Job Interview Secrets/5 - The Strategy

Almost without exception, you only get one opportunity to deliver a winning interview performance in front of the employer of your choice. It’s a meeting that should excite you more than anything else, although you probably feel a little nervous, and that’s to be expected. A little tension will keep you on your toes. However, you can’t afford to screw things up by going into the interview without a proper plan or good preparation. My strategy will minimise these possibilities, so long as you stick to the format I describe here.

In this final article of the Job Interview Secrets series I’ll talk you through the five action steps that form the practical structure of your pitch. This must be as close to a working demonstration of how you’ll do the job as you can possibly make it, which is the crux of the transformational job interview.

As I go through these actions, remember that the message you convey is underpinned by the three core concepts of control, differentiation and authenticity which I described in lesson three. If you’re unclear about these, I suggest you go back and review that lesson. And one more thing I’ll do, before we start to go through the interview procedure, is make several assumptions.

First, that you’ve followed everything in this short course from the beginning and, especially, that you grasp the context of the solutions to the job-search problems that I talked about in lesson two. This means that you’ve got a good understanding of conventional job interview formats and you know what’s going on in most interviewers’ minds.

Second, that you understand that you’ve got to complete the planning assignments that I’ve spoken about, and that you recognise the importance of doing them well in advance of the interview. If you’re an impatient sort of person who’s jumped straight in here, to the business end of the course and you’re wondering what I’m talking about, make sure that you go back to lesson one before you commit to any job interview. Work your way through the material in order and cover the background on preparation and research in particular. Otherwise, much of what I talk about in this article won’t make a lot of sense.??????

Third, that you’re meeting in person rather than over video link. For better or worse, many job interviews take place over Zoom, Skype, Teams or the like, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Even before that, they weren’t particularly uncommon, especially during preliminary screening sessions. I get the logistical reasons for this, although I feel uncomfortable that crucial hiring decisions are taken at a distance. I understand the practicalities of video interviews but you should avoid this scenario at all costs if you use my strategy. To assert the maximum influence over the interviewer you must be in a position to make the most powerful impact you can, and to do this there’s no reasonable substitute for meeting face-to-face. ????

Fourth, that you’ve confirmed the meeting venue and schedule and you know what length of time is available to you. Scope out the location beforehand and try to get sight of the meeting room so that you know what physical space you’ll be working with. Do you have access to a whiteboard or flipchart, for example? If not, will you choose to bring your own? Is there a conference table you can sit around? Don’t skimp on these practical matters, and any others that are relevant to you.

But it’s the time availability that’s most important. I recommend you allocate at least an hour and, crucially, you must ensure that the interviewer agrees to this. You don’t want to be cut off when you’re only part-way through your pitch. If the interviewer tells you that they only have fifteen minutes or half an hour or whatever, reschedule the meeting. Time pressure should be the least of your concerns.

So, you’ve ticked each of these boxes? Then let’s get started on the interview steps.

Action Step One: Define The Agenda

After introductions, and perhaps a little schmoozing if it’s style, you should get straight down to business by setting the tone and manner of the meeting. Defining the agenda is easy in practical terms, so long as you do it calmly and confidently. You simply have to declare that you’d like to conduct this meeting in a rather different way to normal. Say that you’re familiar with the usual interview structure but you feel that an alternative format will better help the interviewer decide whether or not you’re the right person for the job.

The point here is to dictate the manner of the interview in a way that puts you in charge of the conversation. Almost no other job candidates will attempt to seize control of a job interview in this way, I can assure you, which instantly differentiates you and enhances your credentials as a person who’s assertive and focused on achieving a specific outcome, thereby reinforcing your authenticity.

The best way to shift into control mode and define the agenda is to say something like this;

“I’d like to conduct this interview rather differently to usual. May I use the meeting to outline the main business challenges you’re facing and explain how I’ll solve them if I’m given the opportunity to do the job?”

Much of the time it really is as simple as that, so long as you don’t allow yourself to be diverted from your course. Screwing up the courage to say these words is the hard bit, especially if you’re not used to taking control of events, but it’s easy to do it if you’re assertive.

Referring to a challenge that the company is experiencing, or a range of them if this is what your research has revealed, is an eye-popping opening gambit. This should grab the interviewer’s attention, right at the start. It’s a bold and ballsy person who leads with something like this which suggests that they’re confident, ambitious and focused on achieving results. These are the sorts of qualities that employers want so make sure you land a big hit early in the meeting.

