THE INTERVIEW PITCH Techniques that Win GREENBURGH PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTED BY LEW TISCHLER, THE BUSINESS DOCTOR JANUARY 26, 2017
This is why you want to pay attention: You want to win the interview! You created a winning resume that accurately presented not only your accomplishments, but helped the reviewer understand how you could be successful in the new position based on your prior experiences. You have differentiated yourself from all other applicants by writing a winning cover letter that elaborated on a successful event and how that experience prepared you to succeed in this new position. Now, you want to tell a story about yourself that clearly signals to the interviewer that you have the right set of qualities for the job.
During this presentation, you will learn how to tell a story about yourself. This answers the question most posed during an interview, Tell me about yourself. You will tell a story about yourself that will convince the interviewer that you have the right stuff for the job. Your response will highlight at least two (2) character traits you possess that are required to succeed in the new position. You will have a better interview when you verbalize your strengths.
Why is this important? By preparing an answer to the inevitable question, Tell me about yourself, you have an opportunity to structure a perfect response and to come across as being thoughtful, insightful, fluent, and well-prepared. You have an opportunity to make a very positive impression with the interviewer very early in the interview. This will set the tone for what follows. Like an attorney scoring points with a jury, you can control the early portion of the interview. If done correctly, the interviewer will want to continue the conversation about how well you are prepared for the job.
You need a script that will work in different types of interviews. Your interview could be by ordinary telephone, Skype, one-on-one in person, or many-on-one. You need a story you feel comfortable with that will work in all environments. It is a given that you are nervous and that an experienced interviewer is going to want to calm you down so that you can present yourself well. After some initial small talk, the interviewer is eventually going to ask you some form of the question, Tell me about yourself. You want to be prepared for that question when it comes.
Your goal is to differentiate yourself from all other applicants in a positive way. You want to present information about yourself that will make it easier for the interviewer to write positive things about you after your interview is over. You want to say things that make you stand out positively against all other competitors for the job. You want to help the interviewer recognize that you are not only prepared for the job, but that you are the best qualified person to fill the job.
You want to present new information about yourself so that the interviewer will see you as being fit for the job. You can assume that the interviewer has reviewed your resume, your cover letter, your LinkedIn profile, your Facebook album, and has Googled you to better understand you, your values, and your capabilities. The interviewer s purpose is to help determine your fit for the position and your fit into the company s culture. Your task is to present key information about yourself that is not apparent from any other source; to differentiate yourself from all other candidates; and to put yourself in the best possible light. And, you need to do it while under pressure.
It is all about the new role you will play. The interviewer has already determined that your background and experience generally matches the requirements for the position. You would not have been granted the interview if you didn t meet the basic qualifications. The purpose of the interview is to determine how well you will fit the new position. Your resume already told the story of how well you did in the past. You need to convince the interviewer in a very short period of time that you are the best person s/he will interview for this position.
What character traits are required to succeed in the new position? Do you need to organize tasks and people to accomplish goals? Do you need to listen carefully to others? To show empathy? Understanding? Do you need to be logical, consistent, and attentive to the most minute details so that you can translate disparate needs into applications? Do you need to operate independently, without a great deal of supervision? Do you need to take huge amounts of data and develop new understandings from them? Do you need to be confident, cooperative, considerate, courageous, helpful, honest, hopeful, humorous? What does the position require? How are you going to show that you have what it takes?
You are going to tell a short story about yourself based on the character traits required to succeed. Story telling is a time-honored technique to present information that needs to be remembered. Your story, when presented in a interesting way, reveals important facts about you that may not have appeared elsewhere. Facts that will tell the interviewer that you have what it takes to do the job. By telling a story, you become even more interesting to the interviewer. You have a chance to really become memorable. Your story will nail the most important component of the interview, that you have the innate ability to succeed in the new position.
Steps you can use to develop a story. Obtain a copy of the job description for the position you will interview for. Using the attached List of Positive Traits as a guide, analyze the job description for the new position to determine the successful holder s must have character traits. (See List of Positive Traits) Circle those traits most closely associated with the new position. Prioritize the traits from most important to least important. Determine the top two (2) traits that are the most important for this job holder to have.
You can create a story telling how you have demonstrated, learned or have acquired these two traits. Your story will consist of approximately four (4) or five (5) written paragraphs totaling approximately 300 to 400 words (no more than two double spaced pages; when in doubt, less is probably more). Your reply to the question, Tell me about yourself, should take between two (2) and four (4) minutes to present in an unhurried manner. This story should be written out, edited, rehearsed, and memorized prior to the interview. You should know it so well that it will sound very natural when you tell it. That is the secret to being prepared for the interview.
I actively sought out a full-time position. I actively sought out an opportunity to do just that and eventually later landed as the CFO of a group of five closely held companies located in East Tennessee. What were the key character traits the owner of was looking for in his new hire? A numbers person who was also good with numbers who could manage that part of the business. A manager one who could help him manage his businesses. One who understood how to get things done through an organization. An independent person one who could advise him on ways to strengthen the organization.
