In the previous ‘How to Job Interview (part 3/4)‘ I talked about some really good strategies on how to make yourself sound intelligent during the interview. In this article, I will finally show you how to actually answer questions.

Up until now you should have picked up on the fact that what you are really trying to do during the interview is to SELL yourself. People buy you before they are willing to buy your services (meaning employ you).

Lets break down the process of answering questions in an easy to digest way.

First of all you need to understand that giving very long answers is not a smart thing to do. Saying less and choosing the right words is the correct way to answer questions. You see, people have a very short attention span. We are all easily distracted and loose focus very quickly.

If you read the previous three articles, you already know all the needed steps to form your answer. Now you simply need to understand the format in which to deliver your answer.

Again, there are many systems/methods out there for answering question but I wont go through them. Some are good, other sound good but are not practical.

When it comes to answering questions, I usually always use the 4 step system below as this has worked very well for myself and my clients. These steps are as follow:

1. What is going on?
   I describe what the situation was before I did anything.
2. What am I thinking of doing?
   I explain my thought process on going through the various options available to me.
3. What did I do?
   I explain why I chose to go with my solution.
4. What effect did it have?
   I explain the benefits of what I did and how I am their candidate of choice, also known as the Hero.

Pretty easy right? Trust me, it is not difficult.

Before you start answering a question in the above format, you should introduce your answer with what I call a ‘filler phrase‘. These can be the following:

• “I’m glad you asked…”
• “Sure, I actually have several examples of this, but I will give you one really good example…”
• “Thats a neat question, I remember once…”
• “I agree, to be more specific I had a case where…”
• etc…

You get the point. It is just a way to acknowledge that you have understood the question. This is not rocket science so don’t stress out over it.

Now lets break down each of the four steps a bit further. Let us say that you are asked the following question:

“Can you share a specific incident in which you motivated a staff member to better work performance?”

This is what my answer would sound like:

Filler Phrase (opening to my answer):

• “Sure. Actually I have many examples of incidents where I have helped others become better self motivated. I guess I get it from all the past years of great coaching from my own mentors.”

Step 1 (I describe the situation):

• “Specifically speaking though, I remember just recently at XYZ company where I had a young energetic member on my team whose performance and attendance both started to decline after having been with our organization for about a year or so. I really liked this team member, but the performance was becoming rather unacceptable.”

Step 2 (I explain my thought process):

• “I knew that I could confront this team member head on, but through my experience I have learned that there is always an unique reason for drops in performance. You know, a great manager understands that everyone has to be treated different. What motivates one person, could potentially demotivate others.”

Step 3 (I explain what I did):

• “I decided to introduce a program in my department where I would take one team member out for lunch every month. Guess who the first lucky person was? Thats right, and we had a great conversation over lunch. I learned many interesting facts about the situation, and this just goes to prove that you should never judge a book by its cover. It became rather obvious that the drop in performance was due to a lack in challenge at work. This is very common. It’s like playing basketball without a net. No goal means no motivation. I decided to make a deal with my team member. If he could sustain an expected level of performance, I would let him work on some side projects giving him the ability to learn new skills and face a constant challenge.”

Step 4 (I show the result):

• “One thing to note is that this particular solution may not fit everyone, and this is why I stress that when people apply for management positions, they understand how people work, like what drives people to excellence. My solution for this team member was perfect. The performance increased and stayed at higher than expected level, and my team member has really shown excellence in the various new projects I got him involved in. You see, if you can truly understand people, and be willing to go the extra mile, then most of the work force problems are easily solved as I just showed you with this example.”

DONE.

It is important that when you describe the situation (step 1), you make it very clear so the interviewer knows exactly what is going on. You don’t want to explain your answer to someone who is confused over what the problem is. You should also always provide examples/proofs (choose the most recent ones) to support your answer.

Notice that I also throw in statements during my answer to DEMONSTRATE VALUE (such as the fact that I am a great motivator and manager, willing to go extra mile, I have had great mentors etc). This is done to take the guesswork away from the interviewer in determining whether or not I possess certain qualities.

Don’t you ever dare end your answer on an even slightly negative note. You need to always always end your answers on a positive note. It’s like a typical movie where the hero saves the day. Nobody likes crappy endings no matter what they tell you.

A few side notes worthy of mention are:

• Your opening and closing statements are very important. People will forget most of what you tell them
• Always provide proof with your answer
• Remember to throw in statements in your answer to demonstrate value
• Don’t sound like a robot. Make it a conversation and if you can get the interviewer to participate, then its even better.
• Smile, keep eye contact and sound excited (don’t over do the excitement)
• If needed, take acting classes (just joking, maybe not)

By now your interviewing skills should have taken a major leap. Obviously you can’t go from zero to hero by reading 4 articles, but it should help quite a bit. If you still feel that you are struggling, then the core problem you have is to do with your level of confidence. That itself has several sub components related to it.

