Hey Everybody! It's Andy! Welcome to my show where I help you build a career you
love today we're gonna talk about how to prepare for an interview when there's no
specific job opening now some of you you know I get but get this question a lot
and some of you come up with these scenarios we're gonna cover a whole
bunch that I think are gonna be applicable today some of you might be
calling these informational interviews sometimes you might be going to a
network meeting with somebody who is maybe influential maybe you could hire
you or certainly put a good word in on your behalf maybe you can turn into
something sweet maybe you submitted your resume through a corporate career portal
and the company just said hey we welcome inquiries and it turned into an
interview and you're not quite sure what the job is or maybe your your friend
gave the chief marketing officer your resume and she said sure I'll have a
conversation with him or maybe maybe you got an interview you know what the job
title is but the job description is thin how are you going to be prepared it's
gonna be a lot of fun I love this topic been getting this question a ton if
you're here with me live and you're and you're watching this with me we're gonna
just get in there get in a chat let me know who you are where you're from what
you need put some question marks in front of your questions if you're
watching this on the recording welcome to you it's good time live office hours
Thursday so let's let's have some fun with this so I think you got the
scenarios let's talk about the tactics so when you go into these sessions and
you got to make sure that you are you are actually prepared you know a lot of
people don't know where to start what is it that I should should cover how should
I make sure I know what I'm doing I'm covering the right stuff I'm gonna give
you I don't know maybe seven eight nine nine things that I want you to do and
then I got a little bonus tip for you at the end but the first thing that I want
you to do is first make an assumption that it is an interview it's it's it's
it's okay to do that if you are underprepared that's bad there's no such
thing as being over-prepared so just assume that as you go into this session
with whomever it is whether it's one person or multiple people
you treat it as though you are being interviewed for a potential opportunity
that'd be the first thing and so with that mindset these are the things that I
want you to that I want you to take a peek at the first one got my note cards
today first one is on the company you know I usually start you out with the
warm-ups and then they get a little more creative as we go but this first one
there's a couple parts to this make sure you are looking up the company and it's
it's obviously the most important thing that you you need to understand what are
its products what are its services what does the divisions look what did the
divisions look like what is the organizational structure what does that
look like where does this particular person sit inside that organization
anything you can find out about the company you should know it is and I and
this goes for all the points I'm going to share with you today it is entirely
too easy these days to get it information you need to even if the
company is private all companies have a digital footprint it's pretty easy to
find your way around the internet to find this stuff that's the first the
first thing but the second thing that I would say related to that I've got this
this one I call this one 1a but you really ought to understand beyond the
company what the market is that there end what's going on news wise what's
trending right I always keep praying every day when I get up that one a my
one of my youtube videos will be trending it's not seem to happen yet but
but but what's happening in the market what are the trends what's in the news
what are organizations doing what does the competitive landscape look like for
this particular organization what what do they do what are other organizations
that do the same types of things whether it's product development service
offerings you you really should be be knowledgeable about all that the more
knowledgeable you are about the market the more effective you'll be able to
discuss whatever comes up in the discussion second thing second big
grouping is you got to research the interviewer I know this sounds obvious
but I dare I say when I interview a as part of my recruitment firm I will
tell you that over 90 percent of them this floors me don't have any idea who I
am they have no clue what I do what my history has been anything like that well
I asked them so is there what do you know about me and most of them say well
not much you know I talked to Kara and she said you don't talk to Andi I mean
this is this is this is really what happens I mean it's just it's just that
there's no excuse for you not to take a few minutes and take a look at whoever
it is that you're going to be meeting with in this type of situation you there
is a great likelihood 99 percent chance you know who you're actually going to be
meeting with if it's an informational interview you certainly do if you're
going in into the organization it for an interview itself they're going to tell
you who it is you're going to be speaking with very likely so I would do
tons of homework on the interviewer I want I want you to make sure that you
exhaust all avenues you look at everything you possibly can go to all
the social sites go to LinkedIn obviously but I would go to Facebook I
