Is This the Reason You Keep Getting Interviews That Don’t Turn Into Offers?
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Published on The Muse
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Jackson was a newly minted grad with software engineering skills in his first job search. He was getting tons of interest from the right kind of employers, but it wasn’t leading anywhere. Frustrated that he wasn’t getting offers, he couldn’t figure out what was going wrong.
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Prepping for yet another interview with one of his target employers, Jackson really didn’t want to blow it again and reached out to me.
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We debriefed on what he had been doing, and it didn’t take long to see that in order for him to get past this stage, we needed to completely overhaul his interview strategy.
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Jackson was making the mistake I see so many people making: .
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He was treating the interview process as a “Q&A” session.
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They pitched a question, he gave an answer, and then he waited for the next question. He cobbled together another response. And on it went, culminating in a rejection letter.
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Maybe this sounds familiar, and you can even think of a couple of offers you were surprised not to get.
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You’re not alone. I see many clients who approach the interview as if it were an interrogation.
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The employer grills you so she can see if you have the right stuff. Meanwhile, you wait for your turn to speak.
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But this isn’t the way to land the gig.
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Even if this old-school approach gets you the job, it can mean trouble a few months into your new position when you realize that you don’t actually understand or know the company – because you didn’t use the interview process to do your own due diligence on the employer.
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A comment I often hear from clients after they’ve taken a job they regret accepting is, “I should have asked more questions in the interview.”
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To avoid job offer regret, you need to make the interview a conversation that lets the employer learn about you, and you learn about them.
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So let’s look at three strategies (read the details here) you can use to get away from the basic, out-of-date Q&A model to not only get the job but to also make sure it’s the job you really want at an organization you want to work for.
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1. Speak to the Employer’s Pain Points
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2. Act Like You Work There (yes, really!)
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3. Have a Conversation About the Fit
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Read all the details on The Muse, here.
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Then, if you find yourself struggling with the same things Jackson did, and you want some help, let’s set up a session. You can quickly and easily book a one hour Job Search Strategy Session with me!
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This blog was published previously and updated in October 2019.
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