JOB INTERVIEWS – THE ULTIMATE LEVEL 3 CONVERSATION

A job interview is of course the best discussion to have with a decision maker. Once an organisation is in interview mode they become serious that their problem is job-shaped. They start to commit to a process and a decision.

In a sense, of course, any market-facing conversation, even a level 1 meeting, is a kind of job interview. People remember you for what you are and how you are, and will retain that information for some time. However when an organisation moves into job-filling mode it adopts a different mindset. Now you have to play far more by organisational rules.

You should be very clear when any conversation you’re having with a decision maker switches into interview mode. You could of course be talking to someone in a social setting and a question like ‘how long have you worked in that sector?’ or ‘how did you handle that?’ comes up. Partial interviews happen all the time, sometimes when we least expect them. However, when an organisation moves into something closer to formal job interviewing mode, you get serious clues including: a defined need, job documentation, selection events, structured questions and a decision-making process.

FOCUSING ON WHAT MATTERS

This book isn’t primarily about job interviews, for that you can read The Interview Expert. However, if you are following the structured approach suggested by this book you will need to be prepared for key areas that can come up in any interview. These are outlined below in the following four broad categories:

1. Self-control.
2. Employer shopping list.
3. Expectations.
4. Delivery.

Self-control

A great deal of interview preparation is about making sure you don’t shoot yourself in the foot. If you’ve got an interview, you’re probably at least half way to getting the job – make sure you don’t talk yourself out of the process.

The first and probably most important element in self-control is making sure that someone instinctively says ‘yes’ as soon as you walk in the room. The first 30 seconds of the interview have almost nothing to do with content – after all, you’re probably still engaged in small talk. However, this is where an interviewer nearly always makes an initial Y/N decision based on how far you look the part. So dress, act and sound as if you’re already doing the job. Get feedback from people who can tell you the truth about what you wear, and then more feedback about how you sound. Speak clearly and confidently as you enter the room, even if you’re just discussing the traffic. Sit completely still, look straight ahead and await the first question. Do everything you can to make sure the interviewer feels you are easy to work with and quietly confident, and someone who pays attention to every detail.

Employer shopping list

It should come as no surprise to learn that you should anticipate interview questions by examining the advertisement and job description with great care. Sound preparation means drawing up a list of the employer’s requirements and matching them point by point against your best evidence. In fact, the average candidate doesn’t handle this task very well, so simply being thorough in guessing interview questions can take you a long way forward. Stronger candidates know they need to do more, and take a different approach. They know they need to work out the difference between the employer’s long list of requirements and a much shorter shopping list of the things that really matter.

Information sent to candidates is often incomplete and sometimes out of date. What’s more, although it may make some distinction between what is essential and what is desirable, you will never see documents that say ‘now here’s the shortlist of things that REALLY count’. However, when a busy manager is preparing for a job interview, that’s probably all they have time to review. The average interview covers only 20 topics or so in any depth – effectively only a sampling of the material in your CV. The decision is made around a much smaller list – a handful of factors that the interviewer can and will keep in focus. Some of these topics may surprise you and find you unprepared, because they have either not been flagged up at all, or seem to be marginal to the job.

Employers rarely acknowledge that interview decisions are largely made around these half dozen issues. These deal breakers may only be touched upon in documentation, but they matter. Moving towards a job offer means learning how to interrogate the clues you’re given and read between the lines. What problems does the job solve? What do success and failure look like in the role?

You have more chance of finding out this critical information by asking people outside the process. In fact, if you ask someone with insider knowledge ‘what are they really looking for?’ these are the factors you’ll hear about, not the extensive detail of a job description. Talk to former employees or anyone who knows something about the organisation. What kind of people shine in the workforce? What is the employer most worried about in terms of hiring the wrong person? You will often find it useful to check out informally what kind of person did the job beforehand – sometimes employers hire the opposite to what they’ve just had.

Recruitment consultancies and people with good sector knowledge can help you in this important task of decoding. Don’t take anything at face value. If an employer claims to be recruiting against 30 competencies, they won’t be – somewhere in the interviewer’s mind will be that half dozen things that really matter. Ask, probe, decode – do everything you can to find out the real wish list, the one you’re being scored against from the moment you walk in the room, and don’t leave it until you have delivered a matching half dozen pieces of evidence that tick every box.

Expectations

Look long and hard at your CV, cover letter or what someone might have said about you in a networking conversation which caused you to be shortlisted. What is the decision maker expecting to see when you walk in the room? Your task is either to confirm or flatten these expectations. If you feel that someone is pretty sure you’re a good match for the job, make sure that impression is confirmed and you cover any snags or gaps neatly (see Delivery below). Give examples you haven’t already provided in your CV to keep the interviewer’s attention.

If your informed judgement is that an employer sees a distinct question mark against your name, or someone who probably won’t be going home with an offer – then your job is to reverse that expectation. This is about interview behaviour and demeanour as much as evidence – looking slightly more calm, confident and ‘together’ than expected can quickly shift someone from ‘probably doesn’t have the experience’ to ‘this person will grow into the job quickly’.

Delivery

The only remaining interview essentials (assuming you are reading these tips last minute rather than doing a proper job of anticipating questions) is to make sure that you deliver in the room. That doesn’t mean ‘faking it’ in the style of candidates on The Apprentice, but means being the best version of yourself you can muster on the day.

Thinking about the small number of topics that really matter to the decision maker, make sure that you provide clear evidence of achievement. You will already have done this in a CV, but in the interview room you need to make this evidence come alive with active story-telling. The only way to get this right is through careful rehearsal.