would go to Twitter I would go to Instagram I would know everything I
possibly could about the person that I was going to speak with it's not
stalking them if it's in the public domain people have a digital footprint
so you should be able to find out that information it should be pretty easy to
type my name in Google and see 50 pages of stuff and even if you don't look at
every single thing the fact that you know that the person has done a lot has
been a lot to a lot of places has spoken at particular conferences or written
books or whatever it is that they've done is pretty easy to find out and even
if you don't like I said even if you don't know everything at least know hey
you've done a lot I saw you had quite a few things out there I saw this and I
saw that at least enough to have a conversation now you don't need to bring
up the fact that you know what my favorite cocktail is or my favorite wine
is or any of that stuff but the fact is just have it in the back of your mind if
you need it but I would do my research on the interviewer I just don't
understand why people ethically fail this they epically fail this all right
third thing is I would look okay you have you don't
want me to tell you how many times it took me to draw this particular card
there's you there's there's you there's them and there's an intersection of what
you do and can bring to the table and what they do and I want to stress the
word what they do not necessarily what they need at the moment but right now
you don't know what they need unless they've given you that in advance but
the great likelihood is you don't know that so what is it you know that you
bring to the table what it what is it that they do that intersection is where
you provide the most value now if God is shining on you that day what you do and
what they do and that particular intersection is exactly what they need
but the great likelihood is it isn't exactly what they need at this moment
otherwise they would be very very crystal-clear about here's what we need
here's the job description here's what we want you to do so if you're in a
situation where you're not quite sure what that job opening is or you're not
quite sure whether this is going to lead to a job opening you have to you have to
be able to ascertain this information we'll talk about this in a minute or two
but but the first thing that I want you to do is from a preparation standpoint I
want you to make sure hey these are the assets I bring to the table here is what
they do it would make sense that a company that services these types of
desktop products would need somebody like me because I'm knowledgeable about
that particular desktop product that kind of stuff but that's what you want
to make sure of you you understand what it is that you can bring to the table
from an obvious standpoint so make sure all of that is in order and then the
other thing is take a look at the people in the organization so I'm talking about
you know go to the company in LinkedIn and look at who's there what their
titles are what it is that they've put in their LinkedIn profile or any other
places sometimes there's little BIOS on the on the corporate website but
ultimately what you're trying to do is you're trying to get it who are the
people that work there what is it that they do what is it that they're
called right if you if you are just using some basic LinkedIn searching you
should be able to get at this we do have more in my job search bootcamp we have
some advanced tactics where we give you some Google strings to be able to be
more targeted to find the particular individuals based on job functions and
titles and those kinds of things but anybody who's got access to LinkedIn
which all of you should have just going to LinkedIn do some searching on the
company see what they're calling those people look at the description see if
you know anybody see if they're doing the kinds of things that you can do but
just get an idea of what they're calling those people what they're doing and use
that as data and then what I would do next is then I would take that and I
would perhaps look at job descriptions if they are available in the company
there might be some job descriptions now what you don't know is what you know you
might see the responsibilities you might be able to iterate between this and this
and go kind of go back and forth between one of the job descriptions and are
there people out on LinkedIn and vice versa
but the fact the matter is just because there's a job description out there does
not necessarily mean there's an open position on that team it doesn't mean
they might have it filled they might have you never know if they have
individuals who they are looking to replace you don't know if they might
want to create a new position that might have some of those responsibilities with
some of the things you can bring to the table but I would go and I would take a
look at all the job descriptions in the organization see which one or ones
closely match to what it is that you do then what I would do is I would take a
look at all of their competitors again you did this as part of evaluating the
company but I would do it on a more specific basis I would probably do a
couple of things here I'd look for their competition who are the organizations
that they compete with I would look at those job descriptions and what the job
descriptions are of their competitors now it's not always gonna be a one for
one a system engineer over here might not do the same thing as a system
