Three Powerful Interview Techniques to Help You Land That Dream Job

The dreaded job interview is something that almost every adult can relate to. Even if you yourself are not currently in the job market, at some time in the future, you may be—or someone you care about who is now job hunting may benefit from this information.

Leveraging “Commitment & Consistency”

"What was it about me that caused you to invite me for this interview?”

I was recently listening to an interview with a famous psychologist, a specialist in persuasion (Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion), who offered a tip for interview situations, in the form of a question to ask at the outset: “Thank you so much for the opportunity to interview with you. Of course, I’m eager to answer all of your questions. Would you mind if I ask you one question first, out of curiosity: What was it about me that caused you to invite me for this interview?” (I revised the question a bit, removing the “cancelling” BUT that it originally contained).

As Cialdini explains it, this dramatically increases the chances that the applicant is offered the job. It is said to work because it causes the interviewers to in effect make commitments to the applicant's traits and values and fit for the?job, after which the applicant demonstrates consistency with those positive comments. The implication is that it’s critical for the applicant to demonstrate this consistency, following the “commitment” on the interviewer’s part.

Cialdini said he learned of this technique from someone who was previously not getting job offers following his interviews but reportedly received multiple offers by using this “commitment and consistency strategy.”?

Recognizing the “Dilution Effect”

Professor Niro Sivanathan of the London Business School has been fascinated with the fact that people tend to think that more "evidence" when presenting an argument is better than less. If they have four pieces of evidence, for example, people think that this will make for a stronger, more convincing, argument than just two pieces.

To demonstrate the fallacy of this thinking, Niro offers a striking example in simple quantitative terms. Let's say that in terms of their strength of persuasiveness, the first two pieces can each be assigned a score of 90, while the second two pieces can be assigned a score of 60. Most people believe that presenting all four pieces of evidence (300 points) is stronger than presenting only the two strongest (180 points) because 300 is more than 180.

But what happens in the mind of the audience or listener, Niro explains, is an averaging effect. Presenting all four pieces of evidence would result in an average of 75, while presenting just the two stronger pieces results in an average of 90.

Limit your presentation of evidence to that which is strongest, even if there are fewer pieces to present.

Numerous studies have demonstrated the truth to this approach, which can be successfully applied/implemented in the realm of interviews (even though not originally presented in this context): Limit your presentation of evidence to that which is strongest, even if there are fewer pieces to present. With attention spans shrinking continuously, this approach will also work to your advantage simply because it caters to shorter attention spans.

“Do You Have Any Questions for Me?”

A former recruiter for Lyft named Jordan Gibbs offers help dealing with a question that many if not most people during job interviews do not handle to their best advantage: “Do you have any questions for me?” As you’re probably aware, a stammer, a simple “no” or a question that is weak or lacking insight is not going to be to your advantage. “If you had the power to change one thing about the company,” Gibbs advises asking during the early rounds, “what would it be?” If the interviewer responds by criticizing company culture, she suggests, that could be a kind of red flag warning you to seriously consider whether you would really want to work there, even if you were offered the job. (That’s right: Just because you are offered a well-paying position doesn’t necessarily mean that it would be a good idea in the long run to accept it!)

“What would you anticipate would be the biggest challenge for me when joining your company?”

Gibbs suggests this other question for later rounds: “What would you anticipate would be the biggest challenge for me when joining your company?” It’s likely that the hiring manager’s response to this question will give you an assessment as to how your skills and experience align with the organization’s needs. It also gives you the opportunity to talk about how you would address any areas that you would need to strengthen as you assume the new role. A generally effective way of doing this is to describe how you developed new skills in the past, explaining how you’d apply your demonstrated ability to adapt in the new position.

In Conclusion

You might want to consider one or more of the above techniques if you feel comfortable with them—or pass this information along to someone you care about for whom it might prove useful. The umbrella concept here is that it usually helps to go into an interview with some degree of preparation and strategy, in at least one way or another.

As dozens of five-star reviews on?Google?and?Yelp?attest, Daniel Berman has over the years been achieving excellent results helping people with various aspects of communication, including interviews (for both jobs and academic/professional programs).

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