Job Interview Case Study: 12 Tips to Get Hired!

so kyle thanks for joining us i'm really excited about talking with you about you know what's transpired for you over the last year uh i haven't really teed this up for the people who are watching it but you know just introduce yourself kind of fill us in on on what was going on uh with you as you were you were searching for your for your job absolutely so my name is kyle williams i am the marketing director at safe ride technologies we're an israeli-based uh startup company cyber security vehicle health a lot of really cool technology artificial intelligence embedded in the automotive space i met andy a little over a year ago i had been out of work for a few months and i was getting really discouraged i was really struggling to land a job offer um i from my perspective and i know everybody's got a different story but my story is that i had a rock solid resume i had a lot of good experience in the automotive industry but i was finding that although my resume was getting me in the door and i was getting past hr which i thought was a hurdle and you know looking back in hindsight i think hr is more is a very soft gatekeeper they want to get as many people as they can in the door to try to find the right person and so here i was going into these interviews thinking oh i just nailed it with hr this is going to be great and then i'd go in and i'd meet with the hiring manager and you know i struggled a little bit i they would ask me unexpected questions i didn't know how to answer them i didn't know that it was okay to respond with a question i always thought that i had to have the right answer which uh you know as as i started talking to andy and joined his boot camp i learned so much about the everything about it for the approach but also once you get into that interview which i was doing successfully how to respond to those tough questions what questions i should expect there's a lot of questions you know that people didn't ask 20 years ago when i first came into the industry i'd meet with one guy and he'd make a decision you know we'd hit it off and if things went well he'd make a hiring decision pretty much on the spot or maybe he'd interview a few more people but he'd already have in his mind yeah i like this kyle guy i want to bring him onto my team but now you go through all of these hurdles and it's interview after interview sometimes with groups of people sometimes with several different individuals and they're all they've all got these questions that they've i don't know they've gotten from hr they're they're really weird questions they're they're they're really not about the job it's more to try to get some insight into your personality and who you are and how you think and i'm an engineer i don't i don't think that way i think everything's black and white you ask me a question i have to give you the right answer and i found through andy that there are ways to answer these questions but even more than that um the whole approach that i was using to find a job was wrong and that's another thing that i learned from andy's boot camp uh so once i sat down with andy and went through the boot camp i realized that the first thing i needed to do was take a step back and ask myself what what kind of a company do i want to work for who do i want to work for what do i want that environment to be like what what what is the fit for me to find that fit for myself and then identify the companies that i think are the right fit and then which was just amazing to me don't wait for that company to come out with a job description and a job opening but actually be proactive and reach out and i started finding people on linkedin who and i did a lot of research and in fact that was the biggest difference in my mindset was how much research i did before i ever talked to anybody so i would go in and i would research companies and i would go into linkedin and i would try to find either the right hiring managers or people who could potentially connect me with the right hiring managers and i didn't even deal with hr at all instead i was reaching out blind to people who i didn't know if they had a job often opening or not and amazingly it's just it worked out perfectly so so let me go ahead and let me ask you about that because that's really i think that's a big big message i don't think a lot of people get you know people and this is i'm so glad you said that because it you know i remember when when we met there were there were there were two big things it was how do i you know get more proactive about targeting organizations and then once i get the interviews you know what's the better structure to go about interviewing but but these are two huge hurdles that i think a lot of people have that a lot of people don't really understand is that you know only 20 of of job openings are actually publicized people are number one there are openings that are not publicized number two there are hiring officials or bosses i love the boss hunting technique uh which i which i've been teaching for a long time that that organizations are always looking for great people bosses in particular are always looking to improve their teams and even if they they might have an opening that's not yet ready to go or publicized they might be willing to upgrade their staff so as you started to do that um so you started to to target organizations get responses get these interviews and i know one of the things you shared with me earlier was that the biggest one of the bigger challenges then became how do i make sure i nailed the interview just as far as the communication what after you got with me and in the program and we we had a a a live session you went through the the boot camp uh program what were what were some of the changes that that you made or that you'd recommend to people when they're in the interviews because like you said um you're a caesar senior guy you're an engineer you're smart you've probably not really looked for jobs throughout your career you always had a great job or one lined up or somebody recruited you and so you're going through this for the first time which is what a lot of people go through and they're very confused so what would you say would be the interview tips that you would you know that you that you recognize you needed to change when you got in the program and we started working together right so for me personally the the two biggest changes that i needed to make was first of all i needed to be prepared for those soft touchy-feely questions that you know again i'm an engineer and everything's black and white for me and if you ask me a question that doesn't have a black and white answer i'm going to want to think think about it for a while i might want to sleep on it overnight and then tell you the answer tomorrow but you can't do that in a job interview yeah so having having you prepare me for you know provide a list of potential questions and and not just what the questions are but what is it that they're trying to discern from this question about you as the potential as the applicant the potential uh team member and just being able to sit down in advance and think about these questions in advance and come up with answers that that were true that made sense to me you know i don't we don't want to just give canned answers to these canned questions right we want to give answers that are relevant to who we are um but but you and you want them to sound natural too but at the same