You have presented your resume, manicured it to match the job you seek, had
your initial contact by phone or mail, and now you are preparing yourself for
your job interview. A job interview may take from thirty minutes to an hour or
more, each hiring decision maker handles it to match their own needs.
But since the interview may affect your career for years to come, you will
want to do your best to sell yourself during the time you have with the decision
maker. You will want to take the time prior to your interview to prepare, in
order to do your best. Knowing in advance how you will handle key questions will
raise your confidence level in the interview itself.
You will sound confident because your answers will be delivered in a
confident and knowledgeable manner. Your goal – impress the decision maker that
you are the best candidate for the job. In order to do that, you will have to
present your experience and qualifications in a manner that make sense to
everyone concerned, and in a way that solves their problems. To do it in the
same way a trained salesperson uses sales techniques to close the sale, you will
want to present your credentials in a solutions oriented manner.
Don’t be concerned if you don’t feel you have a sales personality. Sales
aren’t always a process of personality. More often than not sales are a matter
of need and solution to that need. In this case, you will present your
credentials in a way that will solve the problem the hiring agent is seeking to
resolve by filling the job. So your job is to prepare for the interview so you
can present your credentials to match their need, and to learn how to do
“discovery”, to expose the issues the interviewer is seeking to solve.
DISCOVERY
Discovery is just another way of saying: “What’s the primary reason you are
trying to fill this position now?” Or, “What issues are you trying to solve by
filling this position?” Or, “What primary skills are you seeking for the person
you will hire into this position, and why those skills?” Each of those questions
leads your interviewer into an open ended discussion of what solutions they are
seeking, by explaining the issues they face.
Once you know that, you present your experiences in a way that solves those
issues and highlights the skills you possess and they seek.
You likely will not know in advance how the interviewer will answer your
discovery questions, so you may think there is no way to prepare in advance to
answer them accurately. That is inaccurate. The best way to prepare for your
interview is by writing out a list of the primary areas of skills and
responsibility that reflect your experience. Use your resume and common sense
for those key areas.
After writing that list, write out a simple one sentence statement that
reflects your strategy for managing each area. Then write out one or two
real-life examples of how you applied that strategy to each area of endeavor.
Where possible, quantify, apply numbers to your examples. Don't be too
elaborate. By writing out your answers your brain will hold on to them so you
can parrot back those answers and examples as required in an interview situation
Follow this advice and you will find out how much more confidence you feel
while in a job interview situation. Don’t hope you do well in an interview,
control the results by preparing yourself to do your best.
Present your credentials and experiences as a solution to the job
interviewer's immediate employment issues. Do that, and you will increase your
odds of finding a career position instead of just another job.