Learn to pitch each story so that it is short enough to be remembered, but long enough to be worth hearing. This will often mean a clear explanation of the problems you faced, what you personally did and the outcomes. Prepare to answer questions about what you learned from the experience, and what has challenged you. Don’t neglect to prepare answers about your strengths (matching them against the top five requirements of the job) and don’t talk about weaknesses that matter (if in doubt talk about things you can do pretty well but need to improve).

Perhaps the biggest point about delivery is the shape of the evidence you present. Interviewers respond well to engaging narratives, but they also want to understand the big picture, too – how your career has come together as a whole, how you have grown and developed. You should go home leaving the interviewer with a clear sense of one coherent story which has led, step by step up to the present moment, and the job on offer is the next most obvious stage in your journey. Sophie Rowan, author of Brilliant Career Coach, is a strong advocate of the idea that when you go into an interview you need a coherent and compelling story about who you are, what you have to offer, where you see yourself in the future and, most importantly, ‘how that story fits the organisation and the role in the here and now’. For Rowan this is your all-important ‘career purpose’. Her advice is ‘choose your next career stage rather than your next job’.

USER LANGUAGE

Making your answers stick isn’t just about addressing the items on the employer wish list. You’ve got to pitch your evidence in the right language – particularly evidence of achievement.

Dig around on the employer’s website, looking at details of jobs and projects. Translate your experience into language that the employer will recognise and find energising. Anticipate problems where your work history or qualifications don’t seem to match, with clear explanations, perhaps beginning ‘I expect you’re worried about …’.

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR JOB HUNTING

As this book is focused on the job hunt, it’s important to prepare you for questions about job hunting that might come up during the interview. These might include:

• Why are you on the market right now?
• You’ve been out of work for six months now. How do you feel about that?
• How’s the job hunt been going?

Talking about your job hunt is one area which can feel like a minefield for candidates, and needs careful preparation. It’s all too easy to over-disclose in a number of areas – feeling low about job hunting or rejection letters, giving the impression that you are slightly desperate, or giving away too much about organisations in your sights at the moment. Many candidates worry about this kind of question (and see Chapter 3 on ways this topic can trip you up early on if you’re unprepared), but in practice all it takes is a short upbeat response (try ‘I’ve met some really interesting people’) and the interviewer is ready to move on to ask questions more closely related to the job.

If you’re doing well you may get buying signals which come across as questions about the competition:

• Which organisations are you talking to?
• Are you anticipating offers from anybody else?

For these two questions you only need one kind of answer: ‘I’m talking to a number of interesting organisations but the job that interests me most is this one.’

WHAT A GREAT JOB HUNT LOOKS LIKE TO A DECISION MAKER

You could say the only way of judging someone’s job hunting performance is how long it takes to get a job. Another is to say how long it takes you to get a job that is fairly well matched to what you’re looking for, which is the focus of this book.

You might also want to take into account the perspective of decision makers – employers and key intermediaries including recruitment agencies. Why does the style and substance of your job search matter to them? Firstly, on a practical level, what you do enables these people to spot you. Secondly, the way you conduct your job hunt has a knock-on effect on your market reputation. The way you look for a job is taken as a strong indication of how you will perform in a job.

This is the kind of feedback managers and HR specialists give about candidates who find an appropriate and effective job hunting style:

• Candidates who don’t waste decision makers’ time by asking obvious questions.
• Candidates who appreciate that decision makers have very little time available.
• Candidates whose name comes up from more than one source.
• Candidates who communicate the bare bones of what they offer in the first half page of their CV or in a brief covering letter.
• Candidates who don’t over-communicate – they say enough to show why they are interested, and why they might be useful.
• Messages that don’t over-sell and don’t make unlikely claims.
• Descriptions of skills and experience that are punchy and connected to facts rather than full of over-blown adjectives.
• Candidates whose focus is less on themselves and more on the organisation and the job.
• Candidates who are capable of describing their own behaviours, working style and strengths without over-egging or false modesty.
• Candidates who have a visible online presence which backs up the claims made during job hunt conversations.

MAJOR ON MOTIVATION

Ask a roomful of employers what they are really looking for in top performers, and they will only make passing reference to skills and knowledge, and they will probably say very little about qualifications. They will always talk about attitude and motivation. Leave the interviewer in no doubt of your commitment to throw yourself into the job, but make that motivation sound realistic and informed so it doesn’t sound like ‘just show me the job and I’ll show you I’m a star’. Make sure your enthusiasm is focused on the challenge at hand, by linking what you say to the job. So saying ‘I’m really excited to see that you do …’ and ‘I would really enjoy the opportunity to …’ carries far more weight than the empty ‘I’m an enthusiastic person’.

When you reveal the homework you’ve done, show real interest – in the organisation, the issues it is facing, the people in the room. Careers specialist Robin Rose advises:

Over-enthusiasm goes against you, but you need to sound keen and interested. Don’t say you have never done something before, say ‘great, I have always wanted the chance to …’.

YOUR QUESTIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE INTERVIEW

One simple rule applies here. Deal with doubts outside the interview room. Ask smart questions which reveal your interest, not questions which suggest a lack of commitment to the job.

Even if you’re uncertain, don’t make the mistake of believing that an interview is an honest exchange of views about whether the job suits you. Show you can do the job, show you want the job. Leave the rest until you have a job offer in your possession.

Career coach John Whapham writes:

I find that organisations tend to put too much emphasis on traditional CVs which are bad at communicating enthusiasm and the ability to work within an organisation’s culture. These qualities are fundamental and, I believe, their neglect contributes towards the high failure rate. Following a job offer, I encourage job seekers to spend at least one day with the team they will be working with to so they can judge company culture and the ambiance of the working environment. This could further help to reduce the failure rate.