In this class we're gonna cover interviewing, which is probably the most important part of the whole job search process. Your resume's job is to get you in the door, but once you're there, you really need to prove yourself. Through the interview process. And not only do you need to do it once, you're probably gonna need to do it multiple times, cuz you're gonna get interviewed by a screener or by the hiring manager and then ultimately an approver.
So the interview process. Is a really important part and it's not something we get to do that often. So we're gonna talk about the tips and tricks that you could use to really get the best outta the interview process. And the way we're gonna do that is we're gonna teach you about the interview stages, right?
Every company will do it slightly differently, but there are major stages and we want you to know what's happening on the other side. Then we're gonna talk about how to research and research the company and the interview. then we're gonna talk about interviewing itself and a couple different methodologies for how you would answer questions in particular, the car method and the star method.
Then we're gonna do a little bit of a deep dive into video interviewing and doing interviews over zoom. And some of the things you wanna look out for there, then we're gonna leverage our work styles. And we're gonna teach you how to style your interviewer and how to look for cues in the conversation so that you can alter your approach to quickly connect with the interviewer.
It's something that's unique to teal, and we think it really works. And then we're gonna. Follow up, probably one of the most important things that people overlook is following up. And some of the techniques, and we'll give you some templates, a and some thoughts on how to follow up. And then after that, we'll give you a wrap up on how we think about interviewing more broadly.
So with that, let's go ahead and kick off the class. All right. Let's talk about TES approach to interviewing. A key thing to recognize is that the resume gets you in the door. The interview gets you the offer. If you think about the stages along the job search process, from finding the opportunities you're excited about, then preparing your materials, sending that interview in via referral, online application, who knows, but that gets you in the door.
Then it's the interview that secures you, the offer. It's how you excite everybody and you get everyone to believe that you're gonna be a meaningful contributor to the team. So the interview is where you secure the offer, and then you start the negotiations and you've gotta remember throughout this whole process that you are a salesperson and your product is you.
You are selling yourself and that's what's going on. And so this self-advocacy this confidence, this ability to sell yourself without tipping the scale and being arrogant, but being humble and confident that's gotta come through. And what we'll talk about later is that different people assess those things in different ways.
And we think a lot of it comes from their work style. We're gonna teach you how to discern that on the fly in the interview with a little bit of research in advance. But what you wanna get is this, you have sent in your resume, done your application again, however it got there and you're gonna get this email, that's gonna say, Hey, we're ready to schedule an interview.
It might be with an initial screener. It might be directly with a hiring manager, but you're gonna get an email, some form of communication that says we're ready for an interview. And now you are in the interviewing phase of the job search process. And you're gonna talk to a bunch of different people.
You're gonna talk to either recruiters or screeners people who are just trying to assess and move things in the process. Then you'll talk to the person that actually. Is the person you will work for the hiring manager and we'll go into depth on this later. And then there's probably an approver.
Someone who's gonna sign off. Sometimes these might all be the same person and usually the smaller the company. The more likely that is and the bigger the company, the more there are people in the process and steps in the process, one place where that might not be the case is if you're part of a small team in a baker company, maybe they've got some agency, but these roles exist in the process.
and when you are interviewing, what you've got to remember is that they've got a problem. They have a gap and you need to be the solution to that problem. And that is what you were doing on interviewing right? Interviewing is where they are vetting you. They are trying to screen people out that are not the right fit, and you need to prove that you are the solution to their problem.
So with that's what we're gonna cover in this class. That's gonna show you a little bit about how we think about it and how we think about interviewing. So with that, let's jump to the next section. In this section, we're gonna talk about the interview stages. What we want you to know is what's happening on the other side.
If we think about that, saying that we keep having is you are a salesperson and your product is you. Good sales is understanding your customer and what's happening on the customers side of the table. So that's what we wanna talk a little bit about here. We're not gonna spend too much time on it, but we want you to see what's going on behind the.
so your goal is to build trust during the interview process. And at each of these stages, you need the people to believe and trust that you would be a meaningful contributor to the team. You gotta remember that there's a lot of identity wrapped in this and the person who ultimately says, Hey, we should hire you.
They are thinking what if they were the wrong hire? What if this person doesn't work out? How is that gonna come back on me? So they've gotta trust and believe that you are gonna make the company better. It is much riskier for them to say yes than no. So you gotta be thinking about that the whole time.
How are you getting these people to trust you and trust that you are gonna be part of the, big part of the company? So let's think about the times that you have to build that trust and it's in every step of the process from even an email communication, how fast you. every step of the process.
You've got to be building that trust because you're being judged at every single step of the way, how fast you reply. So let's talk about the process. So first it's scheduling you get that email that says, Hey, let's schedule an interview, right? That's the very beginning. And right there, that's your chance to make the first impression?
