Most People Prepare for Interviews Incorrectly

Most job seekers I meet think they know how to prepare for interviews. They usually don’t. Many know enough to research the company. Some even take the next correct step of researching the interviewers. Nearly all these folks study the responsibilities and qualifications in the job posting and do a thorough job preparing to talk about those. Most will look up commonly asked interview questions and prepare responses to them. None of these things are bad ideas, which is why everyone does them.

But preparing the same way as everyone else is not going to help to rise above the crowd. It also doesn’t address the two primary factors behind why managers select the candidates that they select:

1. Who is the best cultural fit

2. Who will produce the best results.

The reason that 75% of jobs are filled by direct hire outside of the published job market is that the hiring often occurs before the job is defined or distributed. At that stage, the only two things that a hiring manager cares about are that the person can produce the right results and that they will be a good fit for the organization. Those discussions tend to focus mostly on the company’s needs and how the person across the “desk” can satisfy those needs.

The hidden job market conversations tend to be just that: conversations.

Once a position is posted, things become dramatically different. Companies’ most common first step is to write up responsibilities and define “requirements” that will enable the screening process to manage the flow of candidates. These “requirements” are typically objective criteria, like years of experience, degrees, certifications, or familiarity with an interface that enable equitable down-selection.

But most positions are not created because of responsibilities. They are created to dive outcomes. The responsibilities are typically just the approach by which the outcomes are achieved. For that reason, education, experience, and technical knowledge are more of an indicator than they are a true requirement.

After all, we all know people who have certifications on the wall but know nothing. We have worked with folks who have tons of experience, but few skills to show for it. On the flip side, we have seen people become fluent in an application almost overnight because they already understand what it does, and only need to pick up how the new tool does it.

Hiring managers typically agree with all of this. But something weird happens to even the smartest hiring managers when they put their interviewer hat on. They forget that they need someone to take them forward and become obsessed with the past!

You can tell that this is true because most of the questions asked are about what the candidate has done before. Look at any list of commonly asked questions and you will see that very few, if any, ask how a candidate can do what the job needs them to do!

As an analogy, imagine if you needed to hire a plumber to fix your clogged drain. Would you ever ask plumbers to tell you about themselves? Where do they see themselves in five years? What their top accomplishments have been? What is their greatest weakness?

Of course not! You would describe your problem and work out when they can do it and how much it will cost. The hidden job market works in this same way, which is why the best people are hired that way. Structured interviews rarely do because most hiring managers somehow see it as a process of elimination and not a pursuit of a solution.

Over the course of my tenure as a career coach, I have asked nearly 6,000 hiring managers if they had ever been trained to interview candidates. The percentage that responds with a ‘yes’ is low single digits. Sure, most are taught which questions are illegal to ask. But those who are deciding your professional fate are usually self-taught and are often as uncomfortable in the room as you are.

This is why smart candidates share the burden by preparing talking points that focus on the results that are likely expected of the person who will excel in the role. They tailor their preparation to think about how a great person in the role would impact EACH interviewer from his or her perspective. They adjust their delivery to fit as closely as possible to each interviewers’ body language, tone, and vocabulary.

They do NOT memorize and deliver one-size-fits-all answers.

They do not focus only on the responsibilities.

Great candidates therefore differentiate themselves by doing three things well:

1. Show that you have thought about the results that you can produce in the role and share examples of how you have achieved those results

2. Demonstrate a healthy curiosity regarding what each interviewer hopes a new hire will accomplish. Sharing examples of how you have done that is a great idea, too

3. Adjust your content and communication style to make it easy for each interviewer to see how you can make their life easier and that they are comfortable having you around.

Hiring managers generally want to pick the best person for the job. They are just typically ill equipped to do that well. Helping them out by preparing properly will increase your value while making it easier for everyone!