Up Your Interview Skills for 2017

Up Your Interview Skill for 2017

One evening during your job search you decide to go to a movie.  This is what you see.

Act I:  Guy and gal meet and makes a bad first impression. 

Act II:  The story unfolds.  

Denouement:  They end up together – or not.  

The next morning you resume your job search.

None of us know what the job market will look like in 2017.  If Donald Trump is able to keep his campaign promises, there’s a good chance that more people applying for jobs will find themselves actually being interviewed.  Although the jobless rate has had the most dramatic drop under President Obama since President Reagan, when you ask Americans how the economy is doing, their answers will likely largely depend on how their personal economy is doing.  If Trump can improve on Obama’s job legacy, we will see a lot more activity within a increasingly limited talent pool, including many who feel they’ve had to stay where they are since the recession to reestablish a record of stability, to assuage making a move from the frying pan into the fire, or for any other of a multitude of reasons.

If you are part of that talent pool, assuming you have the necessary skills and experience and, of course, a résumé that says you can probably bring a valued contribution to a new table, the chances are you will find yourself in an interview for a new job.  Guy meets gal; makes first impression.

Much has been written, including by me, on how to conduct yourself in an interview.  I have not seen much, however, on how important it is when you make that first impression to know yourself.   I am not referring to your job knowledge here.  I'm speaking about how well or how poorly you will relate to your interviewer.  In order to assess that we have to make some critical assumptions. 

1.  Both you and your interviewer have distinct and unique personalities.
2. Certain character traits (such as humility, assertiveness, boastfulness, daring, etc.) can and likely will be perceived differently by you and your interviewer.
3. While personalities are close to set in stone, you still have control over how you act and react in varying situations.
4. Your interviewer has an immediate need to fill a job and you could be the solution to his or her problem; therefore, your interviewer is looking for a reason to hire you, not reject you out of hand.
5. And finally, first impressions do count.  Again, notwithstanding your ability to do the job, will you be viewed as confident or cowering?  A contributor or a slacker?  A model for others or someone willing to step over others on the climb up? 

     Let’s examine some of the ways that your distinct and unique personality and the control you exercise over the way you act during an interview can impact your interviewer’s perception of you and how you might be seen as a fit for the job.  Keep in mind, this is not last night’s movie.  This is the next step in your career.   Here are some of the first impressions you might want to leave – or not.  As…

•  An Innocent:  You go into the interview acting like you don’t have a clue about the company or the job.  You don’t know who you will be meeting with or how to read what your interviewer is looking for, aside from your great talent.  Unless you are the only person on the planet who can do the job, GONG!  You blew it.  Innocence just tells your interviewer that you didn’t care enough about the job to do your homework.  If this happens to you, learn from it.  Get your head out of the clouds and understand that no job will be handed to you just because you showed up for the interview.

• A Victim:  You step through the door, sit down and start blaming others for the mistakes you’ve made throughout your career.  All of your job changes were the result of an unfair situation, a management change, a downturn in your market or a need to get away from the boss from Hell.  The hell of it is, it may all be, to a certain extent, true that you’ve been victimized.  But no one wants an “Oh, poor me” sad sack around to poison the moral of their staff.  You’ve just become the victim of your own self pity.  Also, keep in mind that people who view themselves as victims are also looked at as vengeful or litigious, neither being a desirable trait for a staff member.  What to do?  If you honestly believe that you’ve been repeatedly victimized or discriminated against, sit down and make an honest assessment of each of those incidents.  And honest, means adding in your own accountability here.  Create a subjective scenario for your previous job changes and identify steps you can take to prevent another repetition of your becoming a victim. And then let your interviewer know that you have been proactive in taking those steps.

• A Martyr:  If you are a martyr, you will let your interviewer know how you were the go-to guy at all your previous jobs.  You were the one solving everyone else’s problems, often to the point of neglecting your own role.  Like the victim,  martyrs’ careers are often filled with multiple job changes, which of course would never be their fault.  Their job histories are filled with drama.  What does an interviewer see when she recognizes a martyr?  Someone who, despite having helped others for apparently selfless reasons, is generally controlling and manipulative and has used these character traits to further their own careers by trying to make themselves look good to others.  Perhaps, someone who believes that others owe him for his contributions to their goals.  Don’t be a martyr.  It’s okay to let your interviewer know that you’ve helped others, been a mentor, assisted where you can, but martyrs tend to throw themselves on their own swords.  Let your interviewer know that your focus as an employee has always been on the company’s goals, not on your coworkers’ short term objectives.  Believe me, they won’t be giving you the credit you think you deserve.  If you have so much time on your hands that you can do that much for others, then you should have either been fired or promoted at that point. 

