Interview Strategy

How will you prepare for your next interview? Please let me share my tips on preparing for and landing the interview for your dream job.

Crushing the interview begins long before the actual interview.

1. Identify your dream job (get your head out of the “any” job mindset). Determine the type of work, a short list of top companies and other criteria like location, travel, remote flexibility, etc.
2. Identify the potential roadblocks to landing that dream job. For example, relocation concerns, confidence, experience, physical ability, etc.
3. Challenge any assumptions you have related to these roadblocks through research and networking (more on this later). Those things holding you back may only be in your head. Travel may not be as bad a you think, relocation might be feasible under the right circumstances, you may be more qualified than those already doing the work, and you may not need another degree or certification to be taken seriously.
4. Identify any real roadblocks and create a plan to eliminate or reduce those roadblocks. Start improving your skills, gaining the necessary experience, and begin addressing the things that make travel, relocation, or remote work seem impossible.
5. Do not “wait to fit into your swimsuit” to visit the beach. Take a leap of faith and start actively pursuing your dream job even if you do not feel ready. There is no better way to test your assumptions and fine tune your strategy than to jump right in. Trust me. Once you land your dream job you will kick yourself for not starting sooner and many of those roadblocks are insignificant in your rear view.
6. Take a more focused approach to interview prospecting. Minimize the shotgun approach involving mass distributions, passive online listings, and non-specific calls for assistance on social media. These methods may help you find a job but they likely won’t lead to landing your dream job.
7. You may need to accept a lesser position to keep the lights on. Make sure to accept positions that moves you toward your end goal (or first of many end goals). Do not let yourself get so engaged in busy work that you lose focus on your goals. Keep researching, networking, and applying.

Concluding this opening pep-talk let me recommend that you challenge all pre-conceived assumptions. Just because you didn’t get an interview or an offer does not mean you shouldn’t keep trying. Just because you got rejected yesterday doesn’t mean you need to wait for weeks or months to reapply. Just because you just started a new job doesn’t mean you should not immediately begin looking for something better. Just because you are not “ready” does not mean you should not try now.

Now let me be more specific.

You have a list of positions and companies that represent your next dream job. Now what? Research and networking.

Begin by researching the job roles and companies. This is more simple than it sounds. Read a summary of the company history. Get a sense for the company size, location(s), and focus areas. Review the bio of the current and previous CEO. Read a few news articles to determine the recent wins and losses. Read something written by the current CEO or listen to recordings of the CEO speaking online. Find and add 1-2 well-known quotes from the CEO to your vocabulary. Look to find a personal connection to the company if one is not already evident. Learn about their hiring practices, follow their recruiters on social media, and keep an eye open for hiring events.

Establish a relationship with at least 2 people who already have your dream job and preferably people working for your dream company. How you say? Social media and using your own personal network. Ask around or search profiles to find prospective contacts. Get a personal referral from a friend or find people online that may have a personal connection. Maybe you grew up in the same town or attended the same university. A connection helps but is not required. Don’t be star struck into inactivity. Reach out, ask for a call or coffee, and if things go well consider establishing a mentoring relationship.

What do you talk about? Ask for advice. Ask them to share their career story. Ask them to review your resume. Look to identify opinions on company leadership, likes and dislikes, company lingo, future direction, hot technologies, and hiring tips. Ask if there is a recruiting referral program. You are arming yourself for the upcoming interview and creating a powerful ally.

Keep an eye out and proactively look for backdoors. Companies get a ton of resumes. They have processes in place to protect HR from the flood. That means your resume likely has a lower chance of getting noticed when posting for jobs through standard recruiting channels. Backdoors include targeted hiring events, invitation only events, special hiring initiatives, veterans recruiting programs, and employee referral programs. Look for ways to fast track the recruiting process.

Be conscious that getting hired at a top company often takes time. Hiring fluctuates year to year. There are advantages and disadvantages to getting hired during a hiring boom or a hiring dip. I often see annual hiring spikes (once every 2-3 years) followed by a extreme slow down before things stabilize. Point being things take time and predicting the right time is difficult so there is no better time than today. Networking helps you get a pulse on these trends. You want to know when there is a big hiring push and be aware that it will likely be followed by a drop in hiring. Companies have seasonal fluctuations in hiring as well.

We can’t talk about interviews without talking about resumes.

I thought you said this was about interviews? We are almost there. We can’t talk about interviews without talking about resumes. Your resume is the first impression that sets the tone or expectation level for the interview.