time you want to be prepared for them and in the past i was never prepared for those and then the other thing and i think i mentioned this already is that i never realized how important it was to ask questions you know when somebody asks you a question you don't need to respond with the exact right answer in fact it's okay to not don't know the answer it's okay to not have the exact experience that they're asking about um one of the things that you taught me is you can ask more questions to try to get a better understanding of what they are really trying to discern from this question and it's also okay to not have the exact experience that they're asking for but instead to say you know i haven't experienced that yet however i've done x y and z which is related to what you're asking about and you know so on just to kind of show that you are a good fit even if you don't have the exact experience that they're asking for wait these are this is this is absolute gold because this is what i think a lot of people where they where they lose their confidence because like i'm not really sure i'm not sure how to answer i'm i don't have the experience i'm afraid to say i don't so wait you said three really big things that i hope people didn't just roll over is that you know you were you weren't sure about these you know we the touchy feely questions and and we all know what those are right we all we all understand that but understanding what it's not what's being asked but ultimately what the employer is looking for and when you know that and you understand the reasoning or the rationale behind the question it's much easier to package your response and be truthful so that was that was great point number one number two and when and i want to make sure that everybody watching this recognizes when you say it's okay to ask questions we're not just talking about the employer saying to you oh hey kyle what questions do you have for me and then you you basically are handed the microphone you're talking about asking clarifying questions when you want to make absolutely certain you understand what they're looking for and or why they're looking for it or what why it's important to them is you're not answering a question with a question because you're not completely deflecting you're actually asking for clarification so you can give the smartest answer so people need to know that they can do that but then the other thing is you know don't freak out when when they're asking you something that you don't have exactly because number one they probably know that to begin with that that if they saw your resume they looked at that they probably should know that you don't have that and if you if you are completely cold with it if you're interviewing you likely are still okay because if that was that big a deal that you didn't have the exact experience they probably wouldn't even bother to talk to you so what you really need to do is right we talked about highlighting what it is that you do know talk about what you are not what you're not okay wait those are those are three home run points my friend and that those are those are good you want to add one yeah because you just brought up a good point that just brought something else to my mind that i wasn't doing correctly in the past which is the other part of asking questions so there's a part in the interview where the employer says to you do you have any questions and in the past i might jot down a few things but man i'll tell you what after going through your boot camp i went into every interview with a list of questions and i i would have a list for each person that i knew that i was going to interview with in advance that was you know some of them overlapped but they were tailored for that specific person and they covered a range of different topics and anyone who goes through the boot camp will learn more about these types of questions that you should be asking and another thing that i realized too is let me back up a second to tell you about an experience that i had a few months before i did the boot camp which um i i wasn't out of work yet i knew that i was going to be losing my job but i wasn't out of work yet and i had this opportunity to interview with a hiring manager it was actually going to be a promotion for me and the guy took me off guard the first thing he said to me when i got on the phone with him is do you have any questions for me look i was so confused it really confused me because i i was used to this certain pattern you know we're going to interview you in the end you might have some questions and if i had i been prepared with the questions the way i was a few months later after going through your boot camp i would have totally gotten that job i know in my mind i've got so much confidence from your boot camp and i don't want to sound arrogant but i've got so much more confidence knowing how to approach the the whole interview process the other thing that i learned about the interviewing process and i had kind of had this whole thing backwards or only half the picture you know i would go into an interview before trying to sell myself trying to show that i was the perfect fit for this role that they had when what i should have been doing is i should have been going in asking questions to see is this job really the right fit for me because that's what they're doing they're trying to find out if you're the right fit for this company for this position for this team and you need to learn the same thing you need to understand am i gonna am i gonna enjoy working in this team is this the right fit for me is it the right culture is at the right role and we you shouldn't go into a chat interview just trying to get an offer because that's what i was doing at every interview and that's another purpose of the questions too they're not just to show them that you're prepared but really to help yourself decide if this is a job that i really want wait that's such a great um i think that might be one of the biggest transformations that i see with people that i work with is that you know because a lot i mean people don't come to me because everything is great they come to me because they're they're in pain of some sort there's a challenge that they have and likely have tried to solve it on their own but it's very confusing and what i always tell people is i i want you to find me after you've tried some things on your own because then you will appreciate what right then you'll be able to diagnose quickly what wasn't working when you start to see that but wait but that was so great and but i love the evolution that you went through and i always tell people that everything they go through in their job search it's like a black box you go in it's a black box it's all one search and when you say hey if i'd have been ready for that i would have gotten that job and i always say to people that was like a pawn being moved off the chess board that had to happen so that when you got to the right place at the right time with the right organization you had accumulated all that experience that you then channeled into that victory and speaking of victories you know okay so you were struggling you find me you get in the program we do some work together uh for the folks watching what what then transpired in the way of of this employment that you got or these offers that you got so then i started like i said going through like both first of all deciding what exactly it was that i wanted what company i wanted