BusinessWeek & InterviewBest

I’ll have you know that I’m offering a Get A Job For Free

Over the past 20 years I have dedicated myself to helping people have terrific careers and find jobs they love. I am very pleased that Doug’s article has started a conversation about InterviewBest and as the creator of InterviewBest I am happy to be a part of the conversation.

InterviewBest is based on a sales paradigm. Landing a job is essentially a sales process. A job candidate is selling their skills, knowledge, experience to a company. A resume is essentially a company brochure which gets the candidate to the interview which is a sales call.

In the sales call it is important for the candidate to be prepared to present how their background, skills and experience matches the critical job requirements and why they are the best candidate for the position. Also, they should talk about additional areas of expertise (value adds) they bring to the company, examples of career successes, personal characteristics that make them successful, a strategic action plan for quick success on the job, and be prepared to ask powerful questions.

With a prepared and focused presentation the candidate is prepared to create a conversation that communicates this information in no more than 20 minutes. This leaves more than enough time for the interviewer to complete their agenda.

Research shows that 78% of all candidates “wing” the interview. Hiring manager’s #1 complaint is a candidates lack of preparation. Research also shows that the interview is only 52% accurate in selecting employees that stay with the company for more than 18 months. Each “miss-hire” costs a company a minimum of 1.5X the employee’s salary at the entry level to as much as 40X salary at a senior level.

The 56 million job interviews in the US every year are not doing a good enough job. Lets figure out how to improve this process for both job candidates and hiring companies.

Eric

Laurie

Great convo… @Laurie, there IS a better way, but it takes a lot of work and exists outside the bounds of the traditional interview. See Willy F’s teaser content at onedayonejob.com… there is something in the works on this front.

@Eric, I took a look at the product. Very slick. As an outside assessor, I can say two things: the key positive seems to be that it will focus the applicant’s attention, which is a critical skill. In fact, if that’s all it does is help a candidate articulate his/her abilities more clearly and succinctly, it’s a win. On the flipside, no one would ever have the chance to run through it with me. A good interviewer will ALWAYS get you off script (just as a good buyer will always take a salesperson off script). And the best salespeople don’t lead with a pitch, they lead with questions.

The interviewee has got to be able to integrate self-awareness into a broader conversation. Otherwise, if the candidate insists on going through his/her pitch, I’m going to note that the candidate has an agenda and is willing to ignore protocol to achieve it, is likely too narrowly focused (i.e., is committed to going through a pre-scripted prezo rather than looking for the most effective way to achieve his/her goal), has difficulty reacting to changing environments, and depending on how many times I suggest we move along, I may also comment on an authority problem and/or a lack of political astuteness, as well as an inability to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant detail. (A note on this last point: I’m talking about relevant to me, the buyer. I’m sure all the points in the prezo are relevant to the candidate.) I will give the candidate credit for preparing, but this is negated by the fact that the candidate will have over-prepared the wrong pitch for the meeting. And, if the candidate does try to make it through the whole thing, I can promise you, I am interrupt with some very tough, very pointed, and very likely uncomfortable questions about the unspoken underbelly of some of the points made. If the candidate lacks the self-awareness and/or confidence to go there, s/he’s toast.

Because at the end of the day, the candidate is not just the salesperson. The candidate is also the product itself.

When I address it, it’ll be more than a post… and I’m thinking that I might need to have you take a look BEFORE it gets released to market…

(btw, I noticed @Kenruet was not on yer top 10 list… just sayin’…)

In response to Jason-

Thank you for your taking the time to write your comments. Here are my thoughts.

The ultimate goal of the interview presentation is to create a conversation much as you have described. Take for example the section where a person develops a Strategic Action Plan for their first 30 and 60 days on the job. This provides very rich information for the interviewer. How were the goals derived, how will the goals be achieved, are the goals realistic and valid, do the goals display a knowledge of the job/company/market? Can the candidate respond to good in-depth questions about the goals? Have they accomplished similar goals elsewhere?

Most hiring managers are not skilled interviewers and they dislike the process. Research shows disturbing facts:
* Typically interviewers make their decision in the first 10 minutes of an interview-
* 78% of candidate do no preparation
* Interviews are only 52% accurate in selecting a successful employee
* Many candidates are turned off by the interview process- they feel it is an interrogation by unprepared interviewers.
(See research by DDI and The Novations Group)

One of the goals of having the candidate take more responsibility for guiding the interview is to improve the process. With the presentation, the candidate introduces the information the interviewer needs to know in a way that is easily discussed. Thus poor interview skills are supported. [By the way, I have an interviewer's manual that gives direction, offers questions to ask and has a scoring system for the interview presentation. I am happy to share a copy with anyone that is interested.]

Also-the presentation introduces a visual representation of the information. Only 20% of the population are auditory learners, 40% are visual learners. Traditional interviews are all verbal/auditory thus the retention and learning rate is low. Being able to see brief visual representations of the critical interview information significantly improves the dynamics of the interview.

Lastly, and this fascinates me as a psychologist, the #1 concern people express about an interview presentation is the hiring manager losing control or giving up control of the interview. However, with over 80 candidates using the presentation at companies including IBM. HP, AGFA, Villanova University, OfficeMax and Career Builder not one interviewer has rejected the presentation and most thought it was very helpful. So there is a disconnect between the perception of hiring manager’s reactions and the reality. In fact here is a quote from a candidate-

“The 3 biggest things it did were:
1. Gave me confidence knowing that I was going to be prepared.
2. Separated me from the rest of the competition and provided the employer with document to leave behind that was thorough and professional.
3. One last very important benefit of using the interview presentation was; when I indicate I had prepared a presentation, you could immediately feel and see the tension leave the room, I believe they were all impressed and as a result, I got a better offer than they intended to make, they just promoted my title to Sr. Sales Engineer, it was truly amazing.