How many times have you thought, “I’m perfect for the
job. Why didn’t the employer hire me?”
If your first thought is, in fact, true, the answer to your
question is usually very simple. You, the job-seeker, weren’t able to highlight
for the interviewer how you fulfilled the company’s needs. Keep in mind, it’s
never a matter of whether you’re qualified, but whether you can convince the
employer you’re a great fit.
“Hope, as they say, is not a strategy and you are now
driving through the interview without a roadmap.”
Too often, candidates share their accomplishments, work
history, and charming personality before they understand what the employer
actually needs. During an interview, you’re selling the product you know
best—you—and have a very short timeframe to do that. Remember, the first rule
of sales is you sell what the customer needs. If you’re spending considerable
time highlighting your talents and experience that are less relevant to the
job, you potentially leave the employer with an impression that you’re not
qualified. Interestingly, the employer mirrors you. When given the chance, they
often share their offerings without first understanding the criteria you’re
using to determine whether their company is a good fit for you.
The employer often causes these initial missteps by starting
interviews with wildly open-end questions that leave entirely too much room for
the candidate to guess and wander. Candidly, employers and employees would make
much better hiring decisions and career choices if the interviewer simply
started the conversation with, “Here is an exact list of what I need. Can you
tell me in detail how you satisfy these needs?” The ever-popular “Tell me about
yourself” often sends the job-seeker to rambling into areas that are
unimportant. The candidate, who often feels pressure to dive into his response,
starts a story while simultaneously speculating what the employer needs to
know. Hope, as they say, is not a strategy and you are now driving through the
interview without a roadmap, which is a significant job interview mistake.
How can you avoid this trap?
Passively gather the employer’s needs. During the
early parts of the discussion, adept interviewers will ask questions centered
on the areas and skills he needs the newest employees to possess. Pay close
attention to these areas and confirm in your responses how your skillset aligns
to traits he inquired about earlier in the discussion. People, regardless of
who they are, want reassurance that they’re making the correct decision.
Actively gather the employer’s needs. When I
teach our candidates how to properly ask a question so they gather insight they
actually need to make educated decisions, I show them how to design questions
for short- and long-term usage. Any question designed to elicit information
you’ll ponder later, is considered long-term. “Can you describe your training
program?” is long-term because that typically yields information you’ll
consider in the employment decision, but rarely requires an immediate response.
During the interview, however, there is a battery of questions you can ask to determine
what the employer seeks in a new employee. These are short-term questions
because you can use that information to immediately sell yourself. Some potent
questions include, “What are the attributes that describe your best
employees?”, “What type of person would do well in this role?”, and “What
skillset is missing from your current team?” These questions yield information
that highlight traits the employer needs. During the remainder of the interview
(or interviewing process) you can incorporate these traits into your stories.
Gain control to neutralize the dreaded “Tell me about
yourself” request. I honestly wish they could remove this question
from the face of the earth. It also makes me wonder whenever an interviewer
says to me, “I like that question because it helps me understand how the
candidate sees herself. It also allows me to gather information I might not
have known to ask for.” Clinically, those statements are true. In an interview,
however, that question wastes a significant portion of your “hour” because the
candidate will often highlight information that is less relevant to the
employer’s decision. Candidates should remember that when an employer asks this
question, they are turning the interview over to the job-seeker. So take control.
Whenever you get this question, answer it with a question. Instead of diving
right in to your 20-year work history, help the interviewer make a good
decision by having him highlight which areas are most relevant to the company
and position. (This is an extension of the previous technique.) A simple
response such as, “I obviously have extensive work experience. It might be most
helpful if I focus on areas that’ll help you determine whether I’m a good fit
for the role. Are there specific areas in my background you’d like to ensure we
cover?
There are obviously several ways to make these determinations. The most important technique to master is always identifying what the employer needs so you can continually reinforce how you satisfy those needs.