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Be Your Authentic Self at Interviews

I recently heard a colleague tell a candidate during Interview Preparation to be her “authentic self during an interview.” This led me to muse, is there an authentic interview self? Or is the interview a performance where you need to play a prescribed role?

How do you convince someone hiring for an important project to “choose you” for this perfect of all roles? How do you appear confident and competent but a good listener and note-taker? This interview approach, while not precisely straightforward, is entirely doable. First, be your authentic self. In short, “Just do you.” This tactic may evidence some of your quirkiness, but on the plus side, there will be no surprises once you start the job.

Listen carefully to the questions asked, then pitch your responses straight down the middle. If more info is needed, the manager will ask a further question. Speak in clear sentences, which allows the interviewer to take good notes, which they will need when discussing your candidacy with others, so your responses to questions should be clear and concise.

In addition:

1) Do not embellish your competencies because you want the position or believe that the role is the next logical step in the plans for your career. This overreach approach will not entice someone to tie their career future to yours.

2) Be honest when detailing your capabilities. The role described in the interview process does not always match the job description, so we need to listen and adjust our presentation. Do you have a record of measurable success? Show your expertise using numbers and timeframes to validate your facts. Does their response to your answer mirror or validate the info in the job description?

3) Among the needed skills, products, or processes the interviewer mentions, are there any with which you are unfamiliar? Are you the fast learner everyone says they are when they interview? Or are you the courageous interviewee who asks if someone at the firm is already an expert you can tap into if you have a question?

5) When stumped for something to ask the interviewer, try utilizing my favorite “back-on-the-good-foot questions,” “Can you tell me more about XXX?” or “How are you using XXX” or “What has been your experience with XXX product? But be mindful not to deviate from being your authentic, knowledgeable, competent self. 

The secret to any successful job interview is to be yourself,  to “Just do you!” But in addition, you also need to convince the manager that you are a qualified fit for the role. This is the indescribable karma that needs to be fostered between you and the hiring manager. It is the middle ground and the elusive goal you seek, which can simply be called “Interview Success.”

The secret to any successful job interview is to be yourself,  to “Just do you!”

Communications Set Backs at the Job Interview

We tend to obsess about our performance at interviews and believe we must impress the Interviewer. We have so many things to say that we decide to resize our conversation and speak only of our skills and accomplishments.

Candidates often fail to recognize that interviews must be goal-defined and specific. Under pressure, many candidates forget to pay attention to this interview strategy. They are often unaware as they ramble about their extensive experience that they have lost their audience.

We should stop and acknowledge when we are not connecting with the audience during the interview. At times, we try to communicate in a complex style, and we forget to ask thoughtful relevant questions that, demonstrate our potential as contributing team members.

Communication setbacks at the interview may not mean that you are necessarily failing to connect personally, but it can mean that you are failing to impress that you are the right fit for the position and that you will be an excellent addition to the team.

Many applicants who believe themselves to be good communicators are often blistered with confusion as to why they fail to connect with managers at interviews, be it one person or a panel interview.

This conundrum suggests that we should try to create advocates for our candidacy for the position, and this can be best remedied at the close of an interview.

Here are two stabilizing questions you can ask before the interview ends, and the Manager says, “we’ll be in touch!”

1.      “What have been the career paths of those who previously held this position?”

If the previous incumbents been promoted to more senior roles? That could be a sign that the company recognizes and rewards high achievers and promotes from within. If you are replacing someone who left to work elsewhere, that could indicate that internal career progression could be a concern.

2.      “What are some of the challenges can I expect to face in this role?”

Here is your opportunity to get beyond the surface stuff and understand what it may be like to work at this company, or for this Manager, and what kind of circumstances you may have to battle. How honest and straightforward the Manager is in responding to these types of questions will tell you whether you will thrive in this new position or at this company.

The Logic Bully

I heard from a former colleague recently who wanted to refer a friend. She said her friend was frustrated since he had attended twelve first interviews. But his interviews were not going well since quite a few ended early and abruptly. He felt no one allowed him to sell himself and sell his ideas. You don’t say!

On my exploratory call with the potential client, he explained his ongoing interviewing struggles and apparent failure to connect with interviewers and asked how I could help. After I explained our program. He volunteered that he had an excellent interview process and pronounced, “Here is how I would like you to approach my interview preparation training.”

He then told me how he would like his interview preparation sessions arranged and what topics should be covered. I listened to the entire schooling on how to coach job seekers of his level of experience. Then he ended with, “when are you available to help me practice?”

