1 Welcome to InterviewSpeak

Here’s what might have happened. You thought that you said all the right things, but it really wasn’t what the interviewer was looking for. The interviewer smiled at you and couldn’t wait to get done with the interview.

We’ve seen this happen way too often. So many people think they have great answers, but they really don’t. One big reason for this is that people don’t understand what the interviewer is really saying and really asking for. If you understood that, your answers would be much better.

We wrote this book to show you what the interviewer is really asking and why. Think of this as a way to translate “interviewspeak.” By understanding interviewspeak, you can be better prepared to answer an interviewer’s questions and give them exactly the information they need.

We’ve learned this from many years of interviews and corporate work. Barbara spent many years as an internal recruiter where she sourced and interviewed candidates, referred some to hiring managers, and then debriefed with both candidates and hiring managers. It was interesting to note that about 99% of all candidates thought they did well in their interviews, but in talking with hiring managers, it turns out that most did not.

In one position, Barbara’s office was right next door to the VP of HR, so she’d catch candidates after their interviews to see how they felt they did. Again, nearly all of them said they did well. Barbara would then go into the VP of HR’s office to get her take, and in over half the cases, she got a “thumbs down.” It turns out this VP’s “modus operandi” was to be very engaging, smiling, and actively listening during her interviews, so practically everyone walked away loving her and thinking they really hit it off well, even when their answers were off the mark.

Laura has spent many years in corporate Human Resources so she knows what goes on behind the scenes at companies. She trained hiring managers in what to say during interviews. She explained to them why it’s important to ask certain questions. She helped them to understand what to listen for in the answers and how to spot red flags that could indicate the applicant wouldn’t be right for the role. She also heard managers share their thoughts about memorable applicants – both good and bad.

When Laura left the corporate world, she used that experience to write two books about how to negotiate higher salaries at new jobs and current jobs (one non-fiction book and one fiction book). She now coaches and trains people through online courses how to ask for and get more money at work.

This book is for you if you want to learn how to improve your interview skills, even if you think you’ve done well at past interviews, so you can get the job you want.

We’ll share what we’ve learned to help you know what to say and what to avoid. In these chapters, we’ll journey together, uncovering the true questions behind interview questions, and how to respond with impactful answers that will impress your potential employer.

You might be thinking that interviewing is common sense, and that you just need to prepare and give some good positive answers.

Unfortunately, that’s just not true. Even though answering basic interview questions may appear obvious, there are many nuances that most people are not aware of.

And, even if some of the things we cover seem like common sense, they are definitely not common practice. You’d be surprised how often, in the context of a job interview, people say things that make no sense!

One of the unique perspectives that Barbara brings is because she wasn’t just an interviewer for a variety of positions, industries, levels and hiring managers. She also spent many years conducting “mock” interviews, to help job candidates improve their interview skills. In these sessions, Barbara would create interview questions based on job descriptions, conduct role plays where she asked questions, listened to answers, and then gave real-time, detailed feedback to the interviewees. Throughout those years, it was common for her to tell candidates when they missed the mark because the answer they gave to a particular question was really answering a different question.

For example, when she asked the popular “Tell me about yourself” question, she’d often get long, rambling answers about the candidate’s life story, including where they grew up, what they did after college, all the jobs they’ve had since then, etc. By the time they got to the relevant parts (skills and experience that qualify them for the job), Barbara was no longer listening (she had completed a mental grocery list of things to pick up on her way home, all while smiling and nodding along).

She would then say what she was really looking for in her question, and the candidate would have a “light bulb moment” – saying that if they had known that was really what Barbara was looking for, they would have answered the question differently. When they had an opportunity to redo their answer, it would be spot on. This is why we’ve come to realize that a book on translating InterviewSpeak was needed.

Every job interview question has a question behind the question; that is, what the interviewer is really looking for when they ask it. For the questions we cover, you’ll get a translation that explains what that question actually means and what the interviewer is looking for. You’ll then get some examples of how to answer or suggestions about what your answers should and shouldn’t include.

