Who is the Interview For?

One of the real problems with job interviews is that candidates tend to walking in with a begging bowl mentality that makes them subservient to the interviewer. This can make it very easy to be taken advantage of. Whilst I wouldn’t expect people to face extreme negative feedback like the video below I have heard some really reprehensible questions asked of candidates in interview situations.

Categories of Dumb Interview Questions

At least in the UK most forms of discrimination are illegal. Unfortunately discrimination is alive and well in the country and I suspect in many other countries too. If you are asked a question that you think may be discriminatory the first think to do is to check out the intent behind the question. For example you might be asked about your age as a way of determining something about your relative level of experience. In which case it should be easy for the interviewer to explain or reframe the question to get the point they were looking for.

If you are not satisfied with their explanation of why they are asking the question just refuse to answer and let your interviewer know why. At this point the interview will be very defensive and the likely hood of you getting the job are probably quite small. The reality is though would you want to work for an organisation that are willing to put you in that position even before you start?

The sad thing is I’ve spoken with quite a few people that have left companies and they knew right from the interview that it was not going to work for them. They ended up accepting the job because it was offered to them and they felt obliged to take it. So the first thing to be able to react better to this sort of thing is to have the self esteem to stand your ground and the confidence to know that there are other jobs out there. The reality is that when you frame your experience and aim it at the kind of work you want to do there are usually lots of jobs for you. My NLP CV Writing and Interview Skills System is based round creating that winning attitude first and then framing your experience so you can target jobs in a way that interviewers will be begging you to come for interview. Once you are there it is far easier to negotiate from a position of strength.

Some of the people that have been through my system tell me that after setting the interviewer straight on the issue they have walked out of the interview and addressed it by writing to the CEO of the company.

Ego Driven Questions An interview should be a two way process designed for you to give the company the opportunity to explore the benefits of employing you and for you to decide if the company can provide you with a rewarding and fulfilling environment to work in.

Some interviewers mistake the interview context as an opportunity to act up and try to act clever. They ask questions designed to trip you up or they just play silly games. Any difficult, awkward or plain stupid question just needs to be redirected to something more intelligent. I like doing this by including a soft verbal bitch slap for the interviewer for being stupid. If you don’t feel like being that adversarial then you can easily soften the approach. The general approach is:

• Acknowledge the question
• Redirect it to something more sensible
• Answer the new question with your prepared material

Let’s look at how this might work in a couple of different examples. Typical dumb interview questions focus on negative or the past that don’t give you the opportunity to open up the real issue, which is how you can provide benefit to the new company or role. A typical question might be something like; “Why do you want to leave your current position?”

Using our general formula the answer might look something like:

“The issue is not about leaving my current position. The issue is about why I want to come and work for you. I want to do that because based on my research I think I can provide you with a great return of investment for example…” and then you can launch into one of your prepared examples.

Here is another rubbish ego driven question that does deserve the interviewer being gently bitch slapped. The question is something like, “What is one interview question you would hate to be asked?” After you answer they obviously follow up by asking you that question. You can tone this down if you want to be easy with the interviewer but my preferred response would go something like:

“The worst question you could ask me in interview is any question that is ego driven and designed to play games rather than to explore the benefits I can provide for your organisation. The issue is not about playing games but being able to demonstrate the things I can do in the role that you are offering. For example I can…” and again you can launch in to one of your prepared examples.

As you can see both examples follow the general formula we discussed earlier. In my NLP CV Writing and Interview Skills System we discuss how to develop answering difficult questions so you can respond to almost everything (extreme negative feedback excluded) with a prepared example that links you directly with the role and the company values as well a leaves the interviewer with an image in their head of you being the ideal candidate for the role. The system is full written up in the Persuasion Skills Black Book of Job Hunting Techniques. 

Buy it from Amazon.com: Paperback orKindle

Buy it from Amazon.co.uk: Paperbackor Kindle

Persuasion Skills don’t have to be Rocket Science

There are all sorts of clever ideas, tools and tactics that you can use in persuasion. And the issue is if you have missed the foundations you are doomed to make things hard work. A key element that I see missed out a lot is just seeing things from the view point of the person you are trying to persuade. It sounds simple but so many people just either get it wrong or refuse to even look from that perspective.