engineer over there and what you're looking for is you're looking for what
type what would that competitor the positions that I could perhaps do
what would the makeup of that role look like and what's really great to tuck
away in your mind is if you're having a conversation with somebody in this in
this info informational interview or this potential interview you will be
amazed when you can say things like hey you know I was evaluating some of your
competitors I noticed that their engineers have this suite of
responsibilities which I think is really great because and there's advantages to
that and so on that might fit with what you do and and these these might be
eye-opening to the people that you're talking to it may not be but still I
would want to know that I would want to know maybe there's something that
interests you at one of their competitors it's okay to talk about this
stuff depending on you know kind of what the theme is of this interaction that
you're going through and depending on how formal or informal of an interview
it might be but that's great Intel that you can get you can go to sites like
indeed calm and even career builder and - there's all these all these other
sites not necessarily to apply through those sites but just to look to see what
those job descriptions look like you can also go obviously to the competitors
career portals so I would do that here's one other thing I can't believe how many
people do this one when they meet with me they don't bring their resume and you
never know if it's an interview and you're going in to a corporation and
you're meeting them at their location this is probably going to be on your
mind but if you're meeting somebody at a coffee shop or something like that you
might forget to do this bring your resume you don't have to shove it in
front of their face unless they ask for it or if you ask them and they want it
that's totally okay but don't forget this and the other thing that I would
bring I would bring I would be a little careful about jamming it into into their
face as well is depending on your position is it worth bringing a
portfolio or sample work products or other things we have some of our clients
that we're working with right now they request all this stuff so we try to ask
people in advance if they have some things that they want to share with us
you never know how this might really come off well here again I want you to
pull this out in in the natural course of the disc
rushon not hey I got a bunch of work stuff that I just did or I've done and
I'm really proud of it do you want to see it but more like if it if it comes
up in the conversation hey would you would you be interested I actually have
some that stuff with me is different there's a different tone to
that and it's usually a little bit more welcome it's better well-received if
it's done that way so don't don't don't forget this stuff now I would do all of
those things I would get you know I would get myself dialed up and then and
then here's the one bonus tip that I want to get you third that I want to
give you with with the interaction itself the one thing that's really
important I had that little that little picture up with the circles where I was
talking about the intersection between you them and and the in the intersection
and where you provide value if you're super fortunate they're gonna come to
the table and say hey this is great we're in need of a system engineer
that's fine rarely will that happen in these types of situations it's going to
be incumbent upon you to try to figure out where do I want to take this
discussion the big mistake that a lot of people make is they just they just want
to talk about themselves right well here's what I do here's where I've been
when you would be far better served if you could elicit from the other party
hey where's your company going right now what's its biggest need what is the
biggest need on your team right what what would be at this very moment what
would be the best way anybody could help you and then try to get that out early
so that if you are gonna talk about yourself you're gonna talk about it in
the context of what they need at the moment you're looking for that segue in
if they start the conversation with hey tell me about you and you know just tell
me about your background or whatever say hey I'd love to do that I'm happy to
share all that I'd love to do it in the context of you know what it is that that
you might need or your greatest need at the moment so you know just as a bonus
tip when you start that discussion and you start that meeting or you start that
interview you always want to make sure that you know what their immediate gap
is and it's okay if their mind at the moment is a little malleable as far as
how they might be able to deploy you because
some of the greatest positions that we have ever filled as a recruitment firm
have come on the heels of one of our clients creating or tailoring a position
for one of our candidates that they saw that they love same thing can happen for
you here so so keep that in mind so I hope that helped I hope that helps just
just try to keep those points in order those seven or eight or nine or whatever
it was that I that I shared with you but that's how I would prepare that's all
the data that I would want to know as I go into the discussion and if you have
that data the great thing about having that data is it's going to allow you to
be nimble on your feet to take that conversation anywhere which is what you
want to be able to do all right hope that serves you
you