Successful Job Interviews Are Built On A Compelling Career Story

Kathy Robinson, Executive Career Coach and Executive Branding Consultant, and Annette Richmond, Certified Master Resume Writer and principal career intelligence Resume Writing, discuss some how to have a more successful job interview.

Topics include:
✔️ Telling your career story
✔️ Demonstrating your skills through stories
✔️ Overcoming stumbling blocks
✔️ Developing questions for the interviewer
✔️ Prepping for the job interview, research and practice
✔️ Signs the interviewer sees you in the job

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Transcript

Annette (00:05):

So hello out there it's Friday afternoon and I'm so excited to be here with my guest, Kathy Robinson. My name is Annette Richmond. I am a resume writer, LinkedIn profile writer. My business is career intelligence, resume writing and career services. But what I really do with my clients is to help them recognize and actually own their awesomeness. So Kathy, thank you so much for being here. I met Kathy through a mutual friend colleague a few weeks ago and I've spoken to her a couple of times says, and she is just so amazing the pearls that she, I have to tell you really, really quite amazing. So Kathy, please, if you would just introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about your business and what you do.

Kathy (00:55):

Sure. Hello and thank you for having me. So I run turning point, which was the first online career marketplace and it's a network of coaches across new England where we provide career advice through either career articles or group or individual coaching. And I personally work one-on-one with executive level job seekers, helping them find and articulate their value.

Annette (01:23):

Cool. Okay. So, you know, one of the things that, that kind of blew my mind a little bit, because I, you know, I stick mostly to the written documents, but I do talk to people a little bit about interviews and the whole process that you shared with me, I think is really, really interesting. It was something that I hadn't heard before. So if you can share just a little bit about how that works, the whole idea of sharing the stories to demonstrate your value during the interview.

Kathy (01:57):

Right. Well, you know, when you're talking to a candidate, you go through a whole process to hear their career narrative, right? There's a whole long, you draw it out of them, you ask them a bunch of questions and and, and I'm sure you know, that some people have a harder time than others describing it to you, right when you're home. And so a lot of times when people are on the spot and they're thinking through you know, what is my value? Sometimes they revert back to their comfort zone from a couple of jobs ago. Right. Like, they'll talk, they'll tell you what they did and they're talking

Annette (02:44):

Or the job, you know, I started 20 years ago, so yeah,

Kathy (02:50):

Exactly. Right. And so we, when critical conversations come up, we sort of revert back to where we're comfortable and often means that we're not demonstrating our value. So a lot of what I'm working with with people is from a value standpoint is not just, what's valuable about you as a human, because that's a hard question for anyone to answer, you know, during the headlights, what's valuable about me as a human, what matters is what's valuable to the employer. So same as you, I'm sure when you go through and ask people questions about their background, when you're doing their career materials, part of what is really important to do first, before you go on any interview is to spend a lot of time thinking about every single job. What was the business problem that the employer was going through at the time? Why were you hired, what were you hired to solve in the first place?

Kathy (03:43):

And, and then just try to map that to what is a 20, 21 problem. So even if it was something that you did 20 years ago, there's something about what that employer was going through at the time. Were they trying to open new markets where they trying to transform a business unit where they're trying to make something more efficient? And so even then, even if it's a job 20 years ago, immediately, you're already starting to talk about value because the narrative is at the time I joined that company, they were going through a massive expansion and I was hired to come in and run, whatever it is, it could be an entry-level job accounts payable, or, you know, fill in the blank. It could be a senior level job, but but really talking about what you're coming into transform and the end sort of that like business challenge immediately positions you at a higher level in the interviewer's eyes.

Kathy (04:47):

So that's step one is job by job to go through all of your experiences and figure out what was the business challenge and what was your role in helping solve that business challenge or accelerate growth. And then the second thing that we do is think about what were the initiatives improvements, changes that you made above and beyond your job description. So the mistake that most people make in addition to starting out with sort of the most junior thing about them is that they interview based on skills. And I'm not saying that skills aren't important. But somebody who has analyzed a budget, if they're an accountant isn't really differentiated from another person who's analyzed a budget. And so I'm sure, you know, when you're doing resumes with people, you can't use that language because it's not different from one person to the next. Yes, yes. Right. I've been on the other side. Go ahead.

Annette (05:48):

No, I was going to say one of the things that I tell people that I speak with is, you know, if you're a marketing manager at ABC company and there's a marketing manager at XYZ company, the basic things you're doing every day are the same. And you need to set yourself apart. So I'm sorry to interrupt your thought there.

