Being a chronic runner-up is baffling when your interviews always seem great. Although you might be good at charming the hiring manager and selling your strengths, your top competitor is probably better at diagnosing business pain. If you want to get the final callback, find out what hurdles are stressing out your boss-to-be, and convince the interviewer you're the right person to develop a solution.
Only the best candidates land a job offer, so you have to show hiring managers a clear-cut advantage of choosing you over the competition. One downside of being a confident interviewer is the tendency to use the same techniques over and over again without looking for ways to improve. Your qualifications and interviewing skills are strong enough to keep landing you on the shortlist, so you assume you can't do anything more to shine, and the chosen hire must have qualities you lack.
In reality, you probably spend too much time reciting your practiced material and not enough time digging for details about the company's current or upcoming obstacles. Managers get hiring budgets approved because they need help with company objectives that could lead to serious repercussions if they fail, says Liz Ryan, expert career coach and founder of the Human Workplace. As a result, hiring managers are more likely to choose you if you understand the pressures they're facing and offer proof that you can take control of the problem.
As a job seeker, your goal is to get the hiring manager to stop relying on the prepared script and start confiding in you, Ryan points out. Think of the interviewer as a customer, and ask insightful questions to walk her through the operational structure and figure out her pain points. If the company recently experienced major growth, the hiring manager probably has new responsibilities weighing on her. Steer the conversation by complementing those recent accomplishments, or ask the hiring manager which objectives consume most of her time. Using your research about the company, probe for details to find out who the hiring manager answers to and the most important resources and partnerships she uses to address key objectives.
Similar to how a salesman persuades a customer to explain his needs and why other products have failed him, a strong candidate encourages the interviewer to describe his challenges or risks and the current methods he uses to manage them. Once you obtain this information, you have the perfect opening to share ideas on how to improve the process. In many cases, your fresh perspective can pinpoint minor hiccups that are making the hiring manager's job harder, whether its undervaluing important relationships with suppliers or missing opportunities to get repeat business from customers. When it's time to choose a hire, the manager has peace of mind that you can get the job done.
Asking the right questions shows hiring managers you genuinely care about working with the company and understand its goals and values. After being interviewed multiple times, many candidates let company leaders guide the conversation and stick to asking obligatory questions that don't help them stand out. By focusing on pain points, you can elicit an emotional response from interviewers, making it easier for them to open up to you and gain confidence in your expertise.
Photo courtesy of nenetus at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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