Your resume should be the interview preview or outline. Repetition is the key to memory. Think of the entire process like a movie. Trailers and posters create a sense of excitement and anticipation. The opening scene sets the stage, the body of the movie is presented, the movie closes with a climactic ending, with outtakes and credits often reinforcing the intended emotional impact. The entire experience, beginning with the first advertisements, provide a cohesive message that is reinforced repeatedly. How does it make you feel when you see a movie that has an inconsistent message? How memorable is it when everything is aligned and your high expectations were met or exceeded?

My point being that your resume is a critical component to the interview. It is not merely a ticket to the event; it needs to be the playbill. Write your resume, prepare your interview performance, then circle back to your resume to make sure both are aligned. All or most of the items on your resume should be part of the stories you tell during the interview. It is not an additional set of reference material. As an interviewer; I want to review your resume afterwards and see that each major item was discussed. If you have things on your resume that you do not plan to discuss; that is a good indicator that the information is out of place.

Now lets talk interview preparation strategy. Finally!

You need to think of this as a choreographed performance. A one-woman or on-man show. You have an opening, several acts, and a conclusion. You have a playbill (resume). Each act can and should be carefully rehearsed and delivered in a confident and conversational tone. Your goal is to avoid going too far off script.

I also want you to think of this as a simple strategy game. You are going to prepare 6 stories. I am going to ask you 5-6 random questions. Your job is to respond with one of your prepared stories to each of my questions. Being careful to select a story that most closely answers each question in turn.

There are two tricks to winning this game. First, you need to be good (i.e. practice) pivoting or molding the stories you prepared to answer almost any professional question. Second, you prepare stories that are designed to be flexible. Each story has the potential to answer 2-3 common questions.

How do you do craft these magical questions and practice pivoting responses?

First I want you to consider the outline of a traditional interview. You have an introduction (tell me about yourself), you have a series of questions, and you have a closing discussion.

The typical interview runs for one hour. You often start a few minutes late and will ideally end 5-10 minutes early. This gives the interviewer time to finalize notes and bake in the conversation before starting the next interview or activity. That means you have about 45 minutes to talk. If you limit your responses to 3-5 minutes each you will only encounter 5-6 questions before the time runs out.

Second. The questions in an interview are fairly predictable and generally one dimensional. You will get asked about teamwork, dealing with change, overcoming obstacles, dealing with difficult situations, and similar competency-based questions. The list of core competencies is not vast. Each interview question often evaluates a single competency. The questions will vary but ignore the questions; there are hundreds of questions but they represent 10-12 well known core competencies.

Learn to see the competency hiding behind each question. When the interviewer says; tell me about a time that you handled a angry customer? You think “Customer Service” and possibly “Emotional Intelligence” . When someone says; tell me about a time when you overcame a major obstacle. You hear; tell me a story about your “Drive” or “Adaptability”.

The interviewer has a list of questions. Each is linked to a single competency. They are essentially filling 5-6 text blocks or buckets. They plan to fill these buckets in order one-by-one. Your plan is to hit multiple buckets with each response; including buckets (competencies) that they were not instructed to assess.

Here is the plan. Referring to your resume, craft 6 stories that highlight your best accomplishments and skills. If you have a story that isn’t on your resume, I hope at this point you are asking yourself why. Identify a set of target competencies (your attempt to predict the interview questions). The safe bet is teamwork, customer service, adaptability, leadership, drive/passion, and emotional intelligence. Write them down. Now revisit your stories and make sure they each touches on two competencies and that each of those predicted competencies have 1-2 solid responses.

For example, you have two stories that demonstrate customer service. The first also demonstrates leadership and the second demonstrates emotional intelligence.

Here is the cool part! Because each story is linked to your resume they provide meaningful repetition. Because each story represents two competencies you appear to be anticipating the questions. You start checking boxes on upcoming questions and reinforcing previously discussed competencies. You will even impress the interviewer by demonstrating competencies that are not on their list.

Now it is time to practice. Print a list of common interview questions. Prepare and practice your stories. Cut the interview questions into paper strips. Practice pulling random questions out of a hat and pairing them with one of your stories. Learn to pivot a wide range of questions to deliver one of your carefully crafted and practiced responses. Ta Da!

Wrapping up:

You have four tasks to perform in the interview:

1. Confirm that you have the skills to perform the job.
   • You have related experiences and transferable skills.
   • You will learn what you do not know quickly.
   • You work well independently and as a team; especially in the face of adversity and change.
   • You meet any hard requirements like willingness to relocate, travel, work weekends, etc.
   • Your personality and outlook on life are a good match for the company culture.
2. Avoid casting doubt on your abilities. You are at the interview for a reason. Do not give them a reason to think otherwise.
3. Make sure your interviewer it taking good notes by wrapping a little early and by not rushing them when they pause to take notes.
4. Clearly demonstrate your desire to work for the company in question.