Kathy (06:07):

It's exactly right. And so I think a lot of times people have this this feeling that they've gone through all their work to make their resume document and describe what they did. And even a skills based approach to a resumes like, you know, off the Mark is, you know, but they've listed out everything that they've done. And then they expect the employer to have read it, which is kind of hit or miss whether or not they do. And and so they expect their resume to do the talking for them. And they're describing sort of a job description list of each position, stacking together position on top of position in a Jenga like career narrative, right. That's super boring. And the problem with that approach to interviewing a stacking your skills. And I ran this department of this many people, well, first of all, if the number of people you manage, isn't the number of people that they want you to manage.

Kathy (07:09):

It's apples to oranges already. If the project that you ran, the super special project inside your company had a code name, which isn't the code name of the company you're going to. So what people have to do is translate what was important at the time to that company, to what's important in the future to the company that you're talking to right now. And there's a lot of hallmark, both what you've done in the past, what the company's doing right now, what the industry's doing. And I think a lot of times people skip that step and have an interview scheduled, sort of look through the company's website a little bit and then hop on and wing it. And, you know, unfortunately they're not seeing the results that they want.

Annette (08:00):

No, I, I agree with you, you know, there is that basic research and, you know, I spent a couple of years working as a recruiter and I was the screener really cause I was contingency and I would get on the phone and chat with the potential, you know, the candidates. And one of the things that I always asked them was what do they know about the company? And some people would come back and they say, Oh, you know, I know the company. And I learned that, you know, they do this or their values or this, or they're really excited about it. And other people would be no, not really. And you know, when, when I prepared my prep sheet to send to the employer, along with their resume, I would, I would put that. I mean, I wouldn't put that someone said nothing, but if someone was really excited, I would put that down on the sheet as well. So I do want to talk about research, but I'd also like to ask you to talk about something that you you've mentioned, I think before, and the idea of the integrating different positions went into the interview process so that you can highlight different things at different positions. And that to me, I thought was just so unique. I really had never heard that before. And I think it's just wonderful. It's a great way for people to, you know, make the most of their career really.

Kathy (09:26):

Right? So it's the idea of rebuilding that Jenga tower that I was talking about that most people, staff scale, scale, scale scale have no idea where to stop the conversation. What was the interviewer you've been looking for anyway, but instead you can actually very purposefully build a career narrative through the lens of what's important to this employer. So I have my clients go through a process where we figure out what are the top five things that this employer needs to hear from you? Not necessarily skills because manage a spreadsheet, manage a spreadsheet equal. You're not setting yourself apart from other candidates that are up for the same job, but what we're, what we're really thinking about is do they need global experience? Do they need scaling a company from seed round to C round, a seed round to see round? Do they need somebody who has transformational business process experience?

Kathy (10:30):

They're going to need that whether they articulated in the job description or not. So your job is to orient yourself around the job description, the company, the industry, and you have to pick what are the top five things that they need to hear from you. And then the idea that I was talking to you about was we go through job by job and we assign each job a part to play so that each job even 20 years ago checks certain things off. So in my case, I started with the Gillette company and that checks off for me, global experience or a fortune 500 experience. And so if that's what this employer needs to hear is global fortune 500 experience. Even if I haven't had it since then, I'm still checking off the box for them. And so John, by job, we decide which two out of the five do we assign each job to fill in the needs of this particular employer and job by job?

Kathy (11:34):

We go, well, when I joined that company, I, they were going through a massive fill in the blank transforming. So first you start with what's the transformational need that the company was going through. I was responsible for leading global fortune 500 fill in the blank. And the things that I was most excited about at the time were delivering world-class human resources. And then I would talk about sort of change initiatives that I made, but just briefly, because they want to see that you're somebody who improves and participates in this transformational need, right? And by the time that I left, it was X and I loved it. But then the next role that I went to, well, they were going through as a business, need this at the time they needed to open a new market. And so in that case what I was doing was working with a lot of startups, for example, right? And so I'm sort of assigning each job that I go through my background, a part, a character in the play that is your career narrative.

Annette (12:48):

No, I, I love that. I love that. You know, it, it's, it's, it's a little bit like with a resume with some writers like me, we put career highlights at the top and you can pick those career highlights from wherever you want to, and you want to demonstrate different things. So you know, I, I, but I never heard it put quite like that. And, you know, often I think people because they're not going back and talking in detail about their, you know, jobs on their resume. And I think they don't realize, and I hadn't thought of it that way, that you can pull these older positions to demonstrate, demonstrate something that's really, really important. And, you know, I just, I really, really love that. So you had been talking a little bit about research and, you know, there was the basic research. You go to the company website, you go to LinkedIn and, you know, you read about the interviewers. What, what should candidates do beyond that to, to really grasp, you know, that, that they understand the company to a degree. And also that they're not asking kind of those stupid questions at the end where, you know, you could have known this. So what, what are your suggestions? What would be the path they should take for that?

