Thursday's Thoughts - Rocking that Interview

Welcome to Thursday's Thoughts! Whether it's your first time reading one of our posts or you've read them all, thank you for stopping by. The goal of these posts is always to provide value through the content, to help people with new ideas/things to try, and to add to the ongoing conversations in important topics that are relevant to today's professionals. If this post does any of that or gives you a sense of positivity, we've done our job!

Interviewing!

This Thursday's Thought of the day comes from a friend of mine who's struggling to keep up their motivation throughout the interview process. They've been interviewing for a couple months now, and they keep getting turned down, which is especially demoralizing with everything going on with Covid. With so many workers displaced, the competition for jobs has absolutely picked up, and it can be difficult to stand out!

Unpopular Opinion of the day - Interviewing should be easy! And no, I don't mean that the businesses should do their due diligence to make sure that your interviews are cake walks, and that they only lob you softball questions like "Why are you the right candidate for the job?" or "Tell me about yourself". Also, if those are difficult questions, we got a lot of work to do, but this post is especially for you!

First of all, I should start with a few caveats:

• No, this post won't guarantee you will move forward in every job you'll ever apply for. Save the hate mail!

• This post won't tell you everything you need to know about interviews, but I do have a course about that where we dive in-depth and even practice interviews using relevant questions you'll likely be asked. Check it out here!

• Every interview process is different, but a lot of interviews follow this format: Resume Review - Screening Call - First Interview (typically a Manager) - Interview with members of the team - Final step with Director or C-level

• This post is about the Screening Call, and the others will have their own posts in the future, so stay tuned!

• If you're struggling to get to the Screening Call portion of the job hiring process, you might be applying for positions that require more specific skills or experience. Improving your chances to move to the Screening Call part of the interview will require some research and a good resume in most cases, which I also don't talk about in this blog post, but will in the future

• This is an opinion-piece based on my conversations and experiences. If you think I'm wrong, that's fine! You're allowed to, but the goal is that these tips can and hopefully will help someone, so I'm sorry if it's not you!

Alright, done with the caveats. It probably won't shock you to find out that Monster posted an article that said a study in 2018 found 38% of people are most afraid of the actual interviews during a job finding process, and 13% said they were afraid of being turned down. That basically means 51% said the scariest part of the process was interviewing and not interviewing well enough, in a way. For me personally, I've never experienced this, but that's because I was performing on stage before I was interviewing for professional jobs, so I already had a lot of Public Speaking experience, and a lot of experience thinking on the fly, but I can completely understand why some people would find it overwhelming, scary, frustrating, and even exhausting. I share this, mainly because I want you to know where I'm coming from with the tips and tricks you'll read below!

Me and my stock photo friends

I have quite a few connections in HR that I'm fortunate to talk to on a regular basis (yes, I have friends), and I spoke to 3 of them regarding this topic. Of the 3, they all agreed that the Screening Call typically has 2 main questions they're hoping to answer:

1. Do you truly have the experience necessary to excel at this job?

2. Do you have a personality & background that will fit in with our current culture?

If those 2 questions are a "yes", then the only reason you wouldn't move forward is if someone more qualified is in the process as well, but more often than not, they're going to push multiple candidates forward to the next part of the process. So how can you make sure that you make a good enough impression to move forward past this step more often than not? Here are a few things that may help:

1. Applying for your next job starts with the current job you have. If this is for your first job, it starts with what you've done in school (either high school or college). Interviewing is 1/2 experience and 1/2 personality. If you're already working in a job and looking to take your next career step, sign up for those extra projects! Put in 110% in what you do now, because you don't know what doors that can open. Gain as much industry knowledge and as many skills as you possibly can, and get the most out of your current job. Same thing if you're coming out of school Join that club you're debating. Do extra volunteer work. Work hard!

2. Research jobs before you apply. This doesn't have to be a weeks-long process, but this will help you in a few ways. First, it'll help you know what's out there and what they're looking for. If you're working at a job you hate for 10 months, and the job you're looking at requires 1 year doing what you're doing currently, it might be worth that extra 2 months to land a job you'll love. I say might here, and I'm not saying stay somewhere you hate if it's truly unbearable.

3. Know the job description and the basic idea of what the company does before the call! I can't stress this enough, because I know a lot of hiring managers that say they still see upwards of 50% of candidates come to them who can't tell them what the company does in a nutshell, and that gives an immediate "No" for moving forward. Research the role, research the company, and know who you're talking to! This is much more important during the Interviews with the managers/team, but to me, it's important for every step of the process

4. This goes with the above point, but know the buzzwords. If the job you're interviewing for says they're looking for Communication skills, Sales experience, and Leadership skills, you should be able to speak to those points! The buzzwords are in the job description for a reason - They're listening for those exact words!

5. Have good questions prepared. Ask about the company, the leadership, their growth, etc., and don't make your questions about personal gain. I'm actually doing next week's Thursday's Thoughts on Interview Questions, so check that out in a week to see good questions and questions that are...not so good

6. Show off the right side of your personality! Companies aren't usually looking to hire drones. A company with the right priorities understands that the employees drive the company, and hiring the right personalities will propel their business forward. Pair that with the fact that most people are scared of interviewing, and you'll immediately stand out personality-wise if you're able to show that you're likable. And for those thinking "I'm really not that likable though..." stop! You are, and you have every ability to show it in an interview with the right approach!

7. Show the skills that they're looking for! If you're interviewing for a relational role, have a relational touch to your interview. I've interviewed for a lot of relational Sales, CSM and other roles, and here are some actual things that I've said to show that. "I'm doing great today, and hope you are as well. Any day where I get some peanut M&Ms is a good day". The reaction? She laughed! Perfect for the role I was applying for, and I did get to the next round. Another was "Absolutely, I can definitely talk about my experience, but just so you know, if you hear a dog barking, it's only because he wants to back me up and help me get the job too. It's not because he's terrified of mail", which again, got another laugh, and moved forward afterwards again. The biggest notes I get when I move forward is that they definitely think my personality will fit in with the others on the team.

You killing an interview using my tips

That's a lot, I know, but that's only scratching the surface. The fact is that there are so many different tips and tricks that can help you get more interviews, ace those interviews, and have a better chance at landing your dream job. These are some of my favorite tips that I can say from my own experience, they really do help! I've also been lucky enough to have quite a few people ask for help while interviewing for a new role or a promotion, and I've seen them use these tips for a higher rate of success. I hope this helps someone out there who's reading this, and to you - I know interviewing can be difficult, stressful and generally unpleasant, but once you get the hang of it, you'll love interviewing! Maybe not love it, but you won't mind it, and hey, for apparently 38% of professionals out there, that's a huge improvement!

As always, thank you for reading. My genuine hope is that something in this blog post will help someone either land their dream job or get a promotion at a company they love. Feel free to comment with other tips, or what you think about the ones outlined in this blog post. Also, if you know someone who's interviewing for jobs, share this post with them! Maybe it can help!

For more information on Interview Coaching and/or Resume Writing, visit our Creative Classes page to see a brief synopsis of our Prepping for the Interview and Landing the Interview classes, then Contact Us to hear more!