to work for what kind of a role who i wanted my boss to potentially be and trying to find those types of bosses on linkedin and also through networking um but i was doing a lot of cold calling through linkedin reaching out to people and i had a lot of success with that i had so so one of the things that happens when you take this approach is that hiring managers typically have a lot of needs and you know they may have some job descriptions written they may have some ideas in their head but you come to them and and you start having these discussions with them and they start thinking about okay how can this person fit into my organization and it's not necessarily related to any specific job description that's already posted or anything that they've already discussed with hr maybe it's just they're thinking about their needs and how they can offload some of the things that they're doing to to someone who will report to them and um not now i've forgotten what this question was but but but ultimately the question was as you went through this technique you received some offers because of this route that you took and so that was right that was the the i guess myself getting much deeper into the uh into the interview process i was getting you know hr was kind of being included only as a courtesy so that they could schedule the meetings but i was really it was the hiring managers who were bringing me in for discussions and they were connecting me with people on their teams and they were thinking about how i could fit into their organization now i ultimately wound up with two offers i i'm confident that i would have had more um had i waited under normal circumstances but i did start this job at the beginning of march 2020 so i'm actually very fortunate that i accepted a job offer when i did because then covet hit and things kind of slowed down um but i had two job offers when i accepted this one the job that i have now this marketing director at safe ride technologies role when i first had started having discussions with a friend of mine who actually was working at this company at safe ride technologies um this not only was this job not posted yet but there was no job description they didn't really even realize if they wanted to hire a marketing director or not they had someone doing the marketing director role uh they weren't really happy with them but they weren't at the point where they were ready to hire anybody um so so i got in the door and i was basically you know the primary guy and it's funny too my boss now i think when he was looking to fill this role originally he was looking for someone with a marketing background and i've got an engineering background i'm really not a marketing guy but he brought me in just because it was a good fit and i could bring more to the organization than just a typical marketing director would bring yeah i think this is the this is the big this is the big thing for people is that you know they've they you were open to this because you drafted your requirements you knew the things that you enjoyed and a big part of that was getting in an organization where you could thrive and i think you know kind of one of the final messages to people is you know don't be so fixated on the role be open to joining a great organization and then getting and improving yourself and if you if you do have that i always call it the art of the possible where hey what can this be is this the right environment for me to thrive in if it is get in and prove yourself and that's what you did so so you go from struggling to figuring out how to target people to to overcoming the hurdles in the interviews to getting multiple offers to accepting one and then expanding your role which is just a huge huge success story so before we before we wrap this up final thoughts here for you to the to the folks watching um what would you what would you like to say to them those what would you you know if assuming they are you you know a year ago right like what would you said to your you know like 10 month old self before you went through this process or whatever it is what would be those home run points you'd love to leave them with so i think the biggest thing is to to not try to go it alone to try to get some help but you know i'm i'm a big andy fan so i would recommend andy but i mean if you've got other other avenues other people that you would want to work with that's fine but you know i i tend to i don't know if it's because i'm an engineer or i'm a guy or what it is i try to solve all my problems by myself and we have blinders you know we we don't see our weaknesses the way that other people can especially a professional like andy who can bring in all his years of experience and show you really the the tools and techniques that you need to succeed in in finding a job you know when i first when i first started interviewing i thought that finding a job would be a a part-time you know 10 or 20 hour a week job but the preparation that you need to do and the research and the the proactivity i mean i worked harder trying to find a job then uh definitely been a 40-hour workbook oh man that is i will tell you this i i tell people you know if you are for those that are out of work because everybody's situation's different right some are unemployed some are in jobs they don't love some are just trying to make career changes and things that nature getting a job will be harder to do it's really hard it's really lonely and it should be your full-time job when you're out of work but i think the message that you're leaving these people with you know in addition to all those great messages you gave you know through through our discussion here is that people do not realize how important having a community is wait it's one thing to have me to help you but all the other people think about think about everything you just taught anybody who who listened to our exchange here and all those pointers that you gave them so for everybody who's listening out there from from me and kyle absolutely and i think about the big deal i think about the guy in your community who taught us about linkedin x-ray i mean that was so beneficial for me to be able to because for anybody who starts trying to find people on linkedin you will find out within a few days that linkedin is going to cut off your supply of searches right your ability to to make contacts yeah and uh andy andy met a guy who was able to show us a way to use google search to find linkedin contacts and it was absolutely awesome one of our right what he's referring to charles one of our our people in our job search coaching program who who did a demo for for all the people in the job search boot camp and uh it was a hit and and cara is pretty good with it too but it was really nice we try to do what we can to involve the folks to help each other and but kyle i just i want to wrap this up with a huge thank you to you i cannot thank you enough it's been great to meet you it's been great to help you and it's been great to to stay connected with you you know through your through your development and thanks again for taking the time out to do this i hope everybody gives you a big shout out hey maybe all you guys want to get connected with but uh well thank you andy it's been a pleasure and i can't wait until we get beyond covet and maybe we can get together you got that right buddy all right thanks a million really appreciate it

2021-09-28 16:58

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