Improving Performance in Interviews

The Challenge:

Jennifer was a young professional with strong experience in the financial services industry. To augment her early stage career growth, she elected to return to school to obtain an MBA. Upon graduation, Jennifer successfully arranged dozens of interviews, yet failed to land a single offer. As she had previously won every job for which she competed, she was at a loss to explain her lack of success now that she was armed with even stronger qualifications.

Interviewer feedback was largely positive. Jennifer had no serious flaws in presentation: she prepared, dressed well, demonstrated enthusiasm for the work, and followed up quickly and professionally. Although she was going after some jobs that were beneath her career level, most of her interviews were for jobs appropriate to her experience and education.

By executing a troubleshooting session, Job Guy was able to pinpoint the issue. What Jennifer was NOT doing was tailoring her message to her audience. She presented everyone with the same messaging instead of tailoring to fit their individual perspectives and levels of understanding. The stories she told were too literally tied to the jobs she was trying to get away from, making it difficult for interviewers to envision her doing anything else. She also tended to intimidate peer and subordinate level interviewers.

The Solution:

Job Guy taught Jennifer to adjust her messaging and presentation for each individual interviewer. She refocused on the results by which she would be measured in the new job, no longer forcing interviewers to guess how her past successes would translate to their needs. She also sent customized thank you notes to each interviewer, playing back key points heard from each person.

The Result:

In the three interviews after making these adjustments, she got two offers, one of which she accepted before the third company even got to offer stage.