{"id":10933,"date":"2013-04-14T11:22:33","date_gmt":"2013-04-14T01:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=10933"},"modified":"2013-04-15T07:10:52","modified_gmt":"2013-04-14T21:10:52","slug":"the-art-of-selling-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=10933","title":{"rendered":"The Art Of Selling Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jobinterview\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This week, I finally snapped an eight year long duck.\u00a0 Someone offered me a job!\u00a0 It had been eight years since the last time I was successful in a job interview.<\/p>\n

In 2004, I landed a job as a sales rep when I first moved to Brisbane.\u00a0 I remember feeling pretty good at the time.\u00a0 It was the second job I applied for and it only took me three days of job hunting to find full-time employment.<\/p>\n

Since that time, I’ve had some progression in my professional career but its always<\/em> come from ‘a tap on the shoulder.’\u00a0 I suppose I shouldn’t complain.\u00a0 It’s been nice to move up in such an assured fashion where you feel 100% in control of the outcome.\u00a0 In the long run though, it gave me a glaring blind spot.\u00a0 I had no idea how to sell myself in a job interview and when the time came this year to draw on those skills, I stank up the joint.\u00a0 I think I must have been told ‘thanks but no thanks’ at about six interviews.\u00a0 I wouldn’t even have made the interview in countless more job applications.\u00a0 Even worse, there were times I thought the interviews went well.\u00a0 I had no idea why I was getting turned down.<\/p>\n

Job interviews in 2013 seem to be a much different proposition to what I remember.\u00a0 I had three interviews that were held in cafes over a cup of coffee.\u00a0 In retrospect, the setting threw me off.\u00a0 It seems obvious to say it now but just because its a more casual environment that doesn’t mean employers want casual answers to their questions.\u00a0 In all three ‘coffee interviews’ I felt I built great rapport with the prospective employer and all of the interviews ran for over 90 minutes (a good sign?) but I didn’t come away with a job offer once.<\/p>\n

After a string of rejections and unsuccessful interviews, I began to piece together some semblance of preparation and formulated a strategy.<\/p>\n

Step 1.\u00a0 Be prepared and have a strategy!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

So overconfident was I in my first interview for a sales manager role, that I didn’t really prepare for the interview itself.\u00a0 Sure I researched the company I could potentially be working for and updated my CV but I basically went in with the idea that just being myself would do the trick.\u00a0 Only it doesn’t quite work like that.\u00a0 It’s important to be upfront about who you are but a little planning and anticipation of the questions beforehand means that you can give an answer that best represents who you are.\u00a0 You want to minimize the waffle and if you have a rough idea of what qualities you want to promote about yourself, you reduce the risk of having a mind-blank and underselling yourself.\u00a0 Nothing worse than looking back on an interview and thinking ‘shit, I didn’t tell them I was good at _______.’<\/em><\/p>\n

One of my pet hates when I interview people for a job is when they don’t directly answer a question.\u00a0 Looking back on my job hunt, I realize I’ve been guilty of doing the same thing at times.\u00a0 It happens when you’re asked a tricky question you weren’t anticipating and try to give an answer on the spot in a moment of panic.\u00a0 Your stream of consciousness ends up taking you down a path from which you don’t return and you just talk for a couple of minutes without answering the initial question.\u00a0 It’s never a good look.<\/p>\n

No two interviews are ever the same when it comes to the questions but conceptually, the idea is always the same.\u00a0 Who are you?\u00a0 What are you good at?\u00a0 Why should they pick you over the other candidates?<\/em>\u00a0 You have<\/span> to be able to answer those questions beforehand in a clear, confident and articulate fashion.\u00a0 If a candidate’s response to ‘why should we pick you?’ starts with the answer ‘ummm…’ then they’ve already blown it.<\/p>\n

Step 2.\u00a0 Tailor your approach to suit the role<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It wasn’t laziness but probably naivety that made me write up the first draft of my CV which included every single professional achievement I ever accomplished and every role I ever performed in a leadership capacity.\u00a0 The problem was, it made my CV look bloated as hell and chances are, there’s going to be a lot of content in there that isn’t relevant to the job I’m applying for.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t matter if you can grow a prize winning giant pumpkin if you’re applying to work in an abattoir.\u00a0 And in my case, I was putting in all<\/em> of my prior customer service and sales management experience together when I applied for jobs.<\/p>\n

That’s not to say that the two are mutually exclusive but when you’re applying for a sales manager role you should primarily emphasize your revenue-achieving excellence which is bolstered by some strong customer service skills.\u00a0 If you’re going for that plum looking ops manager role for a customer service department then you should emphasize your ability to deliver a world class customer experience first and foremost where salesmanship is just one of the qualities you can provide.<\/p>\n

If you’ve been unsuccessful in a couple of job applications, there is the possibility that desperation or tedium will set in and you might feel inclined to take a ‘spray and pray’ approach to job hunting where you apply for a million things at once, hoping something sticks.\u00a0 This is never a good idea.\u00a0 I did this for a week and one day I got a call out of the blue.<\/p>\n

‘Hi, is this Edo?’<\/em>
\n‘Yes it is’<\/em>
\n‘Its Anna calling from Advantage Corp.\u00a0 I’d like to conduct a phone interview with you.’<\/em>
\n‘Sure’<\/em>
\n‘Firstly, what prompted you to apply for Advantage Corp?\u00a0 What do you know about the company?’<\/em>
\n[ten agonizing seconds of dead air]\n‘I can’t remember applying for this job and I have no idea what your company does’<\/em><\/p>\n

This actually happened and that day I learned not to pursue the ‘spray and pray’ approach.<\/p>\n

Step 3.\u00a0 Stand out from the pack<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The last thing is that x-factor that ultimately lands you the job.\u00a0 The strategy, the streamlined approach and the interview prep are the framework but obviously what lands you the job is a moment where you make some sort of breakthrough with the interviewer where they think ‘this is who we’re looking for!’<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve interviewed hundreds of job applicants myself and although my average interview time runs for about 30-45 minutes, your assessment of why you do or don’t want to offer someone a job usually comes down to a 30 second snapshot and it usually comes scarily early in the interview.\u00a0 First impressions and all that.\u00a0 And it’s not necessarily the same reason each time.\u00a0 They might nail the answer to a particular question.\u00a0 It could be an intangible quality about their body language and mannerisms.<\/p>\n

You obviously can’t anticipate what a prospective employer will find likable about you but what you can do is make sure that you have the awareness to read how the interview is going and if you see a glimmer in their eye or a positive shift in body language to one of your responses, then obviously stay on that path because you’re on the right track.\u00a0 And to do that, it means you can’t give canned interview responses and you have to be calm and attentive enough to know when to change tact.<\/p>\n

It isn’t easy.\u00a0 I certainly took my lumps this year learning how to be a good interview.\u00a0 But it was worth the experience.\u00a0 And after three interviews with one organization, I was offered an office manager role that I really wanted.\u00a0 My first day was on Friday and I love the look of the new place I’m working at.\u00a0 There’s good staff, a great culture and an exciting challenge in the role itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, I finally snapped an eight year long duck.\u00a0 Someone offered me a job!\u00a0 It had been eight years since the last time I was successful in a job interview. In 2004, I landed a job as a sales rep when I first moved to Brisbane.\u00a0 I remember feeling pretty good at the time.\u00a0 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-10933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10933"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10955,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10933\/revisions\/10955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}