Over the last few years I’ve interviewed a lot of people, and been the interviewee a lot as well. Here’s some advice.
- Be honest. You are awesome, tell them that in at least ten different ways. Leave your self-consciousness AND your ego at the door, and be genuine.
- It’s all about confidence and communication. If you don’t seem confident, I’m not confident you can do the job. If you can’t communicate, I don’t want to think about spending the next five years trying to decipher your crazy talk. Tell yourself you are having fun at the interview, too. Because you want to act like you are having fun.
- Make sure there’s a good mix of ‘we’ and ‘I’. I don’t want to hear all “I” did this, because it can’t be true and what’s that person think of themselves? Likewise, all “We” did this makes me question how much they actually do, and by themselves.
- You have incredibly interesting gigs and hobbies that you are making money from right now. Everyone would love to hear about being a paid bass player, and making cakes. Just make sure you talk the business side of that up as well as the playing part. It’s a “I started playing 20 years ago and got serious 10 years ago when I decided I wanted to play in professional bands, I’ve been booking shows and self-managing for the last five, I coordinate lights and sound for five band members which involve all this work. I’m very shy, so I make myself go up there every single time and make sure I have practiced everything to overcome my stage fright, every time it’s a battle and every time I give my absolute best performance.”, not “One time this guy got so drunk that!” – the latter makes you memorable, but doesn’t make you stick as a doer. The former makes you a doer that will be remembered because hey, what you did is incredible.
- Be honest honest honest. Tell yourself the person you’re talking to will run into a mutual friend tomorrow and fact check you – don’t say anything embarrassing.
- Know what you’re going to say about your best quality, worst quality, best project, worst project, best coworker, worst coworker, best boss, and worst boss. Many of those boring ass canned questions can fall in one of those categories.
- And have three questions you will ask. Make them good questions, and a little sideways (so you don’t cover them in the interview and then come up short). “What’s the executive culture like here? How do they make sure everyone working towards shared goals?” or “What do you think people like most and dislike most about working here?” and “What’s a major success story here?” and “What’s your culture like? How do people relate and treat each other?” are starters.
