Interviewing for a sales job? Stick to your guns!

One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation. - Arthur Ashe.

Enough said! Arthur Ashe 's words says it all and I could actually stop writing.....

So, you interviewed for a sales job. You were all geared up! Felt like a sales rock star! You rocked it and that sales gig was no doubt yours. But, you still got a NO!

The question is why? In your mind, you did everything right. You had your talk track all figured out. You recited your sales stats & accomplishments. You even spoke to friends and ex-colleagues and you got all advice in the world. The simple answer is - you probably did not stick to your guns. I've been in sales for 20+ years now and I've interviewed countless sellers. And more often than not, I'm baffled how sellers fail during the interview process. Like epically fail! Here's the thing, they did every right(ish), apart from - most likely - treating the job interview the same way as they would treat a deal.

A job #interview should be equally treated as an opportunity in your pipeline. Apply the same methodology and most importantly - CLOSE THAT DEAL. Sounds simple. Sounds like a Homer Simpson "D'oh" moment, but it's a crucial step that's often missed. I will follow up with an article on "interview = deal".

Another component is an repeatedly witnessed lack of preparation! Seriously?!?!? As a pro seller with x number of years of experience, how many times did you contact a client WITHOUT having done your homework first. Probably NEVER! So, why do it when interviewing? Preparation is key. Like Arthur Ashe said: "One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation."

Granted, there's no shortage of advice when preparing for an interview. From what to wear, to practicing your answers or coming up with good questions to ask. Having been there myself, it can be daunting and a bit overwhelming to try and keep all the different bits of #coaching in mind. The last thing you need at crunch time, when you are sitting across from your interviewer, is a head full of competing, and sometimes contradictory, advice.

I will address the importance of preparation in a subsequent article. In the meantime, there're really only three things you will ever need to keep in mind to have a successful interview: #confidence , #competence and #compassion .

Focus on those, and everything else will fall into place. Here's why!

1. Confidence?

You're a sales rock star, so you're most likely not lacking confidence. That said, most people have a mistaken impression of what it means to be confident in a job interview. It's not about having that firm handshake, that steely gaze or that extroverted personality. Far from it! Don't get me wrong, those aren't bad to have, especially the handshake! Actually, there're gazillions of articles on how to perfect your handshake. Essentially, it's a calling card. If your interview is done virtually, then it's all about posture and how set yourself in the scene.

So, what's the key contributor to confidence? It's by truly believing in yourself and your ability to handle whatever the job may throw your way. When you have confidence, it means you have enough faith in yourself that others have faith in you, too. You don't have to have swagger, quite the contrary. Too much confidence comes across as arrogance, and that's seldom what an employer is looking for in an employee. You can be quiet, even reserved, and still be confident. It has nothing to do with your personality type and everything to do with your sense of self. You're trying to get other people to believe in you and what you have to offer. That belief starts inside your own head. Believing in yourself is the first step to getting others to believe in you.

2. Competence?

Competence just means ability! And, ability occurs along a spectrum. You do not have to be a subject matter expert in order to project competence. Most people are going to fall short in one area or another. Ideally, you will have some knowledge relevant to the role you're seeking, otherwise you would be wasting your and your interviewer's time. But if you're not an expert, and very few people actually are, you can still appear competent if you address the gaps in your knowledge and demonstrate your ability to fill them.

Maybe you're a perfect fit for a lot of what the job entails, but not for all of it. Or perhaps you're not up on the very newest technical trend or the latest research in the field. You can still come across as competent by making the case to your interviewer that you will be able to level up any perceived deficits. You convince them of your competence not just by showing what you know, but by acknowledging what you don't know and presenting your strategy for continuous learning. No one expects you to land in a new role knowing everything, but they do want to have an idea of how long it's going to take you to get there. Devote some thought to addressing how you will round out your abilities to meet their needs. That's a big part of competence vs. already having knowledge.

3. Compassion?

Simple rule: Most folks are pretty nice, and they want to work with other nice people.

Compassion is the ability to feel what others are feeling and then responding to them humanely. It means coming across as a person who cares what other people think and feel. Employers know the perfect sales candidate is a very rare thing indeed, so every hiring decision is a compromise between a person's ability and their suitability. The expert who knows everything but can't get along with others is going to have a harder time finding a job than the person with slightly lesser qualifications but who is more pleasant to be around.

A compassionate person can fill in their knowledge gaps with additional study, training or experience. A person who doesn't care very much about what other people think or feel, even if they are very talented, may never overcome that lack. Work is just a series of transactions between people, even if you work remotely or only have infrequent contact with others. You don't have to be a people person or a social butterfly to be successful on the job, but you should be able to show real consideration for others. Your interviewer will be looking for it when they talk to you. Don't be afraid to let your humanity shine through.

In a nutshell...

People try to prepare by ingesting all the advice they can from as many sources as possible. That can be overwhelming to the point where it's no longer fruitful. Instead of trying to keep a hundred different bits of advice in your head, just remember the three C's - #confidence , #competence and #compassion . If you project them, you will come across as the kind of person companies want to hire.

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