Every Interaction Is an Interview

In this series, professionals share their hiring secrets. Read the stories here, then write your own (use #HowIHire somewhere in the body of your post).

Two of the most frequent questions that I get asked are: “What is the client looking for in the interview?” and “How should I prepare?”

These are certainly good questions but they don’t paint a full picture of how you should think about getting hired — and they don’t really get at the heart of what people look for when they are making a hiring decision. 

After almost 20 years of conducting interviews and consulting with clients on how to hire the right person, I have made a few surprising observations. First and foremost is that mistakes in job seeking aren’t confined to recent graduates or people just moving up the career ladder. Even the most seasoned executives sometimes stumble — in casual interactions and formal interviews alike. In both situations, prospective employers and their executive search partners are looking not just for experience and skills but also for "the little things" — the qualities that differentiate you from everyone else in the market and speak to who you are as a person. Here are a few that, over the years, I have seen become more and more important in the hiring decision. They include:

Conscientiousness: You would be surprised how many people don’t prepare well. Before your first encounter with anyone from the company, you should have read all you reasonably can about the business. If possible, talk to people who’ve worked there. Be prepared to engage at any time in informed conversation about the business. But remember that the goal is not to demonstrate perfect knowledge but to show that you are the sort of person who cares enough to prepare and, even more importantly, can synthesize and analyze what you know.

A candidate who asks questions like “What is your top strategic goal?” is saying loud and clear that he hasn’t prepared (that kind of information is easy to find on their website or in the annual report).

Contrast that with a candidate for a senior position at a leading national restaurant chain. Prior to her first get-acquainted meeting with her prospective boss, she ate at several of the company’s restaurants, not just to sample the food and talk to people who worked there but also to see the business model in action. She invested the time (and enjoyed some good food along the way!). She was able to ask solid questions that demonstrated her interest and her critical thinking skills.

Intellectual curiosity: If you’ve done your homework and synthesized the publicly available information about the company, questions rooted in genuine curiosity about things you don’t know should arise naturally. Approach the conversation as if you were a consultant the company had engaged: What are the most significant opportunities and challenges the company faces, and how will that change the company in three to five years? What competitors do they see emerging — and which are unexpected? What are the biggest obstacles they face in achieving their goals and how are they combatting those? Such questions also demonstrate your humility — you’re there to find out about their business, not tell them how to conduct it.

Passion: Without going overboard, show that you are excited about the possibility of joining the company. I am amazed at how many individuals are afraid to look too excited and come across as uninterested. You may still have questions about the fit, but those questions shouldn’t come across as ambivalence. Be prepared with a good answer to the question: why are you interested in this role? And why you? Also, note that first encounters and early interviews are definitely not the time to talk about money or vacation time (neither of which is a good reason for taking a job anyway).

Authenticity: “Be yourself” is easy to say but sometimes hard to do — especially when a coveted position is at stake. Nevertheless, clearly communicating who you are now can save you and the company many future headaches should you turn out to be a poor fit. As I often tell candidates I’m presenting to clients, don’t try to be the person you think the interviewer wants you to be, but the person you are. In the long run, you want to be somewhere that fits your style and where you fit the culture. Further, you have more leeway to be who you are than ever before. Smart companies know that to succeed today they need diverse personalities and perspectives and they value difference — diversity is good for business.  

Self-Awareness: Whether you’re applying for your first job or seeking a seat on a corporate board, you will almost certainly be asked about your shortcomings.

First, don’t hesitate before you answer, as if you were thinking about it for the first time. Or worse, as one candidate did recently, hem and haw before concluding that you can’t think of any shortcomings.

Second, answer honestly. Don’t insult the interviewer’s intelligence by identifying weaknesses that are really strengths: “I work too hard”; “I care too much about what I do.” Not only have interviewers heard these answers many times, you risk coming across as shallow or evasive should you repeat them.

Third, after you’ve owned up to a genuine and specific shortcoming, talk about what you’re doing to compensate for it. For example, a candidate who was being considered for a global Fortune 500 consumer role candidly admitted that he had a tendency to speak first in meetings with his team and other subordinates, thereby shutting down discussion. But he also said that he had recently enlisted an executive coach to help him learn how to tame that tendency and genuinely solicit the opinions of others. No one is perfect — being self- aware and open about your shortcomings and how you are addressing them is expected.

Values: Many candidates possess the requisite skills for any given job, but not all of them have the requisite values. Conscientious companies will probe for those values, not simply ask you to declare them. For example, you might be asked what you’ve done in your working life that you’re proudest of. Citing your promotions or compensation says one thing about you. Citing the colleagues you’ve helped mentor or the solution you helped find to a seemingly intractable business problem says another.

Interestingly, a lot of companies also look at how you treat people during the interview process — and I don’t just mean the executives. They will observe how you treat their support team. Clients will sometimes even ask me how the candidate has treated my executive assistant. Not too long ago, I was working with a C-suite executive who was perfectly fine with me but dismissive with my team. My client observed the same thing — and that was it — the candidate didn’t move forward.

No matter where you stand on the career ladder, your ability to demonstrate not only your skills but these personal qualities can help you take the next step up. Opportunities to demonstrate them occur in virtually every interaction you have with a prospective employer. The signals you send in terms of preparedness and passion, your punctuality, your responsiveness to communications, your treatment of a waiter at a dinner meeting — or an executive assistant in the office — are all answers to the fundamental question in any hiring decision: Who are you?

What are the best and worst practices you’ve seen in asking or answering that question?