If the hiring manager beats you to it and adopts a typical interview stance by inviting you to comment on your CV or resume before you manage to deliver this opening statement, or if they otherwise follow the usual interview path and behaviours, you’ll have to be more forceful. In which case, you head them off by saying something like this;

“I’m assuming our time in this meeting is limited. I don’t want to waste any of it by going over information you already have in front of you. Instead, may I suggest we focus on the main business challenges you’re facing and how I’ll solve them if I’m given the opportunity to do the job?”?

It’s a rare interviewer who won’t indulge you. Apart from anything else, they’ll probably be intrigued to hear what you’ll say. The key words are ones that refer to a challenge or difficulty or problem, but make sure you follow up by mentioning that a solution is coming along. This problem and solution pairing is the one-two punch combination that really works. ?

This latter phrasing presumes that you’ve followed some sort of conventional job application process in which a CV or resume was required. If you implement my complete job-search strategy you won’t need one of these because you’ll have arrived at the interview via a different route. As a reminder, this is predicated upon a direct approach and will incorporate personal introductions which lead you upwards through the decision-making hierarchy of the organisation, eventually taking you to the interviewer’s office. In which case, asserting control and leading the agenda becomes an essential component of the transformational job interview.

Using words is one way of asserting control, but it’s not the only one. Body language, gestures and demeanour are all extremely important. So is good use of your voice, including pauses, emphasis, pitch and volume. You also need to command the physical space in which you’re operating. It’s always preferable to sit next to the interviewer and not opposite them with a desk between you, for example, so suggest that you move to a conference table if one’s available or stand up and present yourself from a higher vantage point if possible.?

Defining your agenda at the very start sets the tone for the rest of the interview. To reiterate the substance of this opening gambit, it establishes your control and creates a structure within which you can deliver the next phase of the pitch. This is most important during any meeting which might result in a hiring decision, but it’s equally applicable to information gathering and research encounters amongst others.

I’m barely scratching the surface of this critical moment of the interview. For much more, I strongly recommend you join my Vocation Mastermind group which is completely free of charge. I conduct training webinars which address the specific topic of opening gambits amongst many others.?????????

Action Step Two: State The Problem

So far, you’re in control of what you say, so long as you have the confidence to actually deliver the words I suggest. But now comes the first pinch point of the interview. There are certain hazards involved with this style of interviewing, even though they pale in significance compared with the problems you get with standard ones, so you need to be on your guard here.

Having asserted control, you should quickly move into stating the problem you want to talk about. I say this is a potentially hazardous stage of the meeting because my interview strategy depends on you successfully identifying a legitimate problem the company is experiencing. Unless you’re on the right track with this problem you can’t effectively present a solution, and with no solution you’re sunk.

Stating the problem, therefore, needs to be done carefully. Depending on the nature of this challenge, the specific job you want to do and the particular industry sector your potential new employer operates in, there will be a wide range of directions you could go. The common factor in each of them is that you absolutely must gain confirmation of the problem from the interviewer. You cannot proceed until you know you’re on firm ground.

In the previous step about defining the agenda, I gave you a couple of suggested wordings to establish control. Ideally, I’d like to do the same here by way of example phrases to state the business problem and to seek agreement of this challenge, but this short course isn’t appropriate for the sort of detail I’d need to go into to cover all eventualities. Instead, I’ll introduce the three most common routes that I recommend you follow in stating, and confirming, a business problem.

The first and easiest is when you know the challenge without any doubt whatsoever. In which case, you simply have to ask the interviewer to agree with your assessment of the problem before you move ahead. Ideally you should invite them to restate or paraphrase the problem in their own words. If this happens successfully, you’ve got a green light and you’re good to go with the next step.

If they baulk, repeat the process. With a reticent interviewer, you may need to say that you’ll assume this is the problem unless they contradict you. In the worst-case scenario they’ll refute your suggestion that the problem exists at all. This shouldn’t happen if you’ve done your homework properly but, if it does, you might choose to proceed with caution, reschedule the meeting for a time when you’re better prepared or you could even decide to cut your losses and completely abandon the interview. If it was me, I’d adopt the next strategy.

The second possibility is that you have some doubts about the challenge. This could be because you’ve been unable to get enough solid information, conflicting data has come to light, you’ve been unable to penetrate the defences of a particularly tight-lipped organisation or some other barrier has cropped up along the way. I have to say that I strongly advise against going into any job interview without knowing all about the problem you’re up against, but the reality of the matter is that these things do happen. ?

