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Don’t Let Hiring Managers Guess about Hiring You

The traditional interview consists of a question-and-answer format resulting in the hiring manager putting together the information she has heard and making a decision (guess) about which candidate to hire. But why let the hiring manager come to her own conclusion? Following your interview(s), the hiring manager should have a clear picture of why hiring you is a good idea- because you have told her exactly why!

Part of your interview preparation is developing a list of the benefits the company will get from hiring you. These benefits are even more powerful if they differentiate you from the competition. Going into an interview with this list of benefits will help you be focused and more confident. However, this list is of value only if you share it with the hiring manager.

Why Hire Me?

During your interview- typically toward the end- make a clear statement about why the company should hire you. This statement combines your features with the benefits the company will get from those features. The benefits are based 100 percent on the company’s needs as you have identified them during the interview process.

“As we discussed, I have six years of experience selling office equipment in this territory [feature]. This means I have established relationships with customers and I know the competition [feature]. Based on my knowledge and experience, I can establish a productive sales pipeline within three months and meet or exceed my sales goals within six months [benefit].”

“As I mentioned, I have worked on public relations campaigns for major companies, including Fancy Electronics and Electronics Shack [feature]. For both of these companies, I was responsible for a wide range of public relations activities, including print and industry shows [feature]. Based on this experience, I can help your company sell to larger clients and then make sure the public relations activities are delivered with a high level of quality and impact [benefits].”

“As I have described, I am good at acquiring and evaluating information accurately [feature]. I will be effective in quickly evaluating the marketing department and determining immediate measures to improve their performance [benefit].”

“We have discussed that I express ideas clearly both verbally and in writing [feature]. This will enable me to implement a new healthcare plan that will be of benefit to the employees and will save the company money [benefit].”

When you make these statements, the hiring manager will understand why hiring you is a good idea; she won’t have to guess. In addition, being clear about the benefits you will deliver is a further display of your knowledge of the company and the job.

Active Interviewing helps communicate why you should be hired

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 25,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

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“There isn’t a pat answer anymore to this world, so the best we can do for students is to have them ask the right questions.” Nancy Cantor, chancellor of Syracuse University

One of the primary reasons why people fail on jobs is that they take a job with an improper understanding of what the job entails. They don’t realize that the job requires as much travel as it does or that it requires very long hours during certain times of the year. They don’t know what skills are actually required or that they will have limited supervision or training. Maybe they are thinking account management, and the job is actually sales or project management. You can fix this missing information and these misconceptions by asking good questions, paying close attention to the answers, and asking follow-up questions. Asking good questions often clarifies the position in the hiring manager’s mind as well, which supports your candidacy for the position.Leaving the interview with unanswered objections will doom your chances for winning the interview and getting the job. Asking the best interview question of all time can save your interview by reducing the hiring manager’s fear uncertainty and doubt and clearing the way for you to be the candidate of choice. Asking good questions has the following benefits:

*     It demonstrates a high level of interview preparation and motivation.
*     It demonstrates a critical job-success skill- asking good questions.
*     It helps expose concerns about hiring you and allows you to correct misconceptions.
*     It creates additional opportunities for quality conversations.
*     It demonstrates your knowledge of the industry, company, and job- increasing your credibility.
*     It addresses one of interviewers’ primary criticisms of candidates- lack of questions.

Go to www.activeinterviewing.com to learn how to ask good questions

Most hiring managers are poor interviewers. The vast majority of them receive no interview training, and they hire infrequently. Even hiring managers who have received training may not hire for months after interview training, and by then the training is forgotten.

One secret of job interviews is that hiring managers are often as nervous as the candidate- they’re stressed about having to make a critical hiring decision. A bad hiring decision is one of the biggest mistakes a manager can make. Studies have shown that a bad hire can cost a company anywhere from two times a person’s salary at lower employment levels to as much as 40 times a person’s salary at higher levels. The financial ramifications of a bad hire include costs for recruiting, training, lost productivity, bad morale, and the manager’s time spent trying to salvage the employee. At higher levels of employment, contract buyouts in the millions of dollars are not unusual. No wonder why the hiring manager is stressed when interviewing!

Many hiring managers compensate by spreading the decision-making around. They will have candidates go through multiple rounds of interviews with numerous interviewers. That way, if the employee does not work out, at least the hiring manager can say everyone was involved.

The problem with this approach is twofold. First, the other interviewers are typically no better at interviewing than the hiring manager is. Second, this burdens the candidate with numerous interviews conducted by poorly trained interviewers.

