Hey everyone, it's Andy with this week's Tips for Work and Life.
I've got a great one for everybody but especially the top brass, those executives who are searching
and job interviewing.
I've got three keys to getting that senior role.
If you are a junior or mid-level resource, if you can do these three things, I promise
you'll get hired.
If you are an executive or a senior manager or a director or somebody at that level, you
won't get hired unless you do these three things.
Let's talk a little bit about it.
Think about what's happening when you're job interviewing.
You go in there, you're exchanging information.
You've got to have the right responses to their questions.
You've got to have good questions that you're asking.
You've got to have the right background.
You need to impress.
When you're at the junior and mid-levels, that's usually good enough, but when you're
at the senior levels it simply is not.
There are three things you absolutely must do, so let's roll.
Number one, you need to get the interviewers, likely the senior interviewers, and the company
thinking into the future.
If you can't get them to imagine what their life will be like and what their company will
be like with you there, you'll never get hired.
You can have a great background.
You could have been there, done that.
That's great, but if you can't shift their mindset to thinking you're serviceable as
opposed to you're going to catapult them forward you're not going to get hired.
One of the easiest ways to do that is to shift the discussion from your background and your
credentials, which you will review undoubtedly, to the future.
What are their goals?
What are their ambitions?
Where do they see the company going?
What exactly do they want to accomplish?
Then you need to articulate how exactly you would do it to take them there step by step
and walk them through what the future could like with you "and here's what I would do,
then I would do this, and then I would do that."
You need to make sure that in your responses to their questions or in your line of questioning,
when you get a chance to ask questions, that you're asking that about their future goals,
and then make sure you articulate specifically how you're going to accomplish that.
That's number one.
Number two, leaders are inclusive and they're inspiring.
You are the high tide that has to lift all the boats.
Right?
Leaders build more leaders, they don't build more followers, so how are you going to show
them that you're great at inspiring, you're inclusive, you're great at building teams.
They're probably going to ask you questions about how you're going to build your team
and that's great, but I'm talking about giving them that deep, good feeling that having you
there is going to inspire everybody and that you actually are inclusive and that you're
a great person to work with.
One of the best ways to do that is ... Now, think about your job interviewing process.
A lot of these very senior-level interviewing processes they start with senior people up
front because you don't want to waste anybody's time, you're trying to get a feel for each
other.
Then you have a middle part to it that has a lot of other people.
You're probably interviewing with colleagues, potentially internal customers, maybe some
of your staff, and so on.
At the end, you revisit or visit for the first time with a lot of the senior folks.
Along the way, you're going to be able to gather a lot of information and you're going
to be able to talk to a lot of people.
One of the best ways at the end to show that you're extremely inclusive is to make lots
of references to the other people and the insight that they brought up.
For example, "Hey, Mary Jane said, when I was talking to her she said something about
this.
It really struck me.
I love that idea.
Hey, Mr. Executive Man, I'd love to get your perspective on this as it relates to something
else, something greater, something more grand, a deeper level of insight."
If you can include a number of references to other people in the organization and the
good conversations you've had with them, what you're doing is you're planting seeds in the
interviewer's mind that you are an inclusive person, you're interested.
They can start to see you as part of the team working with the other people who you're referencing
almost like you're already there.
That's another way, this is also a great way to also get them to look into the future by
making references to other people that you've interviewed with, ideas they've come up with,
your thoughts on them, and getting additional insight from the senior executives in the
company.
That's number two, make sure your inclusive and inspiring.
Number three, you're going to get a chance to ask questions throughout your interviewing
process.
In some cases you might be asking them along the way through the interview, in other cases
you're going to be asking them at the end, but one thing that you absolutely need to
do in addition to asking great questions is you need to make sure that you do not ask
questions, however awesome they are, that lead to a dead-end answer because if they
lead to a dead-end answer you're a dead end.
I'm talking about you ask a great question, they give you an answer, and then you're moving
on to the next question.
That's the big mistake.
The message that you're sending to them is that you are a puddle skipper.
You are not somebody who's digging deep to get information, collecting it all.
You're not well-researched, you're not digging deep enough to get the information that you
need to make a good decision, and now they're starting to imagine you as an employer there
and you're working with the people in your group or other units and you're not digging
deep enough.
If you have follow-up questions and you start to drill down in your line of questioning,
that sends the message that you are well-researched, you're thoughtful, and you're making sure
that you're getting all the information that you need to make a good decision.
It also sends them the message that when you're working with your staff you will make sure
that you're getting all the information to make good decisions.
That is something that they want so that when they give you the autonomy to run your unit
or run your division or whatever it might be they've got confidence that you're going
to be a great researcher, you're going to get that information, and you're going to
make well-educated decisions because you're informed as opposed to people who skim the
surface and oftentimes make great mistakes and make bad choices because they didn't have
all the information.
There you have it, three biggies.
Number one, you got to get them to thinking in the future, number two you've got to get
them to feel you're inclusive, and number three you're asking questions that have follow-up
questions to show that you're well-researched and that you're great at getting the information
you need to make executive-level decisions.
Those are three great points.
If you want more insight on how to do all three of those, I've got two great resources
for you.
One is an e-book.
It's called Ace Your Job Interview.
I give it away free.
It's mastering the best responses to the 14 most effective job interview questions.
There's also 43 variations of those questions in that e-book, so you'll have a great resource
to anticipate the types of questions that you're going to have to address so your responses
will be great.
I also have a fantastic webinar.
It's a solid hour of teaching.
It's also free.
It's called Three Keys to Ace Any Job Interview.
The participants, the attendees get a couple of great e-books, one of which is How to Interview
the Employer, 75 great questions to ask before you take any job so you will have loads of
questions to choose from and really help catapult your researching and your prep as far as asking
them questions.
I hope you take me up on those.
There's links in the description.
If you enjoyed this video, give me a like, a comment, and a share.
You know I love your circulation and I love your help sharing my message.
If you're watching this anywhere other than my YouTube channel or my Tips for Work and
Life blog, hop over to the blog, I've got loads more content on these and other subjects.
Until next week, have a great one.