Kathy (14:15):

So I think it's really important when you have this one big shot to do it thoughtfully. If it's important enough to take the interview, it's important enough to prepare. So we look at what are they posting on LinkedIn as a company? What product demos can we find on YouTube? What are on their different social channels? What webinars exist on their website? So that's company specific information. What does Crunchbase about them? What does you know, what is sort of the, the Google news? What are they putting out as press releases? What is their current state of affairs? How are they presenting themselves to the market? And, there's other research I'll get to in a second, but while I'm here, you don't want to go in. I used to have people come in and say things like, well, I noticed on page 57 of your annual report, that you were trying.

Kathy (15:20):

Task that you're going to get an a plus on. It's just contextual knowledge that you can weave into the conversation with the employer that just subtly demonstrates you did your homework. Another amazing secret hack for finding out company information. This may sound bizarre, but it is reading the other job descriptions. Oh, okay. Most people only read the one that they're applying for, but if you read the other job descriptions almost all of the time, if it doesn't say, like, for example, what technology stack that you're working on, and one of the roles that you're going for, you can usually open up a developer job and find the tech stack right there.

Kathy (16:06):

If they're hiring for recruiters

Kathy (16:08):

Half the time, they're like we're looking for a recruiter to staff up this big new business unit or salespeople, salespeople to run, you know, open up this vertical. There's so much information that they share that I don't even think they know that they're sharing. Because job descriptions, half the time don't go through the tightly controlled marketing department. So we found out some absolute nuggets that way. So there's company research, which is really important to do. And basically every thread you can pull to find out what's going on with the company, did they acquire, are they in growth mode? What is their technology about to launch something? But then the other piece that you need to be very on top of our industry trends related to your this company, and then actually, sorry. So that's two, and then third is trends related to the role that you're interviewing for.

Kathy (17:05):

So industry trends we're looking at where is the investment going in this industry? So I look at things like PE hub or you know, some of the investment sites to try and get a sense of where are the dollars flowing because clearly there's sort of emerging trends in that industry. We look at last year's conference schedule for the whatever the company would have participated in. I pulled together a content feeds for my clients that basically are teeing them up and client people can do this themselves through Google news or Google alerts. You know, what are the trends? What are the technologies? What are the themes? What are the ideas? What are the keywords? Because if you, on an interview, you have to be seen as skating where the puck is going. You have to understand not just what you did 10 years ago or last year, but they're not hiring you to stamp a piece of paper and pass it along those days are long gone. Now they're hiring you to do something faster and better. And to the extent that you can be seen as the person, the fresh face of whatever's going on in the industry. And even if it's a career change, you can still do this because you have just as much access to what's publicly posted on the web and these sites as everybody else does. So you can say, Oh, I was just reading an article about the future of fill in the blank. And it has a lot of power when you do that on an interview.

Annette (18:36):

No, I, I love that, know where the puck is going, you know, that, you know, that is that's just such a interesting way to look at it. And one of the things I love about the things that you're saying is what I say to my clients is, you know, you have to look forward, think of the resume. The job interview was just relaying the history and, you know, that's just not you know, particularly compelling. It, you know, it is all about what, what you're bringing. People are being hired to solve problems. They're not being hired to sit there. And as you said, staple a piece of paper or run a report, or just, manage the team, you know, manage the team to what disaster. I mean, you, you know, you just, you, you don't really know. And people often use a lot of phrases like that. So one of the things that, you know, there, there are so many things that do come in the way, and I was actually listening to a LinkedIn live earlier, someone else's and they were talking about, you know, the interview, the job is to get the next interview. So, you know, you're not necessarily having to try to get the job, but to move forward. So, you know, if you could speak to that a little bit and, and then share, you know, what you think are the stumbling blocks to click to candidates.

Kathy (20:12):

So I don't know that I agree with that. That Maxim of the point of an interview is to get to the next interview. I think that a lot of times people see a job posting or hear about an open job. And if they're at all interested in it immediately, they sort of go into imagining themselves in that job mapping out their commute. You know, I've had people who were like, they'll see a job posting. They'll be like, Oh my God, it's only 35 minutes from my house. And I could, Y could walk the dog before I go to work. And then I could do, and they're like already in this, the job is mine. I need this job and you're getting too far ahead of the conversation. So from my perspective, the point of every single job conversation, whether it's one or 25, however many that they make you go through is to connect and, and explore whether or not this is the right match.

Kathy (21:18):

What do they need? What do you bring? Where's the sort of commonality? What do you get excited about? What do they, are you excited about what they bring to the table and what you wear to the table? And so I think that having the goalpost as anything other than being in the moment is a mistake. You're getting too far ahead of like rushing through the important conversations and rushing to you know, do they like me or don't they like me, but to just be relaxed and yourself and present, and to build rapport with the person they need to know, like, and trust you, this isn't a like, sprint across the finish line and grab the ring. And, Oh my gosh, I have a conversation next Thursday, this is a, this is a person who might be your new business BFF. Right?

