The job interview went well. Your experience was spot on. Nice work! But despite your best storytelling, not to mention the questions you asked at the end, you didn’t get the job. As companies focus more on skills-based hiring, it’s easy to imagine that experience is what gets the gig. If you’re in the interview, the company believes (on some level) that you have the experience they’re seeking. So what else can get you closer to your next opportunity? In the job interview, these two things are vital – because they matter more than your experience.
The First Trick Question in the Job Interview
“So, tell me about yourself,” is the question that everyone asks. It’s an invitation to share your experience, history and qualifications, right? Wrong. There’s a question behind the question, and that unspoken inquiry is more important than your experience. When an interviewer asks, “Tell me about you” what they are really asking is, “Tell me about how you can help us”.
In my coaching work with executives and aspiring leaders, I emphasize the importance of making the second person first. Second person is “you”. Not you, dear reader. I’m talking about the person right in front of you – your audience – in the job interview. Talking about yourself is self-serving, if you don’t make a connection. The second person is the one who matters most. How are you letting him or her know that you can help?
The storytelling strategy here is to use the past to create the future. Entrepreneurs who pitch their business ideas to investors do this for a living. The business pitch is filled with “forward-looking statements”. Entrepreneurs seeking millions in investment talk about what could transpire if an investment is made. In the interview, you are asking the company to invest in you – and sharing the past as context for future possibility.
Inside the Job Interview: What Can You Do to Help Us?
You have to consider the one thing that matters more than your experience: it’s your service. “Service” doesn’t mean customer service, repair service or food service. Service means helping others – and, by extension, helping entire organizations. Helping team members to succeed, helping board members to make the right decision, helping get that controller fixed so that the drone will work – you get the idea. In the interview, the real job is helping hiring managers to see the best investment for the role (you) – and that decision gets easier around service.
Connect your accomplishments to the service you can provide. That service is your solution – and ultimately, companies are hiring solutions providers. The takeaway here is to remember that the past doesn’t create the future. The future is always created from right now. And right now, in the job interview, your service determines your future. How many people can you help? In what way? And to what degree? How quickly can you create that valuable service, and what would you do first if you had the job?
Focus on outcomes, using phrases like “because” and “so that” to link your other jobs to the one you really want. What stories can you share, to emphasize your contribution (which is another way to say “service”)?
If You Can Do the Job, Do This in the Interview
According to Carmen Simon, PhD, a Stanford neuroscientist and author of Impossible to Ignore and Made You Look, says that the past is only useful in that it helps us to predict the future. While past performance is no indication of future results, according to my broker, the past is often used to predict a candidate’s success in the job interview. But would you hire someone with great experience….if you did not trust that person?
Trust matters more than experience in the job interview. Stories are the key to confidence and trust. Examples of how others have come to rely on you, or how you went above and beyond in difficult circumstances, establish the credibility and trust that you need.
To establish trust, consider how your job interview responses can cover these areas:
- Size and Scope – Speak the language of numbers. If you say that you’ve helped “a lot’ of people to get promoted, that’s great – but it’s also vague. Vague doesn’t inspire trust. Numbers create confidence. Helping four team members to get promoted into senior management roles during your time as CIO, where you managed a team of 11, adds clarity to the conversation. How are you using numbers to describe who and how you helped?
- Talk in Timelines – creating results is important, but what makes results even more trusted is your ability to share timelines (context). How long did it take you to launch that new product – were you on time? If you are interviewing with a company where acceleration and growth matters (read: every company everywhere) it’s time to talk in timelines. And if you work well under pressure, say so – with a story. Dealing with deadlines is part of the service you can offer.
- People and Process – business is a process. And that process happens through people. Even if you are coding, or working in design or finance (where your work is highly individualized) people are always involved. What is it that you can do with, through and for others? What process do you bring to your potential employer? Talk about how you approach both people and process, and outline your approach to the world of work. It’s not enough to say you are a “self-starter” – share a story that shows how you tackle problems, and bring your initiative to bear, so that results happen in a surprising timeframe.
- Connect to Your Interviewer, Connect to the Job: the one question that candidates forget to ask, and it is an opportunity to open up the conversation, is this one: “How does that story fit for your vision on this position?” The key here is curiosity, not confrontation – or congratulations. You’re not asking for congratulations, where you expect the interviewer to tell you that you are awesome. Confrontation is not the answer (such as the world’s worst final interview question, where you say, “Can you think of any reasons why you wouldn’t hire me?”) Stay curious, and avoid confrontation, with curiosity: sincerely wondering if your interviewer needs to know more about your finance background, or your work at NASA, or why you left Denny’s to seek a new job.
Your experience matters. Skills are vital. But without an attitude of service, your skills aren’t going to connect to the interviewer – or the opportunity at hand. Moreover, establishing trust is vital to how your stories are received in the interview. Trust brings your skills into context. Make the second person first, and concentrate on how your background can offer service, solutions and possibilities to your potential employer. Because service and trustworthiness matter more than your experience in the job interview.