Interviewing #

• Approach from a mindset of what you can offer the client. Sell your skills that could solve the clients problems.

• Show interest in their problem. Be more customer focussed.

• An interview is just a meeting.

• Why did you leave your previous employer? The Job was made redundant.

• Some clients may be unprepared for the interview. Help the client to take the meeting where you want it to go.

• Rehearse the meeting using ChatGPT or AI of your choice.

• Repeat the question reframing it a bit and bridge the answer. The reframed question and its bridged answer has to be on topic.

• Question the question if you are unsure about anything.

• Why would they hire me?

  • What’s attracted them? Identify these things, make a list and formulate a response around them. Write it out, refine it, read it aloud, time it.

• Why wouldn’t they hire me?

• How was your journey?

  • Answer positively but honestly

• Tell me about yourself?

  • Max 2 minutes
  • 30 seconds max on each topic
  • Max 4 topics
  • What supplementary questions might the client come up with?
  • Guide the flow of the meeting in this way if possible. As a seller you can command a high degree of influence and subtelty that allows you to direct the course of the discussion, but not in such a way that wrest control from the client.
  • For example, your final few seconds might be: “It was a challenging project and presented some major problems, but I enjoyed it and learned a lot from the experience. So, that’s a brief summary of me and my background.” Now, if you’ve chosen your final topic well the buyer would want to stick with it and should be tempted to fall on that like a dog on a bone as you are deliberately provoking the supplementary [+] questions: ‘What were those challenges and how did you meet them?’ ‘What problems and how did you solve them?’ ‘What specific aspects of the role did you particularly enjoy and why?’‘What did you learn?’ But if you had referred to the problems without thinking then it might now be a [-] question and you’d be fighting a rearguard action. Deliberately provoking the supplementary questions invites them to dig much deeper, go way beyond ‘what you have done’ and ask how and why you did things - that’s much more behavioural. This preparation will give more breadth, depth and scope to any meeting you attend.
    • Use the word enjoyed in some context. It’s absence may be seen as you don’t enjoy your work.
  • “Well, I’ll have to be a bit selective so I’ll just touch on some of those things about myself and my background that, having read your job description, will be of interest to you.”
    • This shows the interviewer that you are prepared.

• Your CV – it’s all hype isn’t it?

  • “No, no hype – show me some hype and I’ll back up my CV.”
  • A statement on your CV such as ‘Strong team building skills’ begs the obvious question ‘What are they?’ Such questions are [+] but only if you can support your statements with firm evidence. Be ready for the supplementary questions: (‘How strong are they?’, ‘How do you measure team building skills?’ and ‘Who told you that?’).

• What do you know about us?    [+]

  • with preparation you could ‘weave it in’ to your response to ‘Tell me about yourself’

• Why does this job interest you?   [+]

• Why are you leaving? #