Annette (22:11):

No, I, I agree with you. And, and I, I presented that incorrectly. You know, the whole idea is that it does absolutely need to be a two way street, but that you shouldn't put so much pressure on yourself that, you know, that this is the, like your last chance, you know, for the job that just the forward motion. And so that's, that's my, that's my mistake. But, you know, I, I agree with you, you know, it's so important to build the rapport, but also to remember that, you know, you have to see if it's right for you, not necessarily, if just that you're the right fit for them. I will tell you the worst job I ever had in my life, I went in the interviewer was kind of not kind of rude to me. But I had just gotten, I just finished school.

Annette (23:01):

I went later, I just got my English degree and it was an opportunity to work in a advertising agency type situation. And I just like, Oh, I wanted it so badly. And I even know, I, my gut was telling me, no, this is not a good fit for you. You know, they, they offered me the job. I took the job and I've told this story before, although, you know, maybe I shouldn't, but I hated it so much just from the get go. I lasted about six weeks. I got up the day before Thanksgiving and I was, I just can't go back there. And this is a long time ago. I was much younger. I called them up and I said, what, I'm not coming in today. And they said, okay, will you be in on Friday? And like, no, I'm not coming back. I said that, but it's just, when you don't trust your gut, you can really end up in a a really, really bad situation. And, that was not the best way or professional way for me to handle it, but it's just always has stuck with me after that, that you have to really see if it's a good fit for you as well. So, and I love the whole thing about rapport. So how can you tell if the company is, is right for you?

Kathy (24:28):

I think there's a lot of listening that people forget to do on an interview. It's a, it's a pressure filled situation because a lot of people feel like this is a, a rare thing that an interview is hard. One, there's a lot riding on it. They attached to the idea of it. And I do think that slowing down and receiving the question, what is the interview looking interview we're looking for here. And energetically showing up and responding to the person and the actual question that they're asking instead of just rushing through and seeing how that person responds back to you and is the person I'm talking over you, is the person throwing shade at department members or criticizing people in other departments or bragging about how everybody works hard and plays hard. We can really means that they're going to run you ragged.

Kathy (25:32):

And so I do think that just having the, your ears open on an interview conversation is really important. Watching it back in the days when we interviewed in person, some places are still doing that now, but you could watch how they interact with people in the hallway. I knew I went on an interview and I saw how somebody interacted with how my future boss interacted with somebody in a hallway. And I was like, Oh, okay. I should have listened. No, right. Oh, I know. Totally. Yeah. And then there's things like glass door ratings. And you know, even on LinkedIn, maybe you can do a little search, like do people, there's people seem to like have shirts since at this company. If there's, if you can find a way to get an introduction to somebody who works there, can you sort of have an informational interview about culture?

Kathy (26:23):

So there are a couple of ways it's not the easiest, but the more conversations you have with them, the easier it gets. And then one thing I do, Oh, sorry. No, no, go ahead. One thing, one mistake that I see job seekers make is actually taking them, sat us, taking themselves out of the running too early, because they will ask these culture. They're trained to ask these culture questions at the end of the interview. So how were you supporting your workers in the return from COVID or what is your company culture and how are you supporting a mission and values based environment or things like that, that you can't look at career advice on the internet without tripping over lots of these ask these questions kind of suggestions. It's a huge mistake. You don't want to ask what's in it for me questions until in some cases after the offer.

Kathy (27:12):

So you can ask questions like, you know, what do you hope this person delivers to you and the team? You know, how do you see the department growing over time? Are you doing anything from a bigger perspective, like entering new markets that this person could help accelerate, that you need to also ask value, centric questions, to close out how the person thinks of you in their final minutes with you, instead of a, like, can I bring my dog to work or never sort of energetically, it feels like, you know, you're sort of already looking for them to cut you a break here.

Annette (27:47):

Oh, Oh, you know, absolutely. You know, those things are, are like asking you about benefits and things like that when you're on the first interview. And, you know, I, I love what you said about being present. And if we could go back to that a little bit, I know that, I have that inner voice. I think we all have that inner voice and you can be sitting there and listening to someone, but you are anticipating what they're going to say. And while they're still talking, you are preparing your answer or you're sitting there thinking, Oh, I wonder what they think of me. Or you know, how many other people are they seeing or, you know, it's really tough to kind of get out of your head. So do you have any suggestions for how to really just stay present and, and really be there? During the interview,

Kathy (28:39):

A couple of things, one, the questions that they're asking are information points, their data. It's telling you what they care about the most. And so if your brain is not listening to what they're trying to tell you through their question, it's not put in the form of a declarative sentence, but it's still data. So if you're rushing through to, how am I going to answer this? What does this story, Oh, you're actually blocking the flow of the data that you need, not just to answer appropriately, but then actually for all of the rest of the interviews to come. So that's one, two is, I think I mentioned to you at one point that I did something super scary in my life. And I started to do improv. And in improv, we have this training that we go through, which is receive react, and then respond.