I reasoned that I should try to escape gracefully, as he was a referral. So I ventured that I did not think we would work well together since our approaches to coaching and communication styles differed quite a bit. Plus, since he was already using his process without success, I would hesitate to utilize his process and add more casualties.

Starting again, at some speed, he explained that he was a strong communicator with excellent people skills, areas of expertise, and achievements, etc. All the while sounding like the out-of-tune brass section of a marching band for whom noise is the thing.

We ended the call with the potential client offering me time to consider his proposal to coach him using HIS methods and a second meeting.

Sadly, in his effort to sell himself and his interviewing strategy, the client morphed into a “logic bully.” And in his self-centric drive to sell himself, he became a noisy communicator who deluges others with his processes, best practices, expertise, and riotous failure to stay on topic.

The colleague who referred him called a few days later, “Do you have any advice?” she asked. Then I remembered one of my mother’s pearls and offered: “Tell him to use the door handle. He doesn’t need to kick down every door.”  

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Why your Charisma can Sabotage your Interveiw

As a Resume Writer and Career Strategy Consultant, I find that I am often screening for clients who possess some – “game.” Since a short, successful job search favors a candidate who can master and apply the rules of successful interviewing.

For example, a person’s resume may highlight that they generated a 60% increase in sales in a particular year. But, when asked about the overall sales goal plan or the previous year’s numbers, many candidates fail to give a clear, succinct process-focused answer.

Be wary if asked to discuss achievements and you experience a “high self-esteem, egotistical overconfident” moment- you could sabotage the winnable moment.

Charisma is often just self-absorption in disguise. And while its utility is unmatched as a brilliant one-act play in the short term, it is generally catastrophic when used to build relationships and buy-in longer term. 

If charisma, overly high self-esteem, or egotistical overconfidence can shipwreck your interview as a candidate, the same goes for the interviewer trying to size you up at the interview if they are burdened with the same attribute.

Be mindful as you extol your brilliance in an interview. Is the interviewer trying to determine the value you will bring to the project, or are they seeking to ascertain whether you are a solid pair of shoulders upon which they can climb to achieve success?

Sometimes it is charisma’s dazzling brilliance at the interview where the chat with the interviewer goes so well that the interviewer takes few notes of value. Consequently, the interviewer cannot deliver when it comes to selling you as the candidate of choice. All because your charisma and perceived personal magnetism got in the way.

So, be wary, success in an interview requires some self-effacement, and one needs to accept that interviewing is a shared performance. Candidates excel at interviews when they seek to gather information, exchange ideas, are flexible enough to remain quiet during parts of the discussions, and appear to take good notes.

So, while interviewing is theatre, remember that a masterful performance is not the endgame.

Why the key to a successful career may be our relationships with others.

The feeling that we must make up for time lost by job-related turmoil, or lay-offs, has heightened the need to rethink our careers. This career-changing hustle has pushed every working man, woman, manager, and manipulator to accept that a job change should future-proof your career.

The need to constantly keep an eye on the possibility of a career blip has made it difficult, if not impossible, for many careerists to use the most effective career management and career enhancement strategy, which involves developing career enhancement relationships with other people. 

Given the general feeling that everyone is now a competitor, people find it difficult to reach out to colleagues. But the fact is that people will help you, but it’s up to you to reach out to them.

Improving the quality and frequency of our interactions with others who are also building their careers increases our visibility. It can positively influence their perceptions of us as professionals as we share insights and reinforce our reputation as colleagues to be recommended for a job opening with their firm or as someone who can be recommended to others.

Participating in deliberate advice and feedback sharing can help us and others confirm that they are on the right track in their career moves. It can also educate us on the areas where we need to develop or gain further experience. Although many people are back at the office, far too many continue to maintain their WFH isolationist this is my space approach to interacting with their colleagues. As career strategists, we hear from clients that it is currently more difficult to share or hear of potential opportunities.

If change is the impetus to encourage inertia, a short-term contract role that isn’t your first choice may be worth consideration. Future employers will appreciate that sometimes individuals need to be pragmatic yet adaptable to ensure they can pay their bills. You will still need to show enthusiasm and perform well regardless of the interim role you undertake while continuing to look for your ideal role.

Share your career successes with your former colleagues, others in your professional circle, and decision-makers. Above all, try not to beat yourself up about accepting a lesser role temporarily and whether it will affect your career prospects; this thinking is exhausting and defeating. Try to demonstrate a willingness to learn and adapt; ultimately, you will be more employable and more likely to be retained.