Tips for Successful Interviewing

Ready for Your Close-up? Tips for Successful Interviewing

After more than a decade of leading hiring teams, I continue to be amazed at how much opportunity job seekers leave on the table during the interview process. If you’re ambitious and serious about getting a good job, you need to seize control of the things you can actually control. And, you have far more control over the interview process than you may realize. Very few people leverage this to their advantage. The internet is overstuffed with guidelines about turning off your cell phone, dressing appropriately and doing research on your employer-to-be.

Here are a few insights to help bring your game to the next level:

Interview=Audition. Whether you like it or not, you’re on stage trying out for a role when you’re interviewing. Thoughtful, observant hiring teams examine every single thing you do – from the subject line of your emails, to your body language under duress – through the lens of how you’ll represent them as a member of their team. This means you need to sweat the small stuff – all of it. Proof-read everything. Spell names correctly. Practice interviewing with your support network and get candid feedback (guess what! You get a strange twitch in your left eye when people ask about the 1 year employment gap on your resume!).  If you are gunning for a big job, consider recording the practice session and watching for ways to increase your polish.

Fortune favors the prepared. So, prepare to start adding value in your interview by really thinking strategically about how you might solve a problem or initiate something innovative. This is also a way to really use background research effectively, in a way that can distinguish you. Any candidate worth their salt will have done some background research. But this is typically delivered in a cursory, sycophantic regurgitation proffered to help your interviewer check the box that says “candidate did background research.”

Ask Really Hard Questions. Just don’t be jerky in the process. Good companies and organizations want problem solvers who will push tough questions to advance missions. Take the initiative and ask about a business model or strategy that seems to be failing. Ask about governance issues that you uncover in your research. But do this respectfully, and collegially, offering some thoughtful, evidence-based solutions. Also, be prepared to learn something that negates your hypothesis that a strategy or business model was ill-fated, and pivot accordingly.

Be Yourself. I can’t say enough about how important this. In-authenticity is obvious to a good hiring team. It erodes trust at a very primal level and instantly makes hiring managers wonder what else you might be hiding.

Lastly, follow up responsibly and professionally. It’ll help your cause. And even if you don’t get the job, there is always a chance you’ll cross paths with your interviewers again.