Kathy (29:35):

So receive is really just being very present, watching the person. You know, you just, as I was practicing, as you were asking me, the question is sort of what is your body language? What are you communicating? Visually verbally, what's the emotion that you're using? What are the words that you're keying into so that you can actually pick up a word from the person and then use it back to them to match their language. So there's a lot of receiving, and then the react is I have my clients go through this process of when they're asked a question to sit for a second and then think about what is the, if this, if this interview question is an equation, what is the variable they're solving for right now? Is it in the case of behavioral interviews, a competency like teamwork communication skills, project management, leadership initiative, et cetera. Is it a skill? Is it a level of expertise, but you, you have to anchor yourself, you rush out of the gate right into that answer for the question, you may be missing the entire point of the question. So it's very much about they're hitting you, the ball, you have to watch where the ball is going to get to the ball, get your feats net, and then hit the ball back to them. And then off you go back and forth with the interviewer.

Annette (31:06):

No, it, it, it, so many of us in a conversation we're afraid of silence people. You know, we, we feel in our, in our personal lives that, you know, if there's silence while you're thinking, that's a bad thing, you have to immediately to be ready to, you know, jump on jump on the jump on the answer.

Kathy (31:29):

Actually, let me just jump in one second. There was actually a study about that. Done with researchers from MIT, where they said, if you pause as part of a negotiation and an interview is part of a negotiation about whether you're right for the job and it's right for you, if you pause, you get a better outcome.

Annette (31:48):

Oh, okay.

Kathy (31:49):

Silence actually is golden.

Annette (31:52):

I'll have to try that in my personal life as well. You know? I, before I move on to ask you another question, I just want to, something just came to mind and you were talking about so much information being out there in the public. And I read recently a report by a company. I forget who it was. And they were talking about the top ATS systems. And they had them by, you know, market share and it turned out, I think it's Taleo or Telium that I never pronounced that correctly and work a day or like the top two. But one, one of the things that you made, it just came to me is they stayed on there. All of the information they got is from looking at the public profiles of the company. So, you know, there is so much out there if you take the time to to look at that. So since you were, we're talking about preppy your, your your clients, would you recommend that they, you know, sort of practice with someone if, you know, a coach, if they, if they have one, but also maybe with a friend or family member, or would you recommend that before the job interview

Kathy (33:08):

100%, it does not need to be a coach. You know, personally I believe in the power of coaching, but it doesn't need to be a coach. But you don't, so many people have fits and starts of interviewing. And so you're putting yourself in a game time situation without enough practice and sort of like, you know, the muscles aren't in shape because it's been awhile, you're trusting a lot to memory. And sorry, I just, actually, I saw the question come through the three hours.

Annette (33:50):

Yeah. But I know finish that and then you can go onto that. That'd be great. Yeah.

Kathy (33:55):

Yep, yep, yep. Yep. so I do think that whether it's a friend of yours, whether you record yourself on zoom, whether you you know, have a job search club that you join if you have a friend that's a recruiter, if you have a retired uncle who wouldn't mind you calling him and he, you know, you give him a list of questions, there's a thing where you can turn job descriptions. If you have one into a list of questions. And so, you know, you can have anybody sort of ask you, tell me about your experience with, and then they read the first job description bullet to you. And so just even that practice of, of answering the questions of telling your career narrative, and sort of assigning it, these sort of characters or personas is really important. Yeah, please go ahead. The three hours are receive, react and respond.

Annette (34:59):

Thank you. Great, great. For every part of your life. I really, I really, really love that. So so at the end of the interview, there's always the, you know, question of the interviewer. Do you have any questions for me? And I know that they don't want to hear no, no. I think we covered everything or, you know, that's not what they want to hear. So I, my thinking is that you should be, be thinking during the interview and coming up with some questions that you can ask about the interview itself. And if you give us some idea how to do that, but also there's probably some questions that you can prepare in advance to, to be ready. So if you can just go into that a little bit.

Kathy (35:48):

So I always kick off that answer and tell my clients to kick off that answer with, well, I have a million, but actually there's a couple that come top top of mine because I've been on the other side of interviewing and people are like, no, I think I'm good. Yeah, I know. Right. Really you're okay. But when you plan an interview, you have an assignment and the assignment is to listen for the need. And the thank you note should actually be following up with the need that you heard and the actual language in the thank you note is I heard the need for someone who, so if you haven't gotten that answer in the interview, you can say, you know, what is it that you most need this person to do? Sort of a good, you should have a good set of four or five generic questions.