How do you reply? Are you te are you amicable? Are you flexible in the scheduling of the time? This is also your chance to vet them. One of the our team members here at teal will say the hiring process is oftentimes a preview for the movie. So if their hiring process is scattered and all over the place, there's a high likelihood that the company's gonna be that way.
So this goes both ways, when you're selling, you don't sell to everybody. That said, I will say, delay the decision to either cut them off till the end, cuz get that offer. Cuz then you can decide no need to cut them off early, unless you're really short on. But these first impressions are mutual at this stage.
They're looking to see how quick you respond, how you respond, and then you to them as well then comes the screening. This is where they are qualifying you for the job, the larger the organization, the higher likelihood. This is a recruiter or a sourcer or a screener where they're gonna do a 30 minute call.
They're gonna, check that you're real. Check that you have the credentials that you say you do a little bit of a culture fit, make sure that you're right. Cuz they've got criteria from the hiring manager and then they will move you forward in the process. After that comes the vetting.
And this is probably the more intense part of the interview where you meet multiple people. Let's say one to five people. It might be the hiring manager. It might be, different folks that are part of the hiring committee that you'd be working with colleagues, direct reports. So this is gonna be the media part of the process.
People internally will then be asked to fill out surveys to see what they thought of. You they'll come together to see if they. And then some companies will ask you for an assessment. Not always, this isn't always part of the case, but it's a growing trend in hiring and it might be paid or unpaid. But they will ask you to do some form of assignment.
If it's marketing, they might ask you to do a brief, if it's a product manager, they might ask you to do like a white boarding session and lots of other disciplines might. Different assessments, but that will usually happen there. And then internally they will all agree and say, okay, we wanna make this person an offer.
That'll then get translated to HR, or whoever's gonna craft the offer letter and they will send it to you. So the assessment is when you demonstrate you've got the ability to do the work. This is when you get tested and then the sign off that's that internal, lock in the final sign off, and then they will send you that offer.
So that's how the hiring process usually works. Again, every company is different. There is no standard for this, but these are what we would say are the major phases. Sometimes they might get rearranged. Some companies might do an assessment at the beginning. Some companies might do it at the end. Some might do it in the middle, but these are the major milestones that's gonna, that are gonna happen internally at a company to ultimately send you that offer letter.
So with that, let's now jump over to the kinds of things that you're gonna do to better the process for. in this section, we're gonna talk about research. And the way I think about research is I go to this great saying that I really is choosing not to plan is planning to fail, cuz that's what research is.
It's your opportunity to really understand the company and understand more importantly, the people. And it might feel like a lot of work, but I promise you it is worth every second of doing it. So let's talk about how you would go about conducting this research prior to an I. All right. So what are the key components to research and interview prep?
It's understand your resume. Like this is you, and you're gonna understand the resume that you tailored to this company. Don't just understand your kind of generic success metrics. You're gonna want to reread the job posting. I know that you used it to create that custom resume, but you're gonna wanna understand what are all the things that the company is calling out.
And you can probably even start to discern. Who in the interview process cares about what parts, right? If it's a product management position, the hiring manager may care about certain things. Then HR might care about other things maybe engineering through in one requirement. And this is oftentimes the case that a position might be collaborated on to bring the JD together.
So you want to think about that and you wanna look at that in the JD and you really wanna be clear on the requirements and then the employer, you wanna understand the. The company and their people, what care, what does the company care about? What do those individuals care about? And we'll talk more about how to style them in a further section, but once you understand those three components, you will be prepared for this interview and there is being prepared for the overall interview and then being prepared for each interview.
Cuz again, you might get interviewed from anywhere from two to six people in an interview process. So those are the things you want to think about as you're preparing for your, I. All right. So how can you start to anticipate the questions you're gonna get? That's a big part of what you can do is think about what are the things they're gonna ask me so I can prepare my answers.
And where can you go to find that the job description is where the company stated what they wanted. So you're gonna want to go back to that JD, the one that you used and you highlighted to make your application and to make your resume. now the key highlighted highlighting that you did you wanna identify?
What are the things that matter? So experience in a marketing role. Okay. Experience managing a team. They're probably gonna ask me about the times that I've managed a team experience growing and building a brand. All right. That seems like it's pretty important for this JD. Let me look back to the times that I've done it.
And if I've haven't, when have I done it tangentially, when was I involved in a process? So you wanna think about your answer to all these things, have them prepared. They may not ask them, but better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them. All right now, the company itself, where do you do this research?
We'd highly recommend that you go to the company website, go to their blog, read about them. I had a colleague that every time someone they interviewed someone they would ask what's our company's mission. And if the person didn't know it. They were immediately disqualified. She might have finished the interview, but it was core to her that people did that research and that they cared.
