, or defending the company to you.

Third, unless it is standard for your industry, avoid aggressive questions like, “Now, that you’ve met with me, are there any concerns you have about hiring me?” And don’t ask questions about the salary and benefits or next steps in the hiring process. They will tell you that information when it is available and if they want to keep talking to you. If you inadvertently irritate them by asking these questions, you may be diminishing your chances of getting the offer or being invited back for another round of interviews.

If interviewing were like dating, consider that the interviewer asked you out and wants to connect with you to see if there is good chemistry. Many interviewees misunderstand this when answering and asking questions. And this leads me to my last point: ask questions that help you finish strong, by conveying your appreciation for the interviewer and sincere desire to excel in the role. Here are some examples:

•   “Trey, again thank you for making time to visit with me and allowing me a chance to ask a few questions. From what I’ve read and learned so far, I am really drawn to the company culture, but I’m limited in what I know, given I’ve never worked here. I understand you have been with the company for nearly three years. In your time here, what have you discovered to be unique and distinct about the company culture (from your previous roles)? What is something that might surprise me?”

•   “If I am so fortunate to be in this role, I want to hit the ground running and drive value as quickly as possible. When you think of the highest-performing individuals you have hired, what are some common attributes and characteristics? And what advice would you offer to someone hoping to come in and excel in this role?”

Again, don’t focus too much on any given word or phrase. All of that may be amended according to the specific industry, role, and company you are targeting. The main points to consider pertain to structure and tone. The questions you ask should not make you look special and hard to get. They should further connect you to the interviewer and provide assurance that you are sincere in your desire to join the team and be the ideal hire.

ESSENTIAL TAKEAWAYS