However, this needn’t stop you as you can use the interview to clarify the business problem. This often comes down to making an educated guess at its nature and using the information that you do have as a springboard to question the interviewer in an appropriate way. This boils down to asking them to fill in any gaps in your knowledge, but in a judicious manner. What you don’t want to do is come across as another chancer, someone who’s taking a fly at a job that they’re really not suited to.

The third option is one I only suggest the most confident and knowledgeable people consider using. The single time I recommend this route is when you really don’t know anything at all about the most pressing business problem that your target employer has, but you find yourself presented with an unmissable interview opportunity at short notice. It also applies to the dead-end I outlined in the first of the problem-stating options just now. If you’re extremely sure of yourself and your abilities, usually because you’ve got good experience and skills within your industry, this isn’t necessarily a bad way to go if you’re offered a once-only chance to pitch yourself for a fabulous job.

What you do in this situation is the following. Establish control, as in the first step, and then ask the interviewer to outline the most pressing business problem he or she faces. Say you’ll tell him or her how you’d deal with it, right there and then, without any preparation. Presenting a problem-solving plan on the fly is a high-risk strategy but one that can pay off handsomely if you fully engage with sensibilities of the interviewer. There’s obviously a lot of potential to mess up spectacularly but if you’re bold, brave or reckless, it’s a last-ditch option.

Whichever of these paths you follow, you must gain unequivocal confirmation of the problem from the interviewer. Without this, you must not go any further. ????

Action Step Three: Raise The Stakes

Once you’ve got a positive confirmation of the problem out of the way, you have to raise the stakes. Anyone who’s been in sales will recognise a variation of this technique. It might sound manipulative as I describe it but fear not. This is all part of the challenge of making a successful pitch of any kind.

Raising the stakes is all about priming the interviewer for the solution you’re about to present. Whenever you deliver a pitch, which could be for a new job, during a contract negotiation or when you’re making a presentation of some sort, you want your audience to be as receptive to your ideas as possible. A great way of doing this is to drill down into the implications of leaving a problematic situation as it is by making your audience feel some pain before you provide the medicine for their suffering. This makes your solution seem that bit more impressive.

The mechanics of raising the stakes are many and varied but they all come down to an analysis of the consequences if the company ignores your proposed solution. The more emotionally you can engage the interviewer with these grim possibilities, the better. There are different ways of doing this but my preferred method is to use a narrative-based pitch structure.

Stories are fabulously effective tools of any presenter’s trade, especially during this stake-raising phase. The same goes for negotiators, salespeople or anyone else who needs to persuade someone else to follow their lead and to take decisions or actions that are favourable to the pitcher. Designing narrative pitches is a core component of my communication skills training business because it works so well, and never more so than when raising the stakes during a job interview.

If you feel uncomfortable doing this or haven’t got the time to prepare a good story, here’s a remarkably simple alternative to the narrative technique. Just ask the interviewer to elaborate upon the implications of allowing the problem to remain as it is. If you can persuade them to put this in their own words, the impact will be that much greater. ????

You need to have the courage and self-belief to make raising the stakes work properly. Too many fledgling pitchers stop short of what’s required to make this strategy as effective as it can be. This often comes down to insufficient practice which leads to a lack of confidence in pushing the stakes as far as reasonably possible. As before, I suggest you join my Vocation Mastermind support group which covers this sort of thing quite frequently.

You’ll know you’ve raised the stakes to a suitable level if you see the interviewer squirming in their chair, sometimes almost imperceptibly but possibly in a quite literal way. Look out for their eyes flickering or watch for them fidgeting with objects on their desk. When this moment arrives, you’re ready for the next step.

Action Step Four: Outline Your Solution

Presenting the solution to the business problem you’ve uncovered should be relatively simple, so long as you grasp the ins and outs of the job you’re interviewing for, you’ve done your homework properly and you’ve rehearsed your presentation well. Proficiency, preparation and practice should give you all the ammunition you need to deliver a knock-out interview performance.

Any presentation needs to consider the two constituent parts of content and delivery. In other words, you have to think about what you’ll say and how you’re going to say it. So, let’s think about these components of the interview.

Your pitch content is largely up to you, I’m afraid. You’re the authority in all matters connected with the job you want to do, or at least you ought to be. If you have even the smallest doubt about the nature of the work you’ll be doing, or you’re vague about how you propose to do it once you’re hired, you’re about to commit the arch interview crime of being an opportunist chancer. If this is the case, I strongly advise you to stop immediately and put things right. Any half-decent interviewer will see through you in a flash and you’ll be doomed to failure.

