Interview Success Zone

A large proportion of my clients ask me whether or not they should include hobbies and interests on their resume/CV or talk about them in interview.

Okay, the short answer to this is: YES! In fact I would go as far as saying that during your job application process, talking about your outside activities at one point or another is compulsory. I’ve talked about building rapport and connection briefly in some of my previous articles e.g. if-they-like-you-youll-get-the-job-its-true/ and how-to-gain-trust-and-rapport-with-your-customer.

People like people like themselves - The inalienable fact is that human beings like other human beings who share a common interest. Finding things in common with one another during an interview situation, can make a huge difference in getting a job offer and having your application completely rejected. In my experience, from the many jobhunters I have shared my interview tips to, the vast majority have admitted that in the past they have received job offers even though there may have been other strong (or even stronger) candidates for the position.

Back to the topic at hand. Why when interviewing, should you talk about your non-work activities? I had a client, who we shall call Alan, who came to see me for a one-off interview tips consultation. He brought his CV with him which had no details on his outside activities. I asked him why they were missing, and he told me that the recruitment agent removed them from the resume, and that he should not mention his hobbies, because they are not relevant. I was totally shocked, and expressed how important it is, when interviewing with a future employer (or indeed anyone), to talk about his hobbies.

I though it best that he tell the story himself, so that you can understand what happened as a result of our meeting. I hope you find the story inspiring:

“I can surely remember, meeting with Jason for the very first time, the emphasis he placed on building rapport during an interview. I may have appreciated the importance of a good, two-way conversation. I would question though, whether it would go any further during that short while of meeting your potential employer for the first time.

The consultant and I also talked a lot about personal interests. Sometimes you will have no direct control over what goes out to employers when your search goes through an executive search firm. In my specific case any mentioning of personal interest and hobbies were removed. Period.

I would not necessarily consider this as a negative but Jason convinced me to at least try it out in my upcoming conversation. Of course I would not know whether this was really a good idea. Aside from my career in risk management I also look after a large group of young members in a Christian church organization throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. It clearly has a close link to my exceptional abilities in organization and communication but I was worried whether the resulting conversation would become controversial. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Sitting in my interview with the European head of my business area, our conversation was friendly and much focused on some business issues and how I would be able to contribute in my role. The obligatory question for any leadership position includes how many people I had previously managed.

At that stage I decided to bring my experience from church activities. The reaction was somewhat unexpected: My soon-to-be manager would elaborate for the next 10-15 minutes on reasons why their company is an ideal place to work for as a Christian and told me many stories of how he himself is engaged in faith related activities. It is needless to say that the quality of our further conversation was even higher than before. We left on a high note and he suggested that I meet the CEO. This turned out to bring me a lot of visibility even before joining the company a few months later.

While I had a healthy skepticism over bringing in personal interests in an interview, I did certainly see later all the positive aspects coming with it.”

Clearly talking about his outside activities was critical to his interview success, and ultimately getting the job. So next time you are advised to take out the ‘hobbies and interests’ section of your resume/CV, just remember Alan and the difference it made to him.

There are some really great ways for you to ensure you don’t get offered the job. And so I thought I’d highlight 7 of them here, and resources I have found on the internet that can help you:

1) Not reading up about your company, and showing an interest in the company’s mission and goals.
Getting good information on your future company, is just as important for you to help you decide whether you want to work for that company, as it is for you to impress the employer by your knowledge of their operation.

2) Not grooming yourself before the interview - Read some tips on how to dress to impress here. Read the interview with Gill Hicks in an earlier article here at Interview Success Zone

3) Not Following up Go to CVTIPS.COM has a great article on following up
Like selling any product, following up with your new customer is critical to making the sale. So Following up after your interview is absolutely vital, to maintaining all of that rapport that you painstakingly built up during your interview.

4) Not making friends with the PA or secretary - Come 6pm on the day of the interview after you have left, everyone in the office, including the secretary are going to be talking about all the people who came in that day. Those that made a particularly good impression, will get the thumbs up. Every interaction with the company is important. Remember the golden rule in sales - The Customer is always right. The employer is your customer - they’re always right, even when they’re wrong.

5) Not writing a well thought out and personalised covering letter
Every job application has to be carefully prepared for personally. You’re better off writing 10 customised applications, than sending off 100 ’standard’ forms. Get Examples here

6) Not putting together a killer resume/CV Get Examples or here
and lastly, my favourite:

7) Not applying for a job that is really YOU in the first place!
See how knowing your profile can help you realign yourself, and help you swim downstream, rather than upstream. Regain that feeling of sheer excitement when you get up in the morning! Oh, oh, you just gotta read this book! The Adventures of Johnny Bunko.
It takes about an hour to read, and really will press the reset button on your career! Go to my Career advice bookshop on amazon.co.uk

Making sure you get all of these points covered, will dramatically improve your chances of success at interview! Have fun with all the resources!