Here are a couple of examples of this can lead you in to trouble or create instant success depending on how much you consider the other person.

Job Hunting an Exercise in Perceptual Positions

We are seeing a growth of people self-publishing on social media platforms as a route to employment. There have been a few media events, like the guy who set up his website with the “honest” CV, the “worst CV in the world” and that sort of thing. And several people setting up websites complaining about traditional job search methods not working any more so they are driving traffic to their CV on a website they have set up.

I suspect this sort of thing will get you noticed and possibly get you in front of someone that might hire you. With a little bit of thought this could be enormously successful. In fact I have seen a few people that have used social media to get great jobs. Below I will outline one strategy that I have seen used several times and has been so successful each time I have seen it used that I recommend it in my book; the Persuasion Skills Black Book of Job Hunting Techniques. But before we get to that I want to hit home the important point so let us switch contexts.

Whose Needs are We Talking About?

I spend a lot of my time on the internet and find myself raging at a lot of web sites. Many websites have lots my custom instantly because in their excitement to tell me all about themselves they don’t bother to tell me why I should want to know about them. It might be really nice for them that they have been in business for hundreds of years, have a great list of values and won so many different awards…but why should I care? What I want to know is what are you / your company / your products and services going to do for me.

Over the years I have been taken through a sales process many times over. In fact I am a complete pushover, love being sold to and as a consequence will buy almost anything when they do a good job of selling. But if they start with what a great product / service / company it is; or hit me with benefits without finding out my needs first, they will not get my business.

On the same grounds in a recruitment situation if an interview candidate can’t tell me how their skills, experience and attitude will fit with my company or the role then I already know they are thinking about themselves and not what they can do for my company. I am already less inclined to hire them.

Perceptual Positions are Key

Imagine you are on the internet and you are looking for a particular service, for the illustration let us say you need an accountant for your new owner run one person start up business. As you search the internet you come across three websites:

1. Accountants ‘R’ Us – We deal with all your accountancy needs large companies, small start-ups, international tax law, dealing with insolvency, audits and mergers. If you need an accountant we will have one for you. Here is a list of all the accountancy awards we have won from around the globe and a list of all the huge mega corporations we have worked with.
2. Small Business Accountant – I specialise in accountancy services for small owner run start-up businesses. Here are a number of case studies of successfully run one person business operations I have helped to get started. Give me a call and I can arrange for you to go and speak with any of these businesses about the quality of service that I provide.
3. Accountants ‘n’ Chips – I run a Fish and Chip shop and do some painting and decorating jobs on the side. I also do all my own accounts. Since the economy is slow at the moment I need to bring in some extra cash so I am hiring myself out as an accountant, any takers?

Are there any of these three that you would automatically call or any that you would automatically reject?

Appeal to All Appeals to None

You might thing the example above is a little silly and I would agree with you. I have recently seen a number of websites with people using social media to try and get a job doing exactly this. In all the recent cases I’ve seen they have posted a general CV that is nothing more than a list of their experience and have listed several unrelated jobs that they would be willing to do. To make things worse they generally start with saying that they have tried the “traditional route” and it hasn’t worked so they are trying this instead.

Now look at the impression this creates for any potential recruiter. For me it shows that they are desperate, they are just thinking about themselves and doesn’t sell me any benefits of employing them. Unless I have a specific role or unique place for them I will have rejected them as quickly as I would if their CV / Resume had landed on my desk. Bluntly if they just did some decent work on their CVs / Resumes they would find that the “traditional route” still works fine.

Whenever I have spoken to guys doing this sort of thing they usually tell me that this strategy has generated more interested than their months of sending out CVs and Resumes. And I can see this, at the moment it is a quirky, relatively unknown and newsworthy way of job hunting. So people will watch with interest and with a little activity traffic will get to the CV / Resume.

Over the last six months I have seen this strategy being employed four or five times. When the novelty value wears off I suspect this won’t work as well and even if it does targeting is the key. How much more effective would it be if you wrote your CV / Resume to target a specific job and then drove specific targeted traffic to it? To do this you need to get into the heads of the people that you want to see your CV / Resume.

A Social Media Job Hunting Strategy

Compare and contrast that approach to something I have seen work several times over.