Anyways, this is why I started this blog. I highly recommend that you subscribe to my blog and read what I write. It will take time, but I can promise you that you will see major improvements in how you operate around yourself and others.

Talk soon.

In the previous ‘How to Job Interview (Part 2/4)‘ article I talked about the need to analyze the reasons behind why you are asked questions. I hope by now you understand the importance of this and with a bit of practice, you will learn the art of giving ‘correct’ answers.

In this article, I will give you some strategies that I personally use to make me sound much more intelligent & impressive during the interview. This may piss some people off, but believe me, this is such a good advice that you will want to make sure you always do this before any interview.

Depending on the type of job you have applied for, there are certain characteristics/attributes that companies look for when hiring a candidate. You need to memorize at least 10-15 of these ‘NICE’ words and make sure you smoothly incorporate them during the interview when answering questions.

Let me give you an example:

If you are interviewing for a management position then the following words are related to this field.

Motivation, Leadership, Communication, Management, Self Starter, Attitude, Goals, Change Management, Organizational Skills and so on (you get the point).

I would go ahead and memorize these words, and when i give a specific answer I will try to use one of these words with an added emphasis. A lot of time you will find some of these words in the job description, if not then just search for similar positions on job boards and create your list.

When you are asked to describe your previous jobs, DO NOT read them the bullet points from your resume. The interviewer knows how to read and this just makes the interview that much more boring.

This a trick that my friend taught me and it’s amazing how great it works. This is what you have to do:

For each of your previous jobs list 5-10 accomplishments. You have to write these 5-10 accomplishments on a piece of paper (no computer please). It is even better if you can put monetary value on these accomplishments.

Let me show you an example:

Job title: Team Manager

Accomplishments:

• Motivated staff (monthly sick days dropped by 20%, worth $500 per month (over $5000 saved on a yearly basis)
• Implemented new training strategies to improve sales, also known as up selling (sales increased 15% ($5k) on a monthly basis)
• Improved internal invoicing procedure, saving company 1 hour (1 hour = $25) everyday (7hrs weekly, 28hrs monthly etc)

Are you getting the point? When you physically write them down on a paper using a pen, the information sinks into you subconscious mind which makes it easy to remember during the interview.

Accomplishments are all about how you saved/made the company money/time or improved efficiency, which really comes back to time/money. If I am the decision maker at a company interviewing you, this is what I want to hear. Can you save/make me money/time?

This one will also piss some people off, but I think that by now you get the point that I don’t care. This is my favorite strategy because it makes me sound like a genius and people are ALWAYS impressed.

All you need to do is memorize some powerful quotes related to your job position. This can be done from either books or other places such as magazine, internet etc. The key is to incorporate these quotes into your conversation with the interviewer. This MUST be done in a natural manner so it sounds like part of your normal speech. You don’t want to sound like a robot, and everything I teach you does need PRACTICE.

Here is an excellent example of how I would use this strategy:

Job position: Finance Manager
Quote: “Failure is not an event, but rather an opinion”

While describing myself to the interviewer I would use the quote in the following manner.

“You know, looking back at all the accomplishments I have achieved, there is one thing I realized that has separated me from the masses. And that is the ability to move forward despise many obstacles. Now that I think about it, failure to me has never been an event, rather an opinion held by others, and we all know how cheap opinions are. Really, I think this is the main reason for my success in all aspects of my life.”

Are you starting to see how powerful this method can be if used correctly? Again, all the above strategies are not unethical, rather they are designed to give you the upper edge over other candidates, so use them wisely.

This is a simple technique, but most people don’t do it. All it requires is that you do a little thinking before going into the interview. Think about what you wish to convey to them by the time the interview is over. I usually think of a main theme that I want the interviewer to learn about me and then during the interview I refer to this theme in some way a few times.

An example of this would be:

Theme: I am an excellent motivator, so good that i can make a donkey think he is a horse (I am exaggerating)

During the interview when I am talking to the other person, I would throw in comments such as:

• “…I was amazed at how much a person can improve productivity by simply customizing my management styles…”
• “I am successful at motivating others because of what my mentors did to me in my early days of management…”
• “…and thats when I truly started to recognize that you can’t motivate everyone using the same technique…”

There you have it. Four strategies you can easily learn and use during your next interview.

In the next article I will now finally discuss the specific science of answering questions which at this point shouldn’t be too difficult.

Talk soon.