They already think you can do the job (why else would you be there). Reinforce those assumptions. Avoid creating doubt (since negative emotions are more memorable), and make sure that information was recorded.

You don’t necessarily have to prove you are the best candidate. Candidates can be ruled out for many reasons, like the hard requirements I mentioned earlier. Most candidates will fail to communicate the points mentioned above. Handling an interview well could place you above more qualified candidates.

Closing Tips:

1. Record yourself while practicing to critique and improve.
2. Practice being stumped. Pretend they just asked a question that floors you. Responding well to an unexpected question can be powerful. Practice pausing to collect your thoughts. Ask calmly to repeat or rephrase the question. Repeat back the question in your own words.
3. Practice your opening and closing statements over and over. They should be closely aligned. One is an introduction and the last is a recap. Rarely will someone fault you for sounding over prepared.
4. When preparing your stories focus on recent activities (or phrase stories as recent). You get one out of six to talk about something outside of your professional experience or from your distant past.
5. Practice whiteboarding one or more technical discussions.
6. Never talk for more than 3-5 minutes. Your intro can run up to 5 minutes. Responses and closing comments should be in the 3-4 minute range. You need to demonstrate your ability to be reasonably concise. Shorter answers provide more time for open discussion and bonus questions.
7. Know when to quit talking. Make your point and lock it down.
8. Be ready to talk intelligently about everything on you resume (listing a skill or technology that you cannot discuss can be disastrous).
9. Never say I’ll get back to you with an answer.
10. Be prepared to say “I don’t know” but never leave a question unanswered. Pivot! Say something like, “I don’t know the answer to that question but it sounds like you are trying to assess my technical skills. Can I recommend another technology that better demonstrates my technical skills?”.
11. Never respond in absolutes like no, never, or always and never respond in one word answers.
12. Keep your eye out for hints from the interviewer. A sympathetic interviewer may drop hints when you are going off the rails. For example repeating or rephrasing a previously asked question, asking for clarifications, cutting you off, or even making obvious suggestions. These olive branches are often overlooked.
13. Know the company mission statement and CEO’s name. They should roll off your tong like you are reciting your home address.
14. Volunteer why you want the job, why you want to work for this particular company, the CEO’s name, and company mission statement. Weave these titbits into your performance. Do not make them ask.
15. When you explain why you want to work for this company tell a personal story. The stronger the personal connection the better. Do not give some lame response like it has always been my dream to work for such a big and well known company that I apparently know very little about.
16. If you plan to send a thank you response prepare a template in advance. The message needs to be sent as soon as possible if it has any chance of positively influencing the decision making process. Too often these last ditch attempts arrive way too late to have a meaningful impact.
17. Prepare a response that talks about how you failed in some important but trivial way and how you not only overcame the failure with grace but turned it into something positive.
18. Prepare a response that demonstrates your learning process and dedication to lifetime learning.
19. Prepare a response that demonstrates your ability to learn and apply new skills and technology quickly.
20. Prepare a response that demonstrated how you contribute to the success of others through couching, teaching, and volunteering.
21. Prepare a response that demonstrates how you deal with difficult bosses, peers, and customers.
22. Avoid getting trapped by deal breakers. Most position have some preceived hard requirements like relocation. Watch for these hardline questions. When you are able to say yes, do it clearly. When you are tempted to say no, respond in generalities. These hardline requirements can often be worked out after an offer has been made but could stop an interview cold.
23. Research behavioral-based interviews and the STAR method.
24. If you are qualified then ignore the requirements listed on the job posting. These listings often describe education, travel, and other requirements. If you are qualified these are suggestions rather than hard requirements. Just know that first line recruiters might filter you out. Employee referrals and special hiring events are great ways to get on the board regardless.
25. Consider applying for jobs that are a stretch. The position, company, or experience required should be bigger than your own past experience and skill level. Why do the same things you already do at another company or in another city. You want a challenge and you need something new.
26. Top mistakes include being too laid back or monotone, being overly confident, failing to back up resume claims, deal breakers, lacking passion, lacking company-specific passion/knowledge, poor emotional intelligence, talking too long or too much, not talking enough, and dropping a red flag.
27. Most interviewers want to see you succeed. They are generally sympathetic. They also secretly need you to fail. It is hard to judge people; especially those with similar backgrounds and experiences. You will make their jobs so much easier if you fall on your own sword. If you are attentive you can feel the shift once a fatal mistake has been made (the mood and attention level changes immediately). If you are attentive you might be able to recover.