For example, the previous question, “Tell me about yourself” seems straightforward and some people think it’s simple to answer, but it can be easy to mess up if you don’t realize what’s behind it. Yes, the interviewer wants to know about you and they also want to get an idea of how you answer an open question like this. Are you prepared? Do you get to the point? This question is especially important because it’s normally asked at the beginning and sets the tone for the rest of the meeting.

Another issue we’ve seen is with people who have been on the other side of the desk as interviewers. They can be quite confident in their skills as interviewees. They have their own opinions on which questions they would ask and why, and which questions they would never ask. We tell everyone that there is a whole world out there of possible interviewers and you need to be prepared to deal with people who have different styles and approaches.

This book will help you translate a variety of common interview questions so that you can answer them with impact and achieve the ultimate goal: a job offer.

It’s time to start our interview journey to see how your answers can move you in the right direction. Are you ready for better and easier interviews? Let’s go.

When you travel to a foreign land and don’t know the language, you need some way to translate what people are saying so you can understand them. That’s why we’re here. We want to help you to understand what recruiters are really saying. Consider this a guidebook on your journey to a new job.

The key to success lies in your ability to understand what’s behind the questions so your answers address what they really want to know; not just what they explicitly say. In order to help you, we’ll break down some of the questions and clearly explain the different parts.

You’ll get examples that show how an interviewee provides a good answer to a question. You’ll then see what makes that answer good as well as how that answer could be improved.

We’re also going to have some fun by introducing you to “Clueless Clark.” He’ll show you what a poor interviewer might do and say. Clueless Clark thinks he’s great at interviewing and doesn’t feel the need to prepare very much. He thinks it’s much better to wing it because the right answers seem so obvious to him, and he wants to feel natural in the interview. He leaves every interview convinced that he’s got the job and is quite surprised when he doesn’t get the offer. From his examples, you’ll see what to do to avoid being a Clueless Clark. Some of his answers may seem a little exaggerated, but he’s an amalgam of real people that we and other interviewers have experienced. We include him to highlight potential mistakes that people make and what to do instead.

Obviously, we believe that the right preparation makes all the difference. In order to help you prepare, we provide both translations and advice on how to answer questions, but we don’t give you scripts of what to say. That is because you must personalize your answers and customize them to fit your background, experience, personality, and the job for which you’re interviewing. Memorizing a script will not build rapport, and it simply won’t work (unless you’re seeking a job as an actor).

This book is not an encyclopedia of ALL possible interview questions. Instead, we give you common interview questions that everyone should be prepared for, as well as lists of many other typical questions.

It’s helpful to think about the interview as a sales process. You’re the product and the employer is the consumer. In order to get the job offer, you need to understand their needs so that you can match your features and benefits to those needs.

Here are excerpts from one employer’s job posting that gives insight into the kind of candidate they seek:

For example, if the company lists their values, you can highlight how you showed these values in the examples you give. Or you might find out that the company offers a volunteer day for employees and highlights some non-profit organizations that they support. You can mention your support of that or other similar organizations.

You want the interviewers to see that you spent time on your research to show that you are a serious candidate who is interested in working for this company, not just someone who is applying for any job and accepting any interviews. (Even if you are applying for a lot of jobs, you want the recruiters to feel that you are focused on this job.)

You’ll also want to review any recent press releases about the company. What events, product news or other stories are they focusing on? These could be areas to mention or ask about. Part of your research into a company can be looking into what others say about it. If they’ve been in the news for positive reasons, you can comment about that.

You can also look at sites that show employee reviews such as Glassdoor.com. Don’t be overly concerned with negative reviews, as the people who are most likely to post these are disgruntled employees. In addition, it’s helpful to focus on the most recent reviews. A company that got bad reviews last year could have made changes leading to more positive reviews. This is for your research only; it is not an area that should be brought up in initial interviews.

As an example of how to anticipate possible interview questions, we’ve selected a job posting that we all can relate to, not because we’ve been in a similar role but rather because we know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a telemarketing call. Recruiters often develop their interview questions based on the content of job descriptions, and you can use the very same approach to anticipate possible questions and prepare how to answer them.