Kathy (36:42):

What is it that you most hope this person can deliver for you in a short period of time? What is it that this department is going through that you hope the department will look different a year from now, this person can help accelerate, for example there will be things that will come up in the conversation that you can say. I'm curious to hear more about this particular initiative. You know, can you say more about it, but you have to be careful because you want to ask something that isn't by mistake, but what's in it for me, sometimes people, if they get, do want it in an interview, they ask the question cause they're like, Oh, I don't know if I want to take that on. Or, or I don't know if I really want that to report to me. So you have to watch yourself that you're not accidentally stumbling into asking one of those what's in it for me questions.

Kathy (37:35):

But you know, on the fly, they'll say things like we're about to go through a major, fill in the blank and they can be like, how do, how will that major fill in the blank affect your department would be a good example of sort of the, on the fly feedback. And, and then I always like to have people have a question that is their final question, actually. Penultimate question. So the final question is, do you have a sense of process for this? Anything about those sort of hiring flow of this that you wouldn't mind sharing with me? That's the final one, sort of, where do we go from here? Kind of question. And, but then the one right before that is one where you want the person in their final moments with you to feel so good, sky's open, the angels are singing.

Kathy (38:28):

They're like proud of themselves and they're connected to you and they feel good about themselves, but it's tricky because you don't want to ask them a question of like, how did you get here and what do you like best? Because it's like, you're, you're actually sort of putting them down by asking that question. What are you most, what are you most proud of is even still a little bit odd. And so the best way to get at that, like clouds open angels singing is like and you don't want to compliment them either. Like, you've built a really good team here because like, how do you know? You just talked to them and again, you're sort of putting yourself above them. So so what you want here is something that's like you know, when you think about this department a year from now and with this person on board and with the initiatives that you're talking about, what do you really hope is the change that, that you're sort of ushering in to help your company through the next stage of growth or something that's like growth change initiative fresh air so that they can then sort of pitch you and feel good about themselves at the same time that like, Hey, you know, we've got a lot going on here.

Annette (39:46):

I, you know, I love that. And excuse me, I'm going to ask you another question. I know your response to it, but the reason I'm asking you is because people do hear this and they read this. And so I just want to share something. I have heard people, coaches, resume writers, say that before you leave the interview, you should say to the, the interviewer, are there any concerns you have about me moving forward, or, you know, you have any reservations or is there anything that you're missing or something along those lines. And so if you can just give me that feedback of what do you think about that?

Kathy (40:29):

So that question is absolutely the right question to ask. If you're in a sales role, they're expecting salespeople to suss out objections and sort of feel the person out, understand, you know, where the gaps might be. It would actually be a mistake to go on a sales interview and not ask some form of that question. Where, how are we feeling about this? What is your, so, you know, when you think about the ideal candidate for this role, what do you think you want that person to have? And is there anything that, you know, I can know, or I haven't said to you yet that might help you demonstrate that help demonstrate that to you? 100%, if you're a sales person, but other than that, people hate that question. Managers hate that question because it puts them on the spot immediately and they have to then filter quickly.

Kathy (41:30):

Like, what am I allowed to say? This isn't angels singing. They feel good about you actually, you've made a distance between yourself and them. They've, you've put them in judgment mode unnecessarily. And they probably not going to tell you the truth anyway, so, right. And so actually the process question though, you know, like, what's your sense of the process from here in many cases sort of gives you that same kind of information. So I tell people to look for buy signs or sell signs. So and you get them toward the end of the interview. So if in they toward the end of the interview, but interviewer is saying to you this is a really great place to work. We've built a really great team here, this company, or about to go public. No, one's gonna say that to you, unless there'd be a jerk.

Kathy (42:27):

If they said, if they're selling you something that like, they don't actually think that you're going to have a piece of, right, no, one's going to do that. So if you hear a cell sign toward the end of the interview, you don't actually need to necessarily clarify whether you have X or Y. If you hear a buy sign toward the end of the interview, which is like, we could really use somebody like you on the team, or it would be really helpful to have the HubSpot experience that you bring to the table. There's no need to ask these other clarifying questions cause they'll come out in, you'll learn them in the next phase of the interview. Anyway, it doesn't actually change the outcome in any way except to make the person be like, Oh, they just put me on the spot.

Annette (43:11):

No, I, I love that it, you know, if they're see when the role already, obviously that, that is a a very good sign. So I just, I have a few more questions, but I do want to ask you, I tried to do a little crowdsourcing and I on LinkedIn and I did get a question from someone and I'm just going to read this to you. I have an upcoming interview and it's my first, what are the likely questions to expect from the interviewer? And should I limit myself to the resume or go broader than what's on the resume for every question

Kathy (43:50):

I love this. And I'm so happy that this question was asked because I think so many people struggle with this beforehand. How do I prepare? Do I limit to what I've done before? What are they likely to talk to me about? So I do have an interview guide. That's on my site and I'll put it in the comments underneath the LinkedIn live leader for people to grab. But there are, and the interview guide has a hundred top questions that you can prepare for, but typically what you can expect is some version of, tell me about yourself, tell me about background, walk me through your background. Give me a sense of your career history and then what we were talking in the beginning. You do have to think about it from what is it that they're looking for. So let's say, I don't know anything about this person's background, but, but first job, you know, maybe it's sort of an entry level.

