Interview Tips: Stay Relevant, Remove Noise
If you knew the interview would end after the first question, how would you answer it?
This week, I have had two interview coaching sessions. Apart from being young, smart, and beautiful, this week’s two participants had little in common: different professional backgrounds, different seniority levels, different personal styles. And yet both interviews started the same: to my question “Tell me about yourself”, both responded with a lengthy prelude, describing when they came to Singapore, how many kids they had, how they took time to settle down before starting the job search, etc. It took us some time to get through the “noise” to the “signal”, to what makes each of them so good at what they do…
Don’t bury the lede
Journalists and business writers say that you “bury the lede” when you fail from the outset to emphasize the most important part of a story and entice the reader to learn more.
In job interviews, it is disproportionately important how you answer the first interview question, which often happens to be “Tell me about yourself”. Don’t bury the lede when you answer it. Don’t obscure the signal with the noise from secondary and unimportant details. Burying the lede can kill a job interview altogether.
What if this were the only question I get to answer?
Now you can ask, how do I know what is important? All these details are important for me. Shouldn’t I bring to the interview my whole self? To this, I answer, bring your whole self, yet provide the interviewer with the most relevant information.
Daniel Porot and Frances Boyles Haynes in their book “101 Toughest Interview Questions: And Answers That Win the Job!” give great advice on how to stay relevant during the job interview:
It’s a great strategy to think to yourself every time you are asked a question, “What if this were the only question I get to answer?” Pretending that you have only this one question will help you give the most pertinent, useful information to convince the interviewer that you should get the job. When interviewers say, “Tell me about yourself,” what they really mean is “Tell me about your professional self.” You might think it’s nice to tell them where you were born or what your favorite hobby is, but save that for another time—that kind of information probably won’t influence their decision about whether or not they should hire you. Every time you answer a question, ask yourself, “Is the information I am telling the interviewer going to help him or her decide to pick me for this job?” Make sure the answer is yes.
Filtering out the noise and defining what is relevant is the key step both in the interview preparation and during the interview. Let’s see how we can do it in four steps.
Before the interview: Make assumptions about the audience
It might sound counterintuitive, yet the real hero of the job interview is not you, but your audience and their needs. To quote Nancy Duarte’s book “Resonate”,
designing a presentation without an audience in mind is like writing a love letter and addressing it ‘to whom it may concern.’
The hero of the job interview is not you. Start with the audience in mind.
The same goes for job interviews. You start with the audience: What is the hiring company? Who will interview me? What is the job-to-be-done (not just the job description, but what lies beneath - which problem(s) will I have to solve? What will be the challenge(s) I will have to overcome? Who will define success and how? etc.)? If you have done great homework with informational interviews and research, you improve your chances to make correct assumptions about these things. If you are not so sure about some of the assumptions, make sure your questions during the interview address these areas.
2. Before the interview: Define the fit and key messages supporting it
Then, there is you, your personality, achievements, skills, and experiences. Based on what you know about yourself and what you have learned about the “audience”, you make your initial assumptions about the fit: how big is the overlap between you and the company’s and your interviewer’s needs? What relevant achievements, skills, and experiences can demonstrate the value you can bring to the table? They don't have to be strictly professional: if there is anything in your extracurricular activities or hobbies that clearly contribute to the qualities required for the job, then bring it up.
The fit must be mutual: think about what makes the company and the role attractive to you, evaluate if there are any red flags that would make the company or the role not the right fit for you.
Before the interview, you develop 3-5 - no more! - key messages supporting the fit and make sure you pass them loud and clear in your answer to “tell me about yourself”.
On top of the key messages, you prepare a portfolio of stories and achievements supporting the key messages. Each story and achievement should support at least one key message, otherwise, it is irrelevant.
Prepare your key messages and a portfolio of stories supporting them.
3. During the interview: clarify the fit, increase common ground, leave a positive impression
I like to think about the job interview by analogy with a very common structure in classical music: theme and variations.
Theme: Your Introduction
Like in Theme and Variations structure, you introduce your key themes - a memorable melody - at the start of the conversation, in your answer to ‘Tell me about yourself.’
Variations: Your Answers and Your Questions
Once the theme has been “played”, come other questions and answers. Again, like in Theme and Variations musical structure, each variation will be different, but can still be traced back to the original theme in some way.
Your interviewer’s questions, to quote Daniel Porot, will vary around at least one of the following four main concerns:
1. Can you do the job?
2. Who are you?
3. Will you fit in at the company?
4. What will you cost us?
Before answering every question, make sure you have fully understood it and think if the question or the way the interviewer asks it changes anything in your initial assumptions about the fit.
Then, answer each question only with relevant information. As variations in classical music bring out the melody in a new light, your will aim to add interest with your answers, but make sure to trace them to the original key themes. Remember the mantra: ‘What if this is the only question I get to answer?’ Which key message can I support with my answer? Which story would be relevant to tell here? How can my answer increase common ground with the interviewer?
When it is your turn to ask questions, use them to clarify the fit (if the role and the company fit you) and possibly increase common ground and leave positive impression (if the current role is not the right fit, leaving a positive impression can open the door to future opportunities)
Last but not least, your answer to the question “Why should we hire you?” is also disproportionately important. Like a powerful coda crowning a musical piece, your answer to this question should be - I am sure you’ve already guessed that! - another consistent and concise variation of the key messages.
Your goal in the job interview is to clarify the mutual fit
4. Redefine interview success
The positive outcome of the interview is not hiring per se. For the company and the interviewer, it is hiring the right person. And for you is getting the right job.
Staying relevant with both your answers and your questions shortens the path to the discovery and confirmation of a mutual fit.
Art: Josh Cochran