• A Cowboy:  The cowboy will saunter into an interview and proceed to explain how he did so much for his former employers by taking risks and in many cases, going against company policies and procedures.  The cowboy is always the hero.  He may have spent unauthorized funds on software that reduced the budget seeming in the end to save the day, but the fact is, he spent unauthorized money.  TV shows are abundant with police who stretch their authority to catch the bad guy, but cowboys, like TV police, are risk takers where risk taking is not always a well thought out and managed process.  Okay, so you took some chances and they worked out.  Now how do you present those.  First, don’t saunter.  You’re an employee, not an owner, and it’s not your investment at stake.  If your heroism has resulted in an accomplishment that you feel you need to share, focus on the result and explain how you came to believe it was necessary to take the steps you took.  Second, assure your interviewer that you understand companies have policies and procedures in place for a reason and that it would never be your intent to ignore them; that when trying to save the day, you would present your ideas to those who have the authority to and can help you carry them out. 

• A Gambler:  This person has far less regard for policies and procedures than the cowboy.  His eye is only on the payout and seldom on the odds.  If you know you’re a gambler, you shouldn’t be working for anyone except yourself.

• A Tyrant:  Now here is a person who’s “been there, done that,” no matter what it is.  He lives by the rules he established in another life at another company and will do it the way he believes it worked before.  He is stubborn, usually arrogant, micromanaging if in a position of leadership and if he doesn’t get his way using those traits, will likely display evidence of controlling, narcissistic behavior, create arguments within the group, including with his boss, will judge others as incompetent, and will round things out with temper tantrums when he doesn’t get his way.  Employers don’t generally like to hire tyrants unless they are desperate to turn a bad situation around, even at the risk of making it worse.  The real problem with being a tyrant is that most of them don’t know or won’t believe that they are.  Oddly, many are inherently capable of presenting themselves at interviews without betraying their true natures.  And they can make amazingly strong first impressions.  So when it comes to tyrants, all I can say is employer beware.

• A Creator:  You sit down at your desk, review your project and then identify and implement a program.  You have difficulty just looking at a problem without your mind automatically seeking solutions.  If you were an artist, you’d be a master.  If you were a doctor, your practice would thrive.  That is as long as you have someone to manage the business side of things, because you’re just not a big-picture kind of person.  You are not materialistic and your understanding of the nuances of ROI are passive at best.  In most cases, creators do not even have an interest in moving up.  You simply want to do your job.  Interviewers love creators.  They are the source of most companies’ continued growth and ability to remain at the forefront of their industries.  The important thing for a creator during an interview is to present herself as just that.  She is not a saleswoman, she will not create a marketing program for her program or step into the limelight for its creation.  Most concerns by interviewers about creators are mitigated, fortunately, by the creator herself.  She generally knows where she wants to be and how she can make the best contribution to the company.  Creators, a word of advice:  Do not try to cross over into sales just because you know your product better than anyone else.  You’re liable to starve.

• A Warrior:  And here we have almost the exact opposite of the creator.  The warrior is the one with fire in the belly; with the eat what you kill mentality.  He is confident, but not cocky, focused, typically relationship oriented with excellent interpersonal and communications skills and are highly driven and self disciplined.  The warrior will walk into an interview, make immediate eye contact with his interviewer, shake hands firmly, and will retain complete control of his thoughts and his words throughout the process.  Warriors make top gun sales people and are quick to size up their adversaries to their own advantage.  Typically, a warrior is not a good-old-boy, back-slapping, loud type who is focused on the immediate transaction at hand, but someone who understands that warriors work best in a group and is looking to establish long term relationships, both with his employer and with his customers and clients.  Warriors are highly coveted in an active job market because interviewers know, nothing happens until a sale is made.

• A Magician:  Finally there is the magician.  Not in the sense that a magician can make things seem to happen, but that he actually does make things happen.  Magicians understand the bigger picture; they attract loyal staff like pulling rabbits out of a hat.  They know how to make liabilities disappear and profits reappear.  They are analytical; they make very strong leaders; they don’t like to sugarcoat things, including their own achievements, which, by the way, they make seem transparent, but which few except those they mentor will learn how to replicate.  Magicians can interview very well, but they do have a tendency to be candid with their interviewers.  If they know that the company’s sales were down last year, if they heard that its technology is behind, or its been bleeding employees, they will confront their interviewers seeking explanations.  And the last thing they want from those who are interviewing them?  Sugarcoating.  Magicians want to come in and fix problems, which they can only do if they know what the problems are.  Interviewers, a word of advice when speaking to magicians:  Be direct.  The only wrong answer to their questions is an evasive answer.  Many of these guys and gals are more motivated to go to work for you by how deep the doodoo is.  You want these people on your team.

     It is difficult for us to change who we are.  Many, especially under the stress of an interview, and depending on their own needs may try, but I would never recommend that anyone ever try to be anyone but who he or she already is.  What I do suggest, is that we take the time to try to really understand who we are before we interact with others, especially when the stakes are as high as your next job.  We may not be able to change our personalities, but we can exercise control over many of our traits, at least enough to get our points through to our interviewers that we are the individuals who belong in that position.   The end of your first impression is more important than its beginning.

     What traits do you recognize in yourself that could deter a favorable impression by a job interviewer? 

     If you were sitting on the other side of the desk, how would you want to see you present yourself?   

     How can you make yourself into that person, the one who will be called back for a second interview and will ultimately receive an offer – without altering who you really are?