According to Development Dimensions International (DDI), candidates commonly complain about the following interviewer behavior:

*     Withholding information about the position

*     Turning the interview into a cross-examination

*     Showing up late

*     Appearing unprepared for the interview

*     Asking questions unrelated to job skills

And a recent survey of interviewers by Monster.co.uk found that:

*     Almost a third (30 percent) say they have forgotten a candidate’s name.

*     More than a quarter (28 percent) confess they have gone to interviews unprepared.

*     Almost one in five (19 percent) admit they have forgotten an interview entirely.

*     Fifty-four percent of employer respondents admit they have taken an instant dislike to a candidate.

Don’t let a bad interviewer torpedo your chances of getting the job! Win your interview by taking leadership and providing the information a bad interviewer should know about you to make a good hiring decision.

Go to www.activeinterviewing.com to learn how to beat bad interviewers and land the job

“Let none presume to wear an undeserved dignity.” William Shakespeare

Imagine a company trying to claim a false brand- Philip Morris claiming health, BP claiming safety and corporate responsibility, or Facebook claiming privacy. It wouldn’t work, and it would actually hurt their image. I have led team-building meetings where people shared with their co-workers what they thought their personal brand was. Many got nods of agreement, but many got puzzled looks and even expressions of derision: “Yeah, sure- in your dreams.”

For your brand to be of value, it has to be authentic and true. If you want your brand to be that of a caring leader, you must actually care about people and have good leadership skills. If you want your brand to be as a reliable and trustworthy co-worker, you must be dependable and not break confidences. Everyone wants a positive brand, but you can’t have a positive brand simply by declaring it- you have to deserve it. False personal branding is exposed quickly, resulting in an even worse brand.

During interviews, be prepared with stories and examples that support your brand. If you declare yourself a good communicator, have examples of using communication to achieve a success, and be sure you communicate well during the interview. If you brand yourself an expert[md]which you probably are have stories and examples that support your expertise.

Here is an example of a well-supported brand: One of my clients sold large, expensive medical devices, including MRI machines to hospitals. When developing an interview presentation, he chose the personal brand word “competitive” as one of the terms to represent his brand. I asked, “Joe, every salesperson brands himself as competitive. How are you going to prove your competitive brand?” He replied, “Eric, let me tell you how competitive I am. When I sell large medical equipment, I only have a few competitors. So when I go into a sales situation, I study the hospital to which I am selling, and I study the salespeople against whom I am competing. I know their strengths, weaknesses, track records, and employment history. So not only do I sell to the hospital, but I sell against my competition. In at least two situations, my competition did so poorly that they fired their entire sales staff[md]that’s how competitive I am.” I was convinced!

Go to www.activeinterviewing.com to learn about using branding in interviews

Not stopping to think
Instead of pausing to think in a rational manner, this is when you let emotions hasten decisions. Many of us think we are good intuitive decision makers, but in highly emotional situations, emotions may overtake even good intuition.

Failing to see what your are doing as others see it
You might be convinced of the correctness of what you are doing, and you might actually be correct; however if others are not in agreement, you are hurting your brand. Are you sure other people view your behaviors as you mean them to be seen? For example, a manager might reduce consultants’ time to save money and avoid staff layoffs, but the staff that has to work more hours may see the boss as saving money to increase profits and get a bigger bonus.

Being often wrong but never in doubt
Human brains are wired to build a sense of certainty, and this certainty is often expressed as fact rather than as opinion. Ask yourself whether this is verifiable fact or just your thinking or opinion. If it is your thinking or opinion, present it as such: “This is my thinking/opinion, and I may be wrong, but.…”

Failing to see others’ perspectives
This is getting caught up in your own point of view at the expense of ignoring others’ opinions. I wish I had a dollar for every time I said, “This is a no-brainer,” only to learn that others’ brains didn’t see it the same way. For example, in my mind an interview presentation is a no-brainer- but is it in your brain?

Jumping to conclusions
Human brains learn patterns that work well most of the time, and it automates them, which promotes efficiency. This has become more prevalent as the world has become more complex and we are confronted with many more choices and decisions. However, automatic responses also encourage us to jump to conclusions that may be wrong. Once you start jumping to conclusions, you may then commit the brand killer of being often wrong but never in doubt.

Missing the bigger picture
This is when you’re narrowly focused on the immediate moment or on your role and you miss the bigger picture. You may succeed yourself, but at the cost of your team or the company. Saying, “I got my section done on time, and it was accurate” for a proposal that didn’t win the business is an example of missing the big picture. Your brand is connected more to winning the business than to getting your section done. What did you do to help other team members succeed?