The candidate builds their CV relating it specifically to the role they are searching for. Instead of a bland list of “work experience” (Who except a 16 year old just leaving school describes their career as work experience? ) they have a highly targeted profile that links their experience to the specific job. They fill their professional experience with key achievements that provide evidence of the benefits they can provide.

Once they have the CV up and running they join forums and groups related to the job. LinkedIn is the perfect environment; in fact it was developed for this sort of networking. The candidate asks opinions, writes articles and debates key issues within their industry. On LinkedIn you can set up groups for specific niches, you can also ask or answer questions about relevant topics. A few days of this sort of activity will allow you to demonstrate your expertise and if you are not already talking with the people you need to network with you are better placed to approach them directly.

I have seen this approach work several times and I can see it work in wider, more general social networking groups.

Getting the Foundations Right

All the people I have seen that are bemoaning that the traditional route doesn’t work and are trying a social media strategy have been missing some fundamentals. The biggest part being they fail to look at this from the employer’s perspective. If they did they would have better CVs / Resumes displayed on their websites. The odd thing is if they had a targeted CV the traditional route still works very effectively. All you need to do is understand what your potential employer needs and then write your CV / Resume to demonstrate how you meet those needs.

Here is an email that I received a couple of days ago:

The Key Point in Persuasion

Just learn to see things from the other guy’s perspective, find out what is in it for them and then present that to them in a way that is compelling for them.

In the job Hunting context the NLP CV Writing and Interview Skills Course shows you have you can write your CV / Resume so that your targeted employer is almost compelled to call you for interview. It also shows you how you can answer most interview questions leaving the interviewer with an image of you as the perfect candidate. And for all those difficult questions; the course shows you have you can reframe them into questions that you want to answer. Click through and find out more here:

Nice CV Mr Hendrix, But Are You Experienced

I was hanging out on Facebook the other day and caught the picture below on Theories of the misunderstanding of things page. After I had finished laughing I thought about the very real problem job candidates face when being interviewed.

The key issue is that many candidates go into the job hunting process with a begging bowl attitude almost begging for a job. Have you ever been face with a desperate over eager sales person? If you have then you will understand how badly this comes across and how unlikely you are to buy from this person. Job candidates come across in the same fashion.

NLP Techniques, Reframing Experience

Imagine a sales person that instead of bombarding you with statements about how great their product is; they take the time to understand your needs. They then go on to link your needs to how their product could solve those needs. They negotiate intelligently and are prepared to walk away if the deal doesn’t suit both parties.

In a job interview situation this is reflected by the candidate walking in with an air of confidence, presenting their experience and linking it to the role they are applying for. The ideal candidate understands that the interview is not about them, it is about the company’s needs and how they can fulfil that need.

Usually when I say these things some people normally start saying things like, “But you aren’t in control of the interview and all you can do is answer the questions that are asked of you.”

I normally respond by suggesting that as an interview candidate it is your responsibility to be in control of the conversation. Whilst the standard form for an interview has the majority of the questions being asked of the interview candidate it shouldn’t stop the candidate being in complete control of the situation.

I am suggesting that the interview candidate should have done several things prior to the interview.

Firstly the candidate needs to set up their CV or Resume so that they already know what questions should be asked and what experience they will be presenting back to the company. This experience should be based on the company values, the job criteria and benefit statements that meet the company needs.

For example if your last job was a pizza topping designer and you are looking for a job as a brain surgeon you need to explain how the precision hand eye coordination of placing toppings on a pizza relate to making precise cuts with a scalpel that a brain surgeon makes. If Jimi Hendrix were going for a management position he might link his skills as a performer to captivating and selling the vision to his team.

Using Questions to Present Your Experience

Once you can do this all you need is to have an answer formula that allows you to relate the question to your experience and forces the interviewer to see you as a successful applicant that is doing a great job for the company. The more you can get the interviewer to see you this way the better success you will have.

Obviously this takes a little bit of practice and the reality is spending half an hour for the next week practicing this way of answering questions will inevitably end up with you achieving your dream job. If you need more information the whole process is laid out in a step by step process in the NLP CV Writing and Interview Skills course. Here is what Raymond had to say about it:

You can click through and get a copy of the course right here

Many hypnotists and NLPers shotgun clever and fancy language patterns at people thinking that this will create a trance effect. Often it does but it doesn’t always create the result that you want. Using some really simple ideas you can make any document hypnotically compelling.