But let’s assume that this isn’t the case and we’ll proceed on the assumption that you know what you’re doing, professionally speaking. Job knowledge is one thing, but how do you combine this with proof that you understand the problem you’ve identified and then present a persuasive explanation of how you’ll address it? Doing this well is at the heart of designing your job-pitch content.

You might remember the first article when I mentioned that you only need to answer one of three questions at interview and these questions are as follows. How will you make the company money? How will you save them money? How will you help them do things more efficiently? All other questions are subsidiary to these essential ones. If they have no obvious connection to making money, saving money or improving efficiencies, they’re irrelevant.

Virtually every employer, almost without exception, hires a new worker because they can do one of these things for them. If you’re not making or saving them money, or doing things better which is a variant of saving money because it reduces costs, why should you be employed? Justifying your inclusion on the payroll boils down to satisfactorily answering a minimum of one of the three core interview questions.

Depending on the job you do, you must decide which of them is most relevant to your role. If you work in any kind of sales or business development arena, making money is clearly the question to focus on. A big part of purchasing is about saving money. Project managers have to conduct their work efficiently. This is basic stuff. It’s business 101.

But despite its obvious nature, many interviewees make things much too hard for themselves by trying to be clever in ways you’d need to see to believe. Instead of directly answering one of these basic questions, I’ve seen all kinds of complication, obfuscation and prevarication from countless candidates in almost every round of job interviews I’ve conducted.

Keep things simple by using the answer to one of these questions as the basis of your pitch. Focus on whichever one is most relevant to your work, make direct and specific reference to the business problem you’ve discovered, and be ruthless in eliminating anything that doesn’t directly relate to solving it with regard to making or saving money. That’s the key to constructing great interview content. ????

Moving on to delivery and this, I’m afraid, is where a written article struggles to teach you good presentation skills. Unless you’re in front of me, it’s almost impossible to give you meaningful guidance or useful feedback on your particular presentation techniques. Despite this, what I will do is give you some suggestions for good delivery strategies. This section is primarily aimed at newcomers to presentations, so forgive me if you’re knowledgeable and experienced in this area.

As with some of the other steps of the interview pitch, there are various ways you could deliver your content but I highly recommend you use a narrative-based presentation format. I’ve dwelt on the benefits of using story for the simple reason that it really works. It’s one of the most potent and persuasive weapons in your interview armoury.

You get a natural and flowing format which is simple to weave your interview content around. This automatically provides a framework which informs, engages and creates a positive impact better than almost any alternative, no matter what you want to say or where you want to say it.

A three-act story structure is one that features a beginning, a middle and an end. In your case, the beginning explains what the problem is. The middle drills down into the implications of leaving the problem as it is. The end presents the solution to the problem. All good presentations follow this pattern in one way or another, and this is something that many of you will already know.

My spin on this format weaves a strong emotional impact into the presentation which strengthens each part of it. As you might imagine, it’s a major part of my Job Search Masterclass, and honing these skills features strongly in my seminars and coaching sessions. Whether or not you decide to follow a narrative structure, you always need to know what you’re trying to achieve and you must consider the demands of your audience.

In this situation, you’re trying to get a job by impressing the interviewer. That’s the achievement you’ll have at the forefront of your mind, but this grand aim isn’t very helpful in constructing the solution part of your pitch. It’s too big and too general to make it a practicality at a detailed content level so you have to break this goal down.

Instead of thinking in terms of getting a work contract, concentrate on your subsidiary aim during this solution part of the pitch which is to build proof that you’re a highly competent person who’s got a great attitude. You must also convince the interviewer that you’re a safe pair of hands and that you’ll be a good fit. This is true of the entire interview, of course, but it’s especially the case here.

To do this, I suggest you focus the content of your solution on the three most urgent actions you’ll take when you start your new job. Naturally, you’ll have a lot of things on your to-do list but keep everything tight, concise and waffle-free. And why just three actions? Because this is the perfect number of components to feature in any talk or presentation for all sorts of reasons. Search online for “rule of three” to learn more about the power of triumvirates.

How does this work in practice? A maxim of experienced presenters is to use the following formula. Tell the audience what you’re going to talk about. Talk about whatever it is you want to say, then summarise what you’ve just said. That’s the rule of three in action. It’s really difficult to mess things up if you stick to this presentation setup.