I showed him that I had what he was looking for. The owner of the company was the interviewer. I was introduced to him through one of my clients who owned a franchise in New York State from the same company. My client had met this owner at a meeting of franchisees and was very impressed with him. My client felt that this other franchise owner could use the same type of help I had given him. I started with a name, a number, and a personal reference from an existing client. Even so, it took a resume, three phone calls, several emails, two person-to-person interviews over 18 months to negotiate and land the position. I had convinced him that I could do all he had expected me to do. He had to figure out how he could pay me.
The final hurdle would I fit into the culture? The last test was something I had never experienced before. The owner actually hired me to come to Knoxville (on a provisional basis) and actually run his companies for one week while he left on a pre-planned vacation. This immersion test was as much for my benefit as it was for his. It gave me an unfettered view into the challenges I would be facing if I took the job. And it gave him an opportunity to get feedback from his key employees as to whether this northerner (me) would fit into the companies culture. This was East Tennessee, after all. I passed the test and was hired.
Fast forward to having taken and returned from the job - I had taken big risks. As it turned out, it was a fabulous learning experience for me. It definitely made me a better consultant, and, potentially, a more experienced employee. I had taken many different types of professional risks: I took a job in another part of the country where the pace of life is slower than in New York. I put myself in an situation where I knew about one type of company, but had to quickly learn about four others. I found five companies substantially without any organized financial records. I found significant internal dysfunction that was sapping the strength (and money) from two of the companies.
The challenge - Could I write a story that would tell potential clients and employers something about me? I wrote my story after I returned from East Tennessee. There was never a job description written for that position because I negotiated directly with the owner to create it. Keep in mind that in addition to sending out resumes for jobs you find on the Internet, you can use your personal network to create a position for yourself. Sometimes positions will be created simply because they want you. If a written job description had existed, it would have included qualities the owner was looking for that included proven leader, energetic, dedicated, detail oriented, focused, and having great negotiating skills. What the owner was really looking for was someone who could help him manage his businesses. There was a great deal more going on than he could handle himself.
I had those qualities, but there was so much more I wanted to tell. The experience was intense. It lasted only 9 and a half months, but living away from home in a different culture while working in a largely dysfunctional work environment was a life changing event. What would go onto a resume could not possibly do it justice. I could have simply written that I had been a CFO and listed the things I had done and the successes I had and there were a few successes. But, such a listing of facts would not have done justice to the experience. I could have written about what I learned about human nature and how employees react in the presence of distracted leaders.
Which story should I tell? I could have written a whole story just about how a trusted employee literally stole a company out from under the owner. I could have written about the emotional collapse of the owner of the company and his struggle to extract himself from a series of bad decisions. These would all be stories that could touch upon different aspects of my overall experience, but they would tell more of what happened to others. I wanted to try to capture what happened to me and how it made me a better, stronger person.
So, here is the story I wrote about my experiences in East Tennessee. I am a business consultant who helps grow businesses. Around the turn of the millennium, I worked with all of my clients to project what changes Y2K might bring that they would need to prepare for. If you remember, this was a time when the prevailing wisdom held that computerized clocks would stop working, causing planes to fall out of the sky and trains and elevators to stop in their tracks. These activities were so well received by my clients, I applied the same, analytical thought process to my business. I determined that I could be even more effective as a consultant if I had current experience actually running a business.
My story continued (2) My decision to immerse myself in widely varied businesses in a very different part of the country was a good one. There was significant turmoil in each of the businesses which completely challenged me. There were crises in leadership, finances, and an almost complete breakdown in corporate controls that stretched me in every way. The owner was experiencing his own crises and became less and less stable. The experience I gained made me a better manager in the following ways: I learned that I could make quick and accurate decisions without the benefit of a great deal of background information. I learned that I could fit in quickly and seamlessly and earn the respect of people with very different cultures and backgrounds by respecting their differences.
My story continued (3) I learned that I respond positively to challenges and pressure while filling leadership vacuums. Like a muscle, my leadership, managerial, and financial skills were significantly stretched and strengthened as I solved daily problems while managing a number of diverse businesses, projects, and teams simultaneously. I brought back from East Tennessee a seasoned executive s 360-degree view of the business matched with an entrepreneur s sense of urgency to get things done. I bring to the table a highly developed set intellectual, managerial, financial, and people skills. I am equally adept at orchestrating and executing strategic plans as I am in being hands-on in carrying them out. I became aware of how creative I am in solving problems. Thinking outside-the-box is my norm.
Let s talk about the story. What character traits did I emphasize in my story? Referring to the List of Positive Traits (attached), were there traits that I emphasized that did not appear on the list? What did you find most interesting about the story? Did it answer the question, Tell me about yourself? If you were the interviewer, how would you react during the interview? If you were the interviewer, how would you react after the interview?
Now it is time to write your story. Let s review the specially marked slides. Look for the Write about an experience that reveals at least two (2) different character traits. Keep the story to no longer than 4 minutes when spoken at normal speed. Make your story interesting. Take this opportunity to differentiate yourself from everyone else competing with you for the job. Tell the interviewer something that makes you memorable. You can do it. If you have any questions, I can help.
Thank you. Lew Tischler The Business Doctor (914) 420-6569 LewTischler@BusDoc.net
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