Doing the right things for the wrong reasons.
I once had a boss who announced in a meeting that he had gotten tickets for everyone to attend a Phillies game. We were all pleased and grateful until he said, “Yeah, I was at a fundraising auction, and I wasn’t going to let this arrogant SOB show me up by outbidding me.” The tickets were nice, but they were tainted by the wrong motivation for getting them, and it hurt his brand, which was not strong to start with. It was no surprise that most of the staff was busy the evening of the game and unable to attend. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason causes confusion and ambivalence in the minds of others and is often worse than not doing the thing at all.

Many of these brand-hurting behaviors will undermine your interview performance as well. You can easily imagine how not stopping to think, jumping to conclusions, failing to see others’ perspectives, and missing the big picture will hurt you in interviews.

Active Interviewing protects your brand

Make Sure You Have A Solid Exit Statement

Prepare Exit Statements

Interviewers frequently ask, “Why did you leave (or why are you leaving) that employer?” This is a difficult question for many candidates to handle well. If a candidate was let go for cause, answering is an embarrassment. Even in a bad economy, where the reason is a layoff, a candidate may get defensive and tend to ramble with his answer. To effectively answer this question, prepare an exit statement for each employer for whom you worked. The statements should be brief, factual, and not defensive. Some examples include:

     *     Candidates who’ve been laid off

“Due to declining market conditions, Konix underwent a major reorganization. This resulted in the elimination of more   positions from the national sales force, including mine.”

“Due to market conditions, Mileage Automotive has reduced the size of their workforce by 350 positions. I was able to retain my job through two rounds of layoffs; however, my position was eliminated in the third round.”

    *     Candidates who are working and looking for another job

“Although I’m performing very well as a senior business analyst with Capital Tech, I have learned that there are no opportunities there at the level appropriate for me, especially across the disciplines in which I work best. Therefore, I’m exploring senior-level management positions that will leverage my understanding of technology, marketing, communications, and sales.”

     *     Candidates who’ve been fired

“The culture at my last company was not a good fit for me. My style is to bridge differences to find common ground. I believe that’s the most effective way to move forward when two sides disagree. That style was instrumental in the successful resolution of several serious negotiations at Zenox Company, but at Stricker, I found the situation to be quite different. In fact, when I tried to intervene to resolve a problem that had brought our new product group to a standstill, my manager pulled me out of the group and told me he thought the creative differences would result in a better product. This trend continued for the 18 months I was there, so I wasn’t really surprised when I was asked to leave.”

A few rules about exit statements:

     *     Never be negative about the employer. Even if the layoffs were due to terrible planning or you were let go because of a bad boss, do not be negative. Notice that in the first exit examples, layoffs were due to “market conditions,” not bad corporate planning. If you were fired, don’t blame your boss; talk about strategic differences or differences in work philosophies.

     *     Keep it simple. The briefer the better. Only give pertinent information, and do not go into detail. Long explanations make you sound as if you’re being defensive and covering up something. If the interviewer wants more detail, he will ask for it.

     *     Communicate magnitude. If you were part of a large layoff, include numbers. Being one of 15 or one of 2,000 (depending on the company’s size) makes it clear you weren’t singled out.

     *     Mention multiple rounds of layoffs. Often, companies lay off workers in multiple rounds. The common perception is that the first round of layoffs consists of marginal workers the company wanted to get rid of anyway. The subsequent rounds begin to include good employees. If you were in a second or third round of layoffs, mention that in your exit statement.

Go to www.activeinterviewing.com to learn more interview winning strategies

Why You Should Hire Me

Good salespeople lead a buyer through a sales process toward a purchase. They begin by understanding the buyer’s needs and linking the features of their service to those needs. They then talk about value-adds, tell success stories about purchasers who’ve used their service, provide an implementation plan, and finally summarize why they are the best choice based on the benefits their service provides. Good salespeople understand that prospects won’t understand why they should buy a service simply because they’ve been told about it. Buyers need to be informed very directly, in simple language, of why the salesperson’s service is the best purchasing decision.

The critical element in a purchasing decision is the benefits. No buyer purchases a service without clearly seeing the benefits she will get from the service. But most candidates focus on the skills and experience they bring to the job and don’t clearly state the benefits the company will derive from hiring them. They never clearly communicate, “This is why hiring me is a good idea.”

During your interview, typically toward the end, make a clear statement about why the company should hire you. This statement combines your features with the benefits the company will get from those features. The benefits are based 100 percent on the company’s needs as you have identified them during the interview process. Your “why hire me” statement should be a summary based on the content you have already shared during your interview and should be as objective as possible. A “why hire me” statement can include a combination of skills and experience as well as personal success factors.