Have you ever gone up to someone, and asked them “So John, what do you do?”, and you get an answer like “I’m an accountant”.

Don’t you think that’s interesting?

The problem with John’s answer here, is that he has just labelled himself, and we all have our own image, preconceived idea or in NLP terms, internal representation, of what an accountant is. You know, a short thin guy with round glasses, an old grey suit that hasn’t been dry cleaned for 12 years…your image of course may be different. But either way, the words “I’m an accountant” is most likely to conjure up the image of a person, rather than the results or service that the person offers.

So think about how to answer that question next time you are asked it. Let’s move back to John. How else could he have answered? Well he could have said, depending on his individual specialisation, something like:

“I work with people to help them decrease their tax obligations and increase the efficiency of the management of their cash flow”. Immediately we get a clear picture of the benefit of what John has to offer.

So whenever you are in an interview, and your running through your list of previous employers, and describing who you currently work for, make sure you simply describe what your value-add is to each employer, why they initially hired you and how you helped the companies make more money, increase market share, operate more efficiently, decrease costs etc.

Give examples of how you have done this. Telling stories is a great way to sell your point. Simply making statements or stating facts, is all very interesting, but doesn’t get someone to buy. Maybe you already know the expression :

Stories Sell
Facts Tell

Remember, in the context of an interview, the irony is that the employer has a problem, which is why they have made the job opening yet at the same time they will be quite on their guard to reveal the weakness in their business - it’s a human pride thing. Being aware of this is particularly important, or easier to demonstrate in a slightly different interviewing/selling context.

Namely that of a counsellor or psychiatrist selling their services to a potential ‘patient’ (isn’t that a horrible word to use). Let’s say Mary is a therapist, she will be looking for new patients, or as I prefer, customers.

So, Mary is introduced to someone who has some kind of marital issue going on for them. Mary at this point can do one of two things:

“Hi, I’m Mary and I’m a family therapist and work on marriage and relationship problems. How can I help? (Translation: What’s your problem?)” - This will immediately put the potential customer on the back foot, because as you know, they don’t need therapy!

or a much softer approach:

“Hi, I’m Mary. I recently met with some who was facing some issues within their relationship. At first it seemed to them (note: no use of the words “patient, client, customer” etc) that the situation was hopeless, that there was no way of getting out of the downward spiral that the relationship was going. We talked a lot about how the two were communicating, or not communicating, and quickly discovered from both sides that they actually had the same views, goals and ambitions, but were too scared to talk about them. Now they are really happy, and the relationship is blossoming stronger than ever before. If you are feeling low, maybe I could share some of my experience of how to overcome any anxieties you have right now.”

Mary in this case has sold her services, using a story, a real life example, to which her prospective client can relate to.

Human beings love hearing sensational stories, that’s why newspapers sell so well. You’ll never see a newspaper saying “US Economy coasting along very nicely thank you very much” or “Business at IBM is doing okay executives say”. You’ll only see sensationally negative or positive headlines like “10,000 people laid off at Walter Mitty Plc as business is hit by economic downturn” or “10 million people get huge tax break”. The Media sells the story, and they do it exceptionally well. It’s a love hate relationship.

Identifying the firms’ issues, and then outlining examples how you have fixed similar issues in the past, is going to be your priority and will be key to succeeding in interviews. Tell stories, and ask them to tell stories.

What’s your story?

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Coming soon……
Using the Meta Model (covered in my ebook) in interviews, can help you get to the root cause of an employer’s issues. Spotting nominalisations in language can give away a lot about how the firm is struggling. More on that in the book and in a future posting here at Interview Success Zone. Click on the link below to be informed the next time an article is published here.

A couple of days ago, Igor Ajob, (name changed to preserve confidentiality) , one of my clients, came to see me for his final coaching session. You see, David just landed a job with a company within the finance field. He’s happy, so I’m happy!

Over the course of his coaching sessions, we covered all the topics surrounding body language, rapport and NLP in meeting situations (all covered my book, Secrets of Successful Interviewing) as well as my general approach to business meetings, I talk about throughout my blog and the Interview Success Zone forum.

Igor had been doing a lot of interviews over the past couple of months, so naturally I was curious what was different this time. Without giving him a list of options, I asked him “Igor, if you were to hang your hat on one thing, that was the deciding factor in you getting offered this position, what was it?”

Igor, without hesitation, answered “Rapport. We just got on really well….As a result, I don’t feel that this is a stop gap, I actually can really see myself working there indefinitely”

Obviously I don’t know what other candidates put themselves forward for the job that he received, but I can tell you that they will all have had very strong CVs. So the one remaining factor that would have been taken into account either consciously or subconsciously was whether the employer liked and trusted Igor.

So focus on building a good relationship with your future employer. Don’t rely purely on the contents of your resume/CV to get you through to the next round….