In the next section, we show an example of a job description for an Outbound Customer Service Representative and how to “deconstruct” it.

As part of the Member Engagement team, you will contact members of various plans by phone to offer, explain, and schedule a free in-home or virtual evaluation. You will work diligently to meet department productivity, quality, and customer service goals.

This role will report to a Member Engagement Manager.

Laura remembers hearing hiring managers talking about candidates who didn’t have all the “required” qualifications, but the manager really liked them. They said that they could teach someone the needed skills. What mattered to them most is whether they wanted to work with the person or not.

The initial people you meet with may not be working with you directly if you get hired but if they are internal interviewers, they want to make sure that you’ll fit in with their colleagues. Do your homework on the interviewers and look at their LinkedIn profiles to review their backgrounds and how they describe themselves. It’s okay for them to see that you viewed this; it shows that you’re someone who does their homework (and no, it’s not viewed as creepy). Look for anything that you have in common that you can use to build rapport during the interview. For example, did you go to the same school, or live in the same state, or work for the same company in the past? These are all things that you can comment on.

If you go to their site for the interview, look around their office, and comment on something you have in common, or that you were impressed by, or compliment the photos on their desk. Granted, some interviewers may have a “poker face” and make it difficult to build rapport but do everything you can to really connect on a human level, and not just as a job candidate.

It can be helpful to look at the interviews from the interviewer’s point of view. The interviewer is not your enemy in this process. They are looking for the best fit for this position so they can support their company and make their boss and the hiring manager happy. They don’t want to have interview after interview where they don’t find the right person. It makes their jobs much simpler when they can find the right person fast. Your job is to help them clearly see that you’re the best candidate so they can help you get hired and wrap up this position quickly and easily.

After your detailed review of the job description that we discussed earlier in this chapter, identify your most relevant and compelling stories to share in the interview based on the areas of experience and competencies listed there. For each story, you want to clearly state the actions that you took and the results. Stories should be brief (no more than two minutes in duration) and impactful. You may want to practice talking through your stories out loud or tell them to someone else to see how much time they take and gain their feedback. Remove unimportant details such as people’s names or locations and just focus on the key message that you want to give the interviewer.

You may wish to put together a prep chart such as shown in table 1, where the competencies (such as problem solving and decision making) are those included in the job description, and the stories are from your experience that relate directly to those competencies.

You’ll also want to clearly state what may be obvious to you, and don’t make assumptions that the interviewer understands everything that you’re saying (hint: avoid your previous company’s acronyms unless they are widely known). For example, it might be clear to you that your experience in a certain area connects with what the job needs; however, the interviewer might not realize that unless you say it. This is especially true in initial screening interviews where the interviewer probably only knows the basics about the position. Always make it easy for the interviewer to see your value and why you’re the right person for the job.

Your answers should include a brief mention of the potential issue and a focus on how you will overcome it. It can be helpful to use past examples. It’s important to answer the question asked; do not offer any additional information.

Remember, even if they’ve asked for a specific degree or something you don’t have, they are interested enough to invite you in for an interview. Obviously, there is something about your application that interested them, so don’t get caught up in what you don’t have and instead focus on what you do bring to the job.

There are several reasons that candidates may not be selected for a job, and we’ve divided them into three categories: reasons that have nothing to do with you, things about you that you can’t control, and things about you that you can control.

Reasons that have nothing to do with you include things like open positions being put on hold (which may be due to reorganizations, reductions in force, or cost control initiatives), or the hiring manager may have decided to hire someone from within the company, or someone they used to work with, or someone referred to them by someone they trust.

Things about you that you can’t control include reasons such as wanting to hire someone from their same industry, but you come from a different industry, or you lack experience in their exact same job function, or you haven’t worked on the same system they use, or with their same types of customers. Hiring managers often feel that hiring someone who basically did the same job for a direct competitor (or a company in their same industry) will make the new person’s learning curve flat, therefore giving the new hire a more direct path to success. We don’t agree with that philosophy, but we must acknowledge that some hiring managers feel that way.