Converting this blueprint to a job interview, the standard three-point presentation format is to declare what you’ll do when you’re hired, say how you’ll do it and then explain what the results will be. Those three components make up one action. You then repeat this pattern twice, making a total of three actions, each of which contains three components. Is that clear? I’m sorry if you know all about this presentation business but there will undoubtedly be many course participants who don’t.

Now might be a good time to take a time out and think about resumes, CVs or similar forms of career summary. Do you need to use any of these during the interview? I know that many job candidates struggle with this notion but I strongly recommend that you totally eliminate them from every stage of your work search. They’re completely unnecessary if you follow my entire job-hunting strategy and they’re certainly redundant once you get to the interview. In fact I’d go further because I believe that they actively hold you back.

There are many reasons for this. CVs and resumes are intrinsically reductive and usually quite badly written. They focus on previous career achievements over your future working intentions. Because job hunters usually write a single, multi-purpose career summary which they distribute to multiple potential employers, resumes and CVs almost never address an individual organisation’s specific problems and almost always fail to outline the solutions on offer.

These are all reason enough to get rid of these superfluous documents but the biggest downside is that they force you into behaving like a typical job candidate. Even worse, as soon as you submit a CV or resume, everyone in the recruitment chain thinks of you as yet another job candidate. You’re automatically marked down as a commodity to be processed according to criteria that are way beyond your control. This includes the interviewer, I’m sorry to tell you.

If you’re interested, I talk about the deficiencies of this approach in a lot of detail in my Job Search Masterclass. So, should you replace resumes and CVs? Do you need any supporting documentation to take into the interview? Is it a good idea to build your presentation content or delivery around your CV or resume? In a nutshell, I’d say no to each of these questions.

BY all means clarify your skills, experience and ambitions in the form of a written summary. This is an essential part of the planning process but, once you’ve completed this, leave any such document at home. I suggest you use nothing more than a verbal presentation during the interview, perhaps with the aid of a flipchart or whiteboard to clarify your proposals and highlight any important points.

If you find yourself in a job interview as a consequence of submitting a CV or resume, refer to action step one during which you assert control and divert attention away from a discussion of what’s contained in this document. Again, this is only skimming over this topic and there are plenty of other strategies connected with the resume and CV issue that I cover elsewhere. This includes possible leave-behind material and follow-up communication. ???

Action Step Five: Ask For Feedback

The last step is simple and will take me less than a minute to tell you about, although it’s a vital part of the interview process. Just ask the interviewer to confirm that you’re on the right track as you proceed through each stage of your presentation. Positive feedback ensures that you don’t veer off course and allows you to make adjustments to your content and delivery as appropriate.

I’m listing this as the fifth action step but you should ask for feedback and commitment as you proceed. You’re not looking for validation of your interview performance but on the quality of the solutions you’re proposing for the problems they have. This will allow you to manoeuvre your discussion as appropriate.

If you’ve done your job properly, the remainder of the interview meeting will fall into place. The probability is that the interviewer won’t have witnessed such an effective presentation from any other candidate, assuming you’re up against other people for the job.

All that remains is to field job offers and to negotiate the best remuneration package. Perhaps you think I’m being flippant by presenting the conclusion in this succinct way, but it’s the reality of the majority of transformative job interviews. If you follow the guidance I give, you’ll be giving yourself a golden opportunity to grab the job of your dreams.??

That pretty much wraps things up for this short Job Interview Secrets article series. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and feel enthused about your next job interview, whenever that will be. But before I go, I’d like to tell you about a special enrolment offer for my Job Search Masterclass that features a much-expanded version of the course material you’ve just consumed. Interviews are only a small part of any job-search project and my complete training programme includes much more besides this.

You’ll learn how to detect lucrative work opportunities before anyone else has found them, engineer personal introductions to key decision makers and discover how to construct a powerful narrative-based pitch that will grab the immediate attention of any recruiter. This is on top of an exhaustive explanation of every detail of the job interview which I’ve only touched upon here. You get over fifteen hours of original and unique video content, all presented in an upbeat and focused way.

As a bonus, I’m giving course participants privileged access to my personal support programme and an advanced booking facility for my in-person training workshops and seminars. I’d love you to join me for the Job Search Masterclass and all the other components of my Vocation Master programme. As an incentive, I’m offering a discounted price as a thank you for being here right now. This is a strictly time-limited offer, so just follow this link to reach the course enrolment page in order to take advantage of this special invitation and ￡150 off the usual price.

OK, that’s it and thanks for being with me. Good luck with your next job interview and I hope to be with you soon for the Job Search Masterclass. Bye for now.

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