Three Powerful Interview Techniques

Last week, I met with a Sr. Director of Biz Dev, who recently decided to find a new role at a different company. They wanted to use our time together to address the “art of the interview.”

This was our first coaching session; at the end, they said, “This was the best hour I have spent on my career in a long time; chock full of ideas.” I love when the execs I work with are super happy.

Here are 3 tips they really appreciated:

FIND COMMON GROUND. A simple idea that you have heard over and over, but sometimes we underestimate the power of likability and relatability. While conventional wisdom says the interviewer’s task is to ask questions—and make you feel somewhat at ease in the stressful interview space—actually as the interviewee, the more YOU can make the interviewer feel at ease, the better.

It goes a long way if your confidence, humor, and connection set you apart. You’re usually competing against 1-5 other very competent candidates, so you’ve got to stand out stylistically. All things being equal, we choose the people we relate to; it happens all the time in sales.

An everyday example: Today, I met with 3 bidders for a major every-three-years big tree pruning job at my property. They all clearly demonstrated they could do a great job; all had good insurance; all could do the job on a day that worked for me. I chose the person I LIKED the best (appreciated their way of connecting with me + that they took the time to answer all my questions) even though they had a higher bid.

How do you best find common ground?

• Do prework to learn about each interviewer. Go to their LinkedIn: Where do they live? How long have they been at the company? Scroll down to see their hobbies + affiliations; mention one or two. And of course, it’s easy to mention who you might have in common on LI.
• Initiate small talk about their weekend, week, or a Zoom background characteristic that jumps out at you (they can do the same so spruce up your Zoom environment).

ENUMERATION. When you are asked questions about the job, important to enumerate (1, 2, 3) your responses, like: “one primary approach I take to get that done is,” or “I have two ideas for you on that problem,” or “Three ways I would handle that issue is.” In all 3 cases, keep the answers concise! As a transitional question, you can say: “What else can I fill in? or “LMK if you want me to go a bit deeper on this.” You want to give the interviewer a chance to ask follow-ups to get more details; the shorter, the better.

ENUNCIATION. I am not an advocate of worrying about accent reduction; I AM an advocate of going slower and not dropping syllables at the end of words. Likely, in tech circles, either you or the interviewer speaks English as their 2nd or 3rd language. So, we ALL need to slow down and ensure we understand each other.