I’ve had several conversations recently about how to interview well.
These conversations reflect an innate understanding that we’ll never stand out just by answering questions better—we have to get above the fray.
With that framing in mind, I will be writing a series of posts on this topic.
These posts will likely be most relevant for people later in their careers looking to land more senior roles. But hopefully the themes and approaches will be useful to everyone.
The topics will include:
- How to convey deep self-knowledge
- What interviewing has to do with sales and with dating
- Being clear and unwavering about intention
- The truth behind “informational meetings” (and how to 100x your odds in getting a job)
- The transformation from interviewee to partner.
The focus of these posts will be on how you shift the conversation. If the game you’re playing is trying to be the “best” out of 50 or 500 applicants, that is a loser’s game—the odds are stacked too high against you.
Instead, your objective is to show up as a completely different kind of candidate, and to push the person hiring into a yes/no decision about whether to hire someone like you. When you do that, you’ve moved from 1 in 500 (“trying to be the best in a big crowd”) to 1 in 2 odds (“do I want to hire this unique, surprising person for this role?”).
In the process of standing out, you’re going to do more than increase your odds. You’re going to discover whether the organization that’s hiring wants someone different.
Because if they don’t want that, then you probably don’t want them.
Stay tuned, and feel free to share the series with someone who will find it helpful.
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