Things about you that you can control are your preparation and performance in the interview. The fact that you’re reading this book shows that you’re someone who wants to learn how to improve in both of these areas, so congratulations on taking the first step toward improvement! By following the steps outlined in this and subsequent chapters, you’re well on your way to successful interviews leading to the goal of getting a job offer.

Now it’s time to start working on your answers to the interviewer’s questions.

It’s important to listen very carefully to the topic of the question and how it is being asked. If they used words like, “describe your experience in …” or “what experience have you had in…” then you’ll know it’s a breadth question. If they use words like “give an example of” or “describe a situation...” then it’s a depth question.

When asked a breadth question, mention several examples you’ve experienced, preferably at different organizations or in different positions. Do not “go deep” into any one situation, but rather stay on the surface when describing the experiences you’ve had in that area and the results you’ve achieved. In response to a depth question, mention only one circumstance but describe how you handled that situation in more detail, including your results.

If you’re not sure if it’s a breadth or depth question, it’s okay to ask. For example, you could ask, “Would you prefer to hear about the kinds of experiences I have in this area, or would you rather hear the details of one specific example?” The interviewer's question might make it clear, but if you’re not sure, it’s best to clarify.

Whenever possible, you should answer hypothetical and general questions by giving an actual example with real results, which will have much more impact than answering with general statements about the kinds of things you typically do or hypothetical scenarios about what you would do. The best way to begin is with a sentence like “I think the best way to answer that is to tell you about the time in my last position when I…” which allows you to provide a specific example with impact in a natural way.

Overall, you should demonstrate a balance of confidence with humility. Too much confidence will make you appear arrogant, but too much humility will not lead to job offers. Be proud of what you’ve accomplished (which is not bragging), while still being likable.

If every pronoun you use is “We” then the interviewer will not have a clear idea of what they would be getting when they hire you. Also, if every pronoun you use is “I” then they may conclude that you’re not a team player who is good at collaborating with others. Lastly, avoid starting your sentences with “You” (as in “You need to do X”) because that can be perceived as lecturing.

The best way to answer these questions is by using a “negative sandwich” --–start with a positive, describe the negative, and end on a positive. For example:

Positive: “I’m really proud of my ability to manage a variety of details.

Negative: One time, however, two people in the department were out sick so I was not only juggling my own projects but also filling in for my colleagues and unfortunately, I missed one of the deadlines. As soon as I recognized this I went to my manager and explained what had happened. I took the extra time to get caught up and made sure the other deadlines were met.

Positive: I learned an important lesson; now what I do is create a spreadsheet with specific dates for all aspects of my projects and check that spreadsheet every night before I leave and every morning when I get to work. I’m pleased to report that I haven’t missed any deadlines since then.

If your answer to the “failure” question is that you’ve never failed or made a mistake, then you likely will lose credibility and come across as being dishonest (nobody is perfect!). Don’t miss the opportunity to build likability and rapport by being candid about something that didn’t work out as well as you had hoped. Get to what you learned and do differently now, and that way you are selling yourself as someone who learns from their mistakes and from difficult circumstances.

Resist the urge to choose one, because whichever you don’t choose can be used against you (e.g., if you say you’re more of a manager than an individual contributor, but they only have an individual contributor role open).

The way to answer this type of question is to divide and conquer: “It depends on the situation; in X kind of circumstance, I am more like an apple (and then explain), and in Y kind of circumstance I am more like an orange (and explain). In my experience, I’ve learned to adapt my approach to the specific scenario” and people involved.

To minimize this tendency, record yourself speaking. Notice the times you use uptalk, so that you become aware of this tendency and will be more conscious of this during interviews. Practice speaking and ending your sentences using a consistent and even pitch or a downward pitch, and then record yourself again to hear the difference.

Sometimes people are so concerned with giving answers that are too long that they make the opposite mistake, and their answers are too short and lacking enough substance to truly answer the question. Allow enough time to address the important key points of the message.

A good rule of thumb is that your answer to the opening “Tell me about yourself” question should be no more than one minute in length, and the same is true for non-story questions (i.e., strengths, interest in position, why you’re in the job market, etc.). Examples and stories should be no more than two minutes in duration.

Next applicant, please