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.

Well it’s Friday night (at least it was when I wrote this article!), and it’s time to relax for the weekend. No more interviews until next week, so it’s time to invest a little time in your personal development! And if you ARE reading this article on Friday night, then you’re truly dedicated to your future success. So congratulations, give yourself a pat on the back, and grab a notepad…

Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m fascinated by NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). Many people study NLP to use it in a therapeutic environment, but I get really excited when I can apply all the amazing rapport building techniques, and questioning models that can really help both the interviewee and the interviewer in the process.

One absolutely vital element in interviews is body language. We use it all the time, it’s unavoidable. Have you ever noticed a couple in love, in a restaurant, gazing in each others eyes? They lean forward together, they reach for their wine glasses at the same time, they laugh and smile at the same time, they might even eat the same vegetable at the same time! They’re in 100% rapport, and are passionate about each other! Wow, imagine even having even half of that sort of rapport with your potential employer (or customer as I prefer to call them).

The chances of being selected to deliver the service will increase massively.

There are so many NLP techniques in interviews that you can apply, and I’ll share with you some tips here.

Take notice of everything your interviewer does - watch their movements
Every action that someone takes, including you, is an individual piece of vocabulary. Only the language is Body Language. If you could understand the body language of your interviewer, to be able to mind-read them and communicate back to them in the same language, to establish irresistible rapport, would you find that useful? Of course you would!

Every emotion that someone experiences, has body language associated with it. Think about it for a second. Whenever you are under pressure, or conversely, when you are excited, you have a very specific body language pattern associated with it. And it’s very difficult to shake it off. Why? because it all happens subconsciously. This of course is an advantage and disadvantage at the same time, so the primary objective of studying NLP is to increase your awareness. It can be advantageous, when you are looking out for it in someone else, because you will know when that person is happy with what you are pitching, or unhappy, even without them needing to open their mouths. This means you are reading their emotions.

On the flip side, this is happening in reverse all the time, and people are reading your body language too and noticing your emotions too. We can help it, it’s natural.

By asking some questions, and listening to the tone of the answer (i.e. whether it is positive or negative), you can calibrate the person’s body language. This means you are building up a dictionary of the other person’s body language!

Even the non-verbal characteristics of each person will give a lot away about the person’s emotions.

Are you wondering why this really matters, and how to use this priceless knowledge in an interview? Well, if you are able to tell if someone is getting agitated by something you are saying, just by looking at them or noticing a subtle change in their voice tonality, then you can immediately change subject to something that the listener is more interested in.

FURTHER READING
There are even more NLP in interview tips in my free email course (see link below) and my ebook

Have a super weekend!

Any good salesman will invest time and effort into understanding his buyer’s purchasing needs and the specific purchasing process that the buyer goes through. Understanding the interviewer’s buying process, and mapping your sales pitch across will work wonders.

There is a fantastic book that I’m reading about at the moment called “Persuasion Engineering” written by Richard Bandler and John LaValle. Take a look at it. In the book, Bandler talks about how he went from one car showroom to the next, desperately trying to buy a particular model of car, yet none of the salesman succeeded in selling him a car, because they ignored his buying process. Bandler explicitly set out the ‘rules of engagement’, saying things such as “I want this particular model car, in this colour, with these extras….etc” and all the salesman had to do was nod, and get the paperwork ready. But of course the salesmen kept on trying to modify Bandler’s choice, and in the end I think he just gave up.

Find out what the firm’s hiring process is, and follow that process step by step. Ask the interviewer up front how they usually go about their hiring, how they have done it in the past, and then follow their hiring formula. This will make a huge difference to how far you progress down the interview process. There’s no point insisting on them making a hiring decision, if you have been told that you are at interview number one out of fifteen and that they never make their final decision until the end of the process.

Sometimes it’s the simple, more subtle things that are THE most important things to remember. If an interviewer mentions that having staff who are passionate about the industry is a priority, then behaving in any way other than completely ecstatic, just won’t get the employer ecstatic about you either. Oops, I’m veering back on to rapport again….I told you it was important!

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….

Right now, job hunting is more competitive than usual. I know, because I spend 15-20 hours a week coaching highly skilled financial services professionals to reposition themselves after being made redundant. Strangely, despite the current climate, many of my clients are getting jobs. This I believe, in part at least, is due to some of the approaches, mindset and NLP skills I share with them. My objective is to set my clients apart from the other candidates - to make it a no brainer for the employer to offer the interviewee the position. The techniques are simple to learn, yet it seems from the feedback I’m constantly getting, radically different to the approaches that they have been adopting up until the point they meet me. I’ve alluded to these differences in other blogs entries, and in the interviewsuccesszone.com forum.

Let me first suggest that we make some subtle changes in terminology, in order to help your subconscious mind deal with the change in interview approach.

Old term                       New Term
Interview                       Business meeting
Interviewer                    Customer/client
Employer                     Customer/client
Interviewee (you)         Contractor/supplier
Job                               Project/Mission
Salary                           Commission/Price

That’ll do for now. Now I’m not expecting you to actually use these terms in the business meeting with your customer, but those are the terms you should use in your head. In fact, if you were not looking for a job, and rather were a small business meeting with a client, those are exactly the terms that you would use.

When you go for your interview or business meeting, you need to invest some time with your interviewer or client, to establish what is going on for them. You need to adopt the strategy of taking an interest in their business. If you don’t, you are cutting your chances of getting to the next stage by 90%!

I mean, look, if you were hiring a plumber or an electrician to fix something in your house, and you called 2-3 plumbers/electricians, you’re most likely to hire the person who has taken an interest into understanding precisely what your problems are, than someone who just sits at the end of the phone giving yes or no answers to your questions.

So what questions should I ask?
Well, the question you should really be asking is, what should my interview strategy be?
Fundamentally, the repertoire of questions you will need to use will differ from one company to the next, and from one interviewer to the next.

Keep in mind this objective “I’m not leaving this room until I fully understand myself how I might be able to help this customer”, then all of the questions will flow naturally. Your objective is to keep persuading them to keep booking meetings with you, until you are BOTH clear on how you can work TOGETHER.

I’m always interested to hear from clients phrases such as “I think I performed well in the interview”. Perform? It’s not audition for an acting role, this is real life. This is a company that needs help solving a major problem, and they’re not interested in receiving a ‘performance’ from their interviewee. They’re interested in you sincerely trying to help them solve their challenges. They’re hoping you are the answer to their prayers!

So, the idea is that you’ll be so curious, that all of these questions will be asked throughout the interview, not at the end. By that time it’s too late to establish that sense of interest. If you go for a 60 minute interview, and only spend the last 5 minutes asking the client about the role, that means you have wasted 55 minutes of opportunity to ask questions, and gain that all important rapport with the customer.

Why is this important? Okay, fast forward to the end of the interview process and you get offered the position because the employer was so impressed with your answers even though you almost never asked detailed question. Are you going to accept the job? How can you accept a job you know very little about? Or even worse, what if you adopt the same approach of asking no questions when you are simultaneously interviewing with several employers, and then find you get multiple job offers? How will you choose? Are you going to ask the employers now to explain what the role really entails, what the benefits are, what they are expecting of you in the first 6 weeks, 6 months, 6 years? It will be too late then.