Are you just being lazy when it comes to an interview? It’s ok, many of us are sometimes.
In this 5-part series, I invite you to become aware of how your ego could be sabotaging your job search. In Part I, we discussed your overall negative mindset and in Part II, we talked about career direction clarity. In Part III, we talked about how your mind may be interfering with your resume and LinkedIn profile.
In Part IV, I discussed how over-relying on job boards and recruiters is a bad idea.
In this fifth and final part of the series, we discuss important interview tactics and skills to land a job. If you have been putting your foot in your mouth and then shooting yourself in the foot every time you walk into an interview, this video is for you!
Check it out…
Summary of Interview Tactics
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Hi, this is Mike, your personal career
coach.
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Welcome to the final, part 5 of my series,
“Are You Sabotaging Your Job Search?”
Overview of Interview Tactics
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So today we’re going to talk about
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are you sabotaging your job search
with everything
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to do with the interview process.
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So in other words,
are you preparing the right way?
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Are you executing on the interview
the right way?
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And are you following up the right way?
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So let’s get into it.
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Number one, I find a lot of people
will make the mistake
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of not researching companies properly
before they have an interview with them.
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So when I was a director at Credit Suisse,
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the first question I would ask somebody
is: “What is the difference between Credit
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Suisse and Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs,
whatever it happens to be?”
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99% of the time,
the candidate couldn’t tell me.
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So that to me is an immediate flag,
and I pretty much shut down the interview
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at that point.
Or maybe I’d keep going to be respectful.
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But at that point
the interview was effectively shut down.
If you don’t do research before the interview…
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If you don’t do research and don’t
understand exactly what the value add of
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the company is that you’re talking to,
why should they talk to you?
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You’re dating a company.
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When you go on a date,
if I can remember that
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far back, you have to get to know them.
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Don’t just do a one page Google search
to see what the headlines are.
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Go to the website,
read their five most recent press
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releases, take a look at the annual report
and see what they’re really stressing.
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Do some research and figure out:
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Who are you potentially going
to be working for?
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If you don’t do the research, don’t
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even go to the interview
because it’ll show in one form or another.
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Number two, I find that
a lot of people blow themselves up
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because they don’t ask the #1 question,
which you have to ask
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in the beginning of an interview,
and that is: What am I interviewing for?
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What do you mean?
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So a lot of people read a job description
or may have a preliminary conversation
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with somebody in the company
and then go in for an interview.
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The problem is that the interviewer may
not even be aware of that job description,
The job may have changed by the time of the interview
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or the job may have changed from the time
that the job description was written.
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So, yeah, I think you should look at job
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descriptions
and certainly prepare yourself
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because that’s most likely
what the job is.
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But in the very beginning of the
conversation, even before you get into the
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tell me about yourself question,
you want to ask basically what the job is.
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So in other words,
let’s assume I’m interviewing with Bob.
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“Bob more than happy
to tell you about myself.
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But before we dig in,
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could you let me know
whether the responsibilities
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of this position are different that were
described on the job description?”
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So what you’re really putting on the table
is, number one, you prepared,
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but number two, you want
the most updated information possible
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because that’s what it’s about.
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If your information is old, you’re
going to be pitching for the wrong job.
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Imagine you’re going out on a date, again,
going back to the dating analogy,
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you think you’re dating
somebody who likes yoga,
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but in reality
they hate to do anything athletic.
By asking this question in the beginning of the interview
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So by asking the question
in the beginning,
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something to the effect of “What
are the responsibilities of this job?”
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that gives you a blueprint,
that gives you a direction to go in,
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that tells you where you have to
then steer the conversation.
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And I can’t tell you
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how many times
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my clients have gotten into situations
where they’ve asked that question, found
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out of the job they were interviewing
for was so much different
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than the job that they thought
they were interviewing for.
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By asking the question,
you’ll realize that
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and you can hopefully make adjustments
during the course of your conversation.
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Number three, I think that a lot of people
blow themselves up in job search
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because they default to the Q&A type
approach.
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Oh, if it’s a half hour
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they’ll ask me questions
for 20 or 25 minutes and then I’ll get
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to ask them questions for the remaining
whatever, five or 10 minutes.
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That is the worst format of an interview
possible.
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Nobody likes a Q&A, nobody likes to grill
you and nobody likes to be grilled.
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The idea is to try to make it more of a
conversation, try to make it more natural.
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I realize it’s hard.
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You’re nervous, hell,
they could be nervous.
The whole interview process is completely artificial
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The whole interview process
is completely artificial,
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but there are ways to sort of
smooth things and have more of a dialog.
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Let’s assume they ask you
how strong are your Python skills.
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Let’s assume you answered, “Oh,
I have intermediate Python skills.
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I know how to use Numbers and Pandy”
and all of the other technical terms
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that I don’t know
because I don’t know Python.
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You can answer the question
and let them know what your skill set is
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and then immediately
turn around and ask them, “Well, Bob,
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could you tell me about how much Python
I would be using on the job?”
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So let’s just pause there
to see what I did.
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I answered a question,
but then I asked a question
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right afterward, which is enabling
that person to give me the answer.
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So I created a circle, which is exactly
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what you want to do
in this kind of a dialog.interview
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So the more you can engage with them
in a dialog,
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the better it’s going to be for everybody.
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And finally,
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are you following up with the people
you interview with
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every single month?
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I know what you’re probably saying.
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Mike, I’m going to be a pain in the ass
if I email this person every single month. interview
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Well, I would say that
you want to follow up with these people,
Even if you don’t get the job
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even if you didn’t get the job,
you want to follow up. Why?
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Because they’re human beings
and they know about other jobs
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and they have friends or other jobs
could pop up in the company.
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You want to be able to keep up with them
every single month,
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remind them of who you are,
stay top of mind.
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But how do you do that
without being a pain in the ass?
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Well, you send the obligatory thank you
note, and mention something specific
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about how you enjoyed the conversation
and what you talked about.
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A month later,
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find an article in a publication you think
that they might be interested in.
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Find something that they would value.
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So the idea is that you can keep up
a monthly dialog with someone or attempt
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to keep up a monthly dialog with someone
if you’re providing them with value.
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Now, yeah,
it gets tricky to figure out every month
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what you think
this other person would value,
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whether it be an article
or even you can send them an email
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saying that you’d love to be able
to help them find other talent
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because you know people that might be
interested in working for them.
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So the idea is that you want to be able
to try to maintain
The interview is a two-way street
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a relationship with this person
and trying to think of it as a two way
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street, much like the interview process,
is really going to help you.
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I know that takes discipline.
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It takes a lot of discipline
to keep up with people on a monthly basis.
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But you’ll be in their inbox.
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They’ll see your name.
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Even if they don’t respond to you.
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And most likely
they’re not going to respond to you.
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They still see your name.
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They still see your name,
they’ll think of you.
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And if they see something out there
that is good for you,
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then hopefully they’re gonna let you know.
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Job search is all about staying
in front of important people,
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and having had an interview
with the company,
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my suggestion is you must stay in touch
with every single person, including HR,
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to make sure that you stay top of mind.
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Thank you so much.
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This has been my last of my five part
series on “Are
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You Sabotaging Your Job Search?” I look interview
forward to more conversations with you.