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Think Like An Employer To Get That Job

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You’re applying for a job, and maybe you even have an interview scheduled. How do you close the deal? Start by thinking like an employer.

Like most people making a decision, hiring managers are worried about mistakes, but also hopeful for good results. In most cases, fear of failure is the stronger motivator. The successful job applicant will think about how to calm the manager’s fears.

Start by imagining yourself as the boss. What would you be worried about in a hiring decision? In some cases, you may have enough experience to know what the manager fears most. In other cases, you’ll have to guess.

Career coach, author and Forbes contributor Robin Ryan says, “Hiring managers worry about your willingness to perform all the job duties needed and especially are concerned about uncovering your weaknesses.” The willingness side of the worry can be addressed head-on by asking, “What do you think is the worst part of the job, the part that other people have been least willing to do?” After hearing the boss’s answer, decide if you can honestly say, “Sure, I’ll do that.” If not, maybe it’s best to say, “Thanks for your time; I’ll be going now.”

If you get to an interview, start with a question that captures both risk and opportunity: “What’s the difference between people who succeed in this job, and people who fail at the job?” If you can start the interview with this question, you’ll be well positioned to emphasize just what the manager wants to hear. More often, of course, the manager takes the lead. If you’re bold, you can begin with, “Thanks for inviting me in for the interview. I’m very curious to learn if this position will be a good match for me. Would you mind if I ask you a question to begin?” Then go into the failure and success question, having laid the groundwork that you’re trying to learn whether you really want the job.

If you don’t get the manager’s views first, you’ll have to guess. But a good first guess is soft skills, according to management strategist and Forbes contributor Terina Allen. Based on her experience, she says, “Hiring managers worry about whether job applicants will successfully demonstrate the requisite soft skills and human behaviors that a high-performance culture and effective teamwork require.”

What are these “soft skills” that are written about so much? The lists are long. The most common are communications, self-motivation, teamwork, reliability, adaptability, creativity, time management, positive attitude and leadership. Before a job interview, think about each of these soft skills and find a good story from your past—in a job, school project, athletic team or volunteer group—to illustrate your ability. Write them out ahead of time, and review them before the job interview. (Don’t refer to your notes in the job interview, of course.)

A candidate can ask the manager: “So tell me, which soft skills are most important to success in this job?” After hearing the answer, it’s time to tell a couple of the stories that illustrate those skills.

Technical skills are most often evaluated by the manager reviewing your resume or application and then asking questions about what you have done. Before the interview, write down a list of what you think are the technical skills that will be most important in the job. Think of an example of your work that applies to each skill. Write that down, and review the list before the interview.

The manager may worry that those skills you used in your last job won’t really apply to the open position, especially if you are moving across industries. Relate each of your stories about technical skills to a more general principle. For example, the applicant might end a story saying, “I know your customer support platform is different from what I have been using, but I’m sure the underlying principles will be similar enough that I’ll come up to speed quickly.”

The software industry relies strongly on “whiteboard” interview questions. Typically the applicant is asked to outline, on the whiteboard, how a particular problem can be solved. This is unusual outside of software, though I encountered one in a job interview for an economist position many years ago. Software applicants should get familiar with specific techniques for whiteboard questions.

One final bit of advice: the hiring manager will evaluate you before asking a single question. Are there typos on your resume? When I have hired people, I’ve assumed that their resumes will be the highest quality work I’ll ever see from them. If the resume has errors, then the person’s work will have even more errors.

The hiring manager will also note whether the candidate arrives on time and is well prepared for the interview.

Thinking like a hiring manager helps the job applicant understand how to describe experience in a way that allays fears and raises hope that the applicant will be a successful employee.

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