Buyers should never have to guess why they should purchase a service; the salesperson should tell them why. In your interviews, stating directly and actively why you should be hired will make it obvious to the hiring manager that you are the best choice. At the end of the interview process, when the hiring manager is trying to figure out why a certain candidate is a good one, she won’t be doing the same with you, because you’ve already told her why. By laying out your reasons to be hired, you make her choice easier!

Go to www.activeinterviewing.com to learn more interview winning strategies

When skilled salespeople sell a service, they tell stories about the service: where the service has been used, who used it, how it was used, the problem it was purchased to solve, and the positive results it provided. Whenever possible, salespeople make the story dramatic and eventful. They give details about the circumstances, the individuals involved, how the service was used, details about the wonderful results, the problems solved, and the crises averted. They infuse the story with energy and excitement, leaving the customer enthusiastic about the service and wanting to purchase. Sounds like the exact outcome you want in your interview, doesn’t it?

Our stories define who we are. Our sense of identity is forged by the stories we tell ourselves and share with others. The success stories of our careers tell about the defining moments when we were at our best, using our strengths, and contributing in meaningful ways. Our stories build and communicate our brand.Most of us have multiple examples of career successes. The key is to understand that a career or job success is not defined by its size or financial value, but rather by how we feel about it and its contribution to the organization. One person’s success story might be about turning around a corporation, saving millions of dollars, and getting his profile in Forbes magazine. Another person’s success story might be about helping a troubled student feel more confident in school and having him progress to the next grade. Interestingly, both these success stories probably depend on many of the same personal success factors, including creativity, persistence, courage, hope, persuasion, and leadership.

Interviewers will understand your skills, background, and experience better when they are presented in the form of stories. (In fact, sometimes they will have trouble understanding them when they aren’t presented as stories.) Using stories, you will cut through the overwhelming number of facts and opinions that interviewers are hearing in every interview. You’ll tap into emotions and get hiring managers to hire you. Through your stories, you’ll communicate your brand, be more memorable, and be more charismatic- all interview-winning factors.

Competition is Fierce

In a competitive and crowded marketplace, every product and service must differentiate itself. It is not enough to be simply as good as all the rest, because there are too many “all the rests” in the market. In addition, with easy access to cheap (or even free) Internet advertising, there is a great deal of advertising that makes differentiating services and determining buying decisions difficult- just think of all the pop-up ads you see online. In the employment marketplace, this is exemplified by the tens of thousands of job sites and hundreds of resumes submitted over the Internet in response to advertised jobs. To rise above the flood of advertising, successful companies establish powerful branding and distinct value-adds. You can adopt the same strategy to rise above the flood of your competition in the employment marketplace.

A value-add refers to an extra feature of a service that goes beyond the standard expectations and provides a more compelling reason to purchase. A value-add makes the service more desirable and positively influences the buying decision. However, a value-add has no value if it is not in addition to good service. Always having on-time delivery does not make a difference if the pizza tastes terrible.
The worst position for a service is to be a commodity. A service is a commodity when it is equivalent no matter who provides it. A provider of a commodity service is easily exchanged for another provider of the same service who offers a lower price. For example, many dry cleaners provide a commodity service. Customers will change to another dry cleaner if they can find one that costs less. In the employment marketplace, many employees[md]even mid- and senior-level employees[md]are commodities in that they provide a service that can be replaced easily. In bad economies, companies replace more expensive “commodity” employees with cheaper employees. Are you a commodity in the employment marketplace?

If you are a commodity, it will be difficult to differentiate yourself in interviews. However, most of us are not commodities we just have not deteremined out value-adds. To determine your value-adds:

Know Yourself

Take a complete inventory of your skills. Do not limit the inventory to skills applicable to the job for which you are interviewing; do a full inventory. This inventory should include skills connected to your job, interests, hobbies, and leisure activities. When you have a full inventory, you can choose which skills serve as value-adds for the job for which you’re applying.

Know Your Profession

Every profession has a number of areas of concentration and a large skill base. For example, within human resources, you might be applying to be a compensation manager. However, the human resources field has a number of other specialty areas and required skills, such as diversity management, employee retention, job-task analysis, and international employment. You might have experience in international employment, and even though you’re applying to be a compensation manager, having international employment experience could be a differentiating value-add for a multinational company or a company that is expanding internationally.

Once you have determined you value-ads, use an interview presentation to clearly communicate them in your interview. To learn more about value-ads in interviews go to Active Interviewing.

Read Active Interviewing to Learn More About Value-Ads