The example below is in the context of Job Hunting and using a CV or Resume. You will see as we go through the example that it is the thinking and the sequence that makes the document compelling. Some fancy language patterns may add to the effect but the patterns without the thinking is only of limited use.

Here is an email I received giving you an insight into what can be achieved with a CV.

Asking the Right Questions

Recently there has been a rash of jokey, bad CVs on the internet. Whilst they are quite funny you can also see that they have a cynical and frustrated mindset of what and how CV and Resumes are used. A quick Google search will find you a whole rash of misinformation about what these documents are and how they should be used. Asking yourself the right questions will yield you better results. Let me explain by way of demonstration.

What do I want my CV or Resume to do for me?

Normally people leap straight for questions like what should a CV / Resume look like, what should it contain and how do you write one? Another couple of supplementary questions that people usually ask is what is the difference between a CV and a Resume and which should I use?

I think a much more intelligent place to start is to look at what result you want from the CV or Resume. Obviously I would ideally like the document to get me the job, but that is not the normal process so I would settle for the document to get me an interview.

If you start from this approach all the other questions become more straightforward because all you are looking for is a layout and content that leads to getting the interview. All of a sudden I am no longer interested in the difference between the two, any technical definition of what they are or how people think they should lay them out. All I am interested in is does the layout and content support getting me an interview.

I spent three years researching every aspect of job hunting so I have extra information that many people would not have necessarily thought through about how you can use your CV or Resume. If we start from your aim for the document is to get an interview there are a couple of extra things you can use your CV for. You could use your CV or Resume to set up certain interview questions – or more specifically certain interview answers that reframe your interviewer’s beliefs, set aside their fears as well develop confidence in you as the ideal candidate. But for the moment let’s stick with some foundations.

The Anatomy of a Good CV or Resume

So now that we know what the document is for we should think about how it is laid out. Let us assume a worst case scenario. There is only one position available, there are over one hundred applicants and the recruiter has thirty minutes to draw up a list of five people to interview.

Given that case I suspect any interviewer will spend only a few seconds on each CV. In those few seconds the CV has to catch their attention and display something that will convince the recruiter to put you on the must interview pile.

A good CV or Resume should have a way of leading the eyes of the reader to a point that is filled with statements that match you with the company values and the job specification. Imagine what happens to recruiters when they see your CV and instantly see a section that matches you exactly to the job and the company. They would be almost compelled to look further.

There are many ways of laying out CV’s and Resumes but I would always use one that has a personal profile, mission or objective box that stands out on the front page. I would then fill it full of statements that match me exactly to the company and to the job specification.

Developing your professional experience

The most obvious thing for the recruiter to do would be to look further into the CV or Resume to see how you support the statements you made in your personal profile. Imagine what then happens to the recruiter when they are faced with a list of key achievements that directly link your experiences to what the company is trying to achieve.

I am amazed at how many CVs and Resumes end up as a list of jobs people have done and what the main duties were. When you think about the purpose of a CV or Resume does a list of jobs and duties fulfil that purpose?

Imagine now that you have reworked your CV or Resume to list key achievements you have had in your professional career. And imagine that you have linked those key achievements specifically to the job or the company that you are applying for.

The recruiter is going to go through a sequence that starts with them scanning standard CVs and Resumes. When they get to yours the recruiter will see a profile box stuffed with statements that link you directly to the job you are applying for. After stopping them dead in their tracks they next thing they will do is read deeper in to your CV where they will find a whole bunch of key achievements from your professional experience that link you directly to the job.

Depending on how well you do this the recruiter is almost compelled to call you in for an interview. And depending on how well you have set up your CV or Resume, you may well have set up the questions and answers you will give during interview. By making direct links between your CV / Resume to the role and to the company values during the interview will make you come over as even more compelling.

How easy is it to write a CV or Resume in this way?

This is not a normal way of thinking about Job Hunting. Just spend some time on Google and you will discover a whole load of well-meaning but low level information and misinformation about how to write good CVs and Resumes.