Kathy (44:51):

Maybe not, I'm not, I'm just making some quick assumptions for the purpose of the conversation, but so entry level role, and maybe it's like an accounting role and the jobs that the person had before were working on a campus being a lifeguard, right? And so you want the language that you use about your background, not to be the resume language of like, I'm going to use lifeguard of like what a lifeguard does, protect the beach and follow up with, you know, swim swimmers. You want it to be up at the level of what this role is. Ideally your resume is that way too. But really what you want to say is I was responsible for you know, really security and protection. And then you think about like, what is it about accounting? That's responsible for security and protection. I had to be vigilant at all times because if I stopped paying attention in this case to the beach, but in your case to the books, bad things happen.

Kathy (45:55):

Right? And so it's not necessarily about going through the resume in the language of where you've been. It's about talking to, you're talking about your experience and mapping it to where you're going. And so they start out with tell me about yourself. So you broke them through very quickly, your career narrative. Then they may ask you some general questions to suss out, you know, your capability to handle the job. And when they're asking you these questions, whatever question that they asked, I have an interview model like goes, why, what it never, how so, just like I just sort of talked about the lifeguard the why of being a lifeguard is to protect the, what is constant vigilance, but the, how the watching people swimming it's irrelevant. And even if you have been an accountant before, and you're going for a senior level accountant job, the why is protecting the books and making a predictive business forecast available to executives to make key decisions, the, how are they, what is, you know, putting together a cadence of regular business, data collection analysis and reporting, and the, how is like whether you use one software tool or another, or whether or not you close the books on the third of the fifth, it doesn't matter.

Kathy (47:22):

Right. so, and then the third kind of question that you're likely to get in your prepare in your preparation is behavioral interviews, which is typically follow the format of, tell me about a time when at, so as you received that question, tell me about a time when you have to solve for the variable. So if they say, tell me about a time when a major project went sideways, what was the project and what did you do? What they're looking for is to solving for the variable likely project management, communication and leadership. So you have to prepare some of these case studies in advance of project management, communication leadership. You should sort of have a top 10 list of these kinds of stories in your background that you can plug in, depending on what the question is. And they're looking for a narrative where you took charge kindly and displayed these leadership capabilities. And once you go through a series of interviews, you'll recognize these stages of the interview. It'll get much easier over time. So, you know, go for it and get the first one out of the way

Annette (48:32):

That that's great. Thank you. Thank you so much. So what you just mentioned about the lifeguard just made me think of things that are not necessarily professional experience. And the example that I'm thinking of is I worked with someone actually several years ago, who was just at the manager wanting to move into the director and wanted to show these leadership skills, you know, because you know, that that's what they want to see as you're progressing. And he didn't have that on his job interview on his professional experience, but what he was when he was a scuba diver, a scuba diver instructor. And I actually, we included that on his resume because it showed that, you know, he was here where people trusting him with their lives really to teach them how to scuba dive. And so is that something that you would think would be a good idea, you know, things that are outside of the professional experience that may demonstrate something during the interview process,

Kathy (49:39):

When a hundred percent I have people who've been soccer coaches on, on volunteer boards all sorts of things that happen, neighborhood councils all sorts of things that people are interested in that, that check off that box of leadership that needs to be checked off. My guess is that there could be other examples in the person's background. If they've held a manager role that probably demonstrated project leadership or cross functional leadership, but it doesn't hurt to also talk in some of these things that you do outside of work as well.

Annette (50:17):

No, I, I agree with you and I was just interested to hear your thoughts on that. So there's something that when I first spoke with you probably a couple of months, you mentioned this, I don't know if it's a philosophy or whatever that you should be. The lighthouse, not the boat. And I love that it really stayed with me. And if you can just talk a little bit about, I don't know where that comes from and how to sort of think about that. I, I think that would be great.

Kathy (50:46):

Oh, thank you. It's my favorite topic. It's my mantra. I try to do it for myself as a human, but then also with my clients. And the idea is that so many of us have the experience of being the boat, where the winds of whether someone calls us back or not. We're sort of you know, we don't feel stable, secure. We don't have a professional identity that belongs to us. It belongs to, we, we completely give it over to our employer when we joined that employer and then take it back, whatever easy or hard way it gets given back to us when we leave that employer. And what people forget to do is, is over time to create this professional identity that belongs only to them. They step onto, they step off of they loan it to an employer, but it's theirs.

Kathy (51:48):

And what you do over time is you train your network. How to think about you. You train everybody how to think about you with all your interactions all day long and the lighthouse, not the boat, the lighthouse is being willing to be visible, being committed, to staying predictive about whatever industry or role that you're going after. It is a luminating trends for other people. You can do this even as an entry-level person, if you're committed to staying relevant in your marketplace and up-to-date with current trends it is steady. It's not one thing one day, another thing the other day, but at the same time, it doesn't sometimes people say, well, does that mean I can't like a bunch of things? Does that mean I can only have one thing I like to do? And you know, I'm I'm somebody who's like always got my fingers in all sorts of different things.

Kathy (52:47):

So no, no, no. You can like a lot of different things, but they just have to be stacked together in a way that makes sense to your to your target market. And this be the lighthouse and not the boat. It works on a job search because you can do things like share content on LinkedIn. You can participate in forums. Even the idea of finding and bringing predictive insight about your industry into an interview conversation completely sets you apart from other people, but then you can also do it internally to your organization. So if you're seen as the person who's connected to what's current outside, who is committed to being predictive about what's coming in the industry, who's very steady. Who's very value centric predictable. Then you get a lot of wonderful things happen for you internally, too.

Annette (53:47):

I, you know, I love that. I really do love that. It's, as I said, it really has stayed with me and, you know, I, I think it is so important to, to remember that, you know, our reputation, what, what, what we are is a lot. It's what people think of us is what other people say about us when we're not in the room. It's not what I say about me. It's what other people say about me. And if, if you can give us just maybe three things that you might someone might do, if they want to convey a particular image about themselves.

Kathy (54:29):

So I have four things actually. Great. So the first is you have to understand your values. What's important to you. If you're mission centric and you're showing up and you feel like you're in a position of speaking in authentically about yourself, about what you want to do, people are going to tell, they're going to know. And along with that value, centricity of values, centricity also is value. You have to be aware of what's valued in your industry. You have to be on top of it, and you have to be aware of how you create value, how you have created value, how you want to create value, how the team needs you to create value. Every single one of your conversations needs to be focused on shared value, not just value for you, not just value for them, but shared about him too, is you do have to be current.

Kathy (55:28):

You can't interview, you know, like Coca Cola and a craft soda walk into an interview. And Coca-Cola is like, I've been doing this since 18, whatever 1800. And the craft soda was like, yeah, well, I'm sort of the wave of the future. Like who's going to get hired the craft soda, right. Even if it's more expensive, it's going to get hired. Cause it's like this fresh. So you have to be seen as like on the pulse of the market and where all that research is going to help you do that. You have to be data centric, 100%. You can't be a person that like has decided that you hate data because everybody's measured by data. They're driven by data. You're going to be, you know, evaluated through the lens of it. You need to talk about it. You got to give data hub.

Kathy (56:21):

Most people are like, I don't want anything do with it. I'm not a data person, but like you have to be. So what are the trends in your industry? What are the trends in your department? What is the percentage increase? What are your KPIs? What are the metrics you have to speak that language, it elevates your brand in a way that is like no other. And then the final thing that is absolutely important is the relationships that you have built that will help you throughout your professional career. The relationships you build on interview or critical career conversations, you have to be building those relationships with people. It's not about you wanting a job from them and them like, you know, having this horrible lens on you. It's about like, is there something here? And so all those four things that technically five, but value, values currency to the marketplace, data and relationships, you have to focus on all four of those throughout your career. Internally, externally. It's really important.

Annette (57:23):

Well, as we are winding down, is there anything that you would like to share that I haven't asked you?

Kathy (57:31):

I do think that the focus should be on not just one conversation, but as having as many conversations as you can, back to the sort of relationship thing. It's not about one interview. It's not about one networking call. It's about connecting with other humans who care about that thing. As much as you do, whether it's the company and their needs for the future, whether it's the industry, it's really, we're part of a community. You're not in it by yourself. You're not the sort of boat, you know, that's going to get picked or not you're you have value. And the more people that you talk to, the more value you attract to yourself, because every bit of information and every conversation that you have with people kind of comes together, you bring it to the next conversation. You add a bit of value. You give a bit of value, you bring to the next conversation. And so thinking about yourself, not as somebody, who's got all this pressure from this one interview, although believe me, I understand that they're a big deal. But as someone who's having a series of career exploratory conversations to find the people who are going to be your new co colleagues and partners in crime.

Annette (58:46):

Well thank you so much, Kathy. I am so happy that I met you. And thank you so much for joining me today and sharing all these insights. People are really appreciative in the comments. So thanks again. And we will have to say goodbye. Thank you for joining us today for the LinkedIn live. And we'll see you again.

KakAnnette (59:11):

See you soon. Bye bye.