The reality is once you have uncovered the common misconceptions about job hunting and you have your head firmly wrapped around a sensible job hunting attitude a lot of the ideas will flow naturally. And I have a template for CV’s and Resumes where you just need to put in your qualifications and experiences and your new, hypnotically compelling CV / Resume is done.

I recommend that people spend as much time as it takes to get this right and then you spend time regularly keeping it up to date. This may seem like some effort but when you consider that it will get you your ideal job and when you are ready to move on it will be there as a platform to launch yourself from. If you want to find out more about how you can develop these ideas then click through and read more here

Why do you want the Job?

As an interviewer I often ask candidates the question why do you want this job? I ask that question because however it is answered it gives me a great deal of information about the candidate. Let’s go through the pit falls and then we can look at how this interview question is a golden opportunity for you to get the job.

Attitude Makes a Difference

Many people going into job interviews just begging for a job. They think the balance of power is with the employers. They have low self-esteem and think there are other people out there that can do the job as well if not better than they can. They have a mistaken belief that the interview is about them.

Look at this from the employer’s view. Imagine a candidate is walking in with an attitude based round things like “Please employ me…I’ll do my best…I’ll try my hardest…” Would you employ them? I wouldn’t.

Imagine how someone with this attitude is going to answer a question like “Why do you want this job?” Even if they are desperately trying to hide their attitude what sort of answers would they give? Have a think about it and compare your answers to those from a different mindset below.

What do employers want?

Now here is something people need to recognise. The “best” person for the job revolves around two things:

• Can you do the job i.e. skills, qualifications and experience
• Does your face fit i.e. do you hold the company values, do you have the right attitude, ambitions or more succinctly, will you do a good job.

The things is companies hire based on the first and they fire due to deficiencies on the second. Your job in the interview is not about demonstrating the first, it is demonstrating incontrovertibly that you fit the second.

How does this help?

I could tell you about a particular situation when I was researching job hunting techniques where I got offered a £60 000 (almost $100k) a year job after I told the recruiters that I had lied on my CV (never do this to get a job – I was researching job hunting techniques so I had to fake credentials to get to different types of interviews – lying on a CV can be classed as a criminal offence), that I didn’t have any of the qualifications or experience that they were looking for. But here is an email I received a while ago instead:

What is the Difference that Makes the Difference?

What Drew did in preparation for his interview was to look at what he would bring to the new role. He looked at what would make him the ideal candidate and how he could drive the role forward, what he would enjoy about the job and how the company would benefit from it.

He then looked through his professional life looking for examples of where he had demonstrated the exact qualities that made him the perfect candidate. Imagine how different Drew must have looked when he walked in to that interview.

I don’t know if he was asked that question but imagine he was. The sort of answer I think he would give would be something like, “I want the role because I am a great candidate, here are a couple of examples of how I have demonstrated the key qualities that you are looking for in the role and here are some specific results you can expect from me when I am working with you.”

How different does that look as an answer compared to someone that has a “Poor Me. Please give me a job because I’ll try my best,” attitude?

And if you have a system for doing this you can generate these answers like Drew did, in a couple of hours the night before the interview.

As a recruiter I was desperate to just hear someone say, “I want the job because I would be great at it and here is my evidence to say so. If you employ me I will make you money / save you money / save you time and effort. Here is specifically how I would do that. I will enjoy doing it and that is why I want the job.” It didn’t happen often enough and in almost every case where it did they got the job.

But what if it is just a job to me?

Imagine if you were confident enough and with enough tools and techniques to get any job you wanted. Would you have a different attitude to job hunting? My guess would be that you would go for jobs that you would enjoy or jobs that gave you the experience that you need to further your career or has some personal meaning to you. And then you would simply move on when your criteria had been met.

To me this makes more sense than doing a job that does not fulfil any of your needs. Think about this, most people spend at least forty hours a week at work and many people spend a lot more, especially if they have to commute. Once you have finished with sleeping and chores this is longer than you spend with friends and family, hobbies and interests or doing the things that bring meaning to your life.

I think you owe it to yourself, your loved ones and any employers you choose to work with that you only apply and do the work that has some sort of personal meaning to you. If you want to know exactly how to do that then have a look at the NLP CV Writing and Interview Skills Course.