I'm not saying every interview's gonna be like that, but it is indicative of what people expect. If the company's got a product, go use it. If the, if you can, obviously, if they're a big consulting company, you probably can't hire them. But if they make a product that you can use an app, go try it.
Spend time on their website, look at their language, look at their mission, their values look at when they were founded, look at their org chart, then go to their social media sites. Look at their LinkedIn, look at their Twitter, look at their YouTube channels and go on beyond that. Are they using TikTok?
Are they using the latest, are they leveraging the brand of their executives? Are they executives out there speaking on behalf of the company, go and try to understand that. Go to Google news, Google the company and go to the news section. See if there's anything that's happened. Recently at the company then of course you can also go to places that are a little more expected, like Glassdoor, blind crunch base.
Some of the other platforms that we've talked about, one of the mindsets that we recommend you use is that you are an investor and you're trying to vet this company and you're looking at all the things an investor would look at. If they were trying to invest in the company. Remember you are investing with your time and this company that you're gonna go work at.
Is gonna either propel or hold back your career. So as much as you're a salesperson and your product as you, and you want to be selling, of course, you also want to be vetting. So look for those indicators and that's gonna really enable you to have a good discussion and for you to bring your questions.
then also look at current and past employees, right? Go to your LinkedIn and see if you've got a lot of connections that had worked there, go look and see on their company page, who works there. What are the roles? What are the profiles of the people? That's the kind of ways that you can start to research the company and the people that work there.
All right now understand the company. Don't just look at the stuff on the surface, understand their history, their mission, their values, again, understand their product. If you could get information on their financials and funding, did they recently raise money? Are they venture backed? Are they a publicly traded company?
Are they owned by a private equity firm? Are they a. Sole proprietors, those are all things you wanna know. Cause they're gonna inform how they think about their hiring and their growth. Look at their employees. Where did they go to school? What is their employee base made up of? If you can try to find out who their clients and customers are, and if they're a.
Big consulting firm, who do they do work with? If they're an app, what is their target customer? What is their persona? Who are their competitors? That is also good to know what technologies are they using. And most importantly of all, what's their culture like, right? These are all things that the more, The more, you'll be able to come informed into the interview and ultimately ask really good questions, which is one of the best ways to show up in an interview is when the interview's over is to have those questions that you ask of them.
Once you get down to researching individuals, here's some things that you wanna look for their background, education, hometown. Previous employers, things that are gonna help you make connection. Again, you're not gonna necessarily come out of the gates with that stuff, but these are good things to have as you're researching the individuals that you'll be interviewed by look to see if they've got mutual connections with you.
If you do, you can reach out to those connections and ask, Hey, I saw that you worked with this person, what do they like? What do they care about? What matters to them when they're building their teams, that's gonna be really great Intel for you. As you go into your interview, understand their role, their career path.
If your career transitioning and they career transitioned. That's gonna be a point for you to connect if they've had a very linear career path and you haven't well, then maybe you stay away from that. But have that information in your back pocket, understand how they've progressed. Did they progress quickly?
If you've got a sort of low average job tenure sub two. And they've worked at the company for 20 years. They're not gonna be able to EPA empathize with that. So look for those things. Could have incongruencies or those things that you could connect on right away. And then think about the kinds of questions that you would start to have for this person.
Think about those questions that are gonna expedite connection. And some of those questions that'll show that you've done your research and impress these people, right? And to put that all together, we've created this little interview cheat sheet, which is one of the templates it's building Google sheets.
You can download it to Excel if you want. Let me pop it open here just so you guys can see. So here's an example of a filled out version. I'm gonna be going for an interview with teal. it's gonna be a little funny that I'm talking to you about myself here, I'd be interviewing with Eric.
What's his role? What's his LinkedIn, what's his email, a little bit of a blurb of the kinds of things that I think he might ask me. and then here's some other folks in the meeting. For me to track when I sent my thank you some core information about the company, some research on their glass door, and then you can just keep filling this in.
And so here's a filled out version for you to see it. And then here's a blank one for you to fill out and use on your own. And you can just make a copy of this and use it for yourself, but it should give you a way to track the interviews and make sure that you run the process tightly. So with that, we'll wrap up this section and go to the next one.
Thanks in this section, we're gonna talk about interviewing and the actual, I sit down, we have a conversation and how does that go? So let's go ahead and jump into it. All right. Phases of the interview. This could be 30 minutes. It could be an hour. It could be two hours. And we're talking about just the interview, not an assessment and a test and a panel.
Those are far more complex versions of interviews, which we're not gonna cover. So let's talk about the beginning. There's the introduction where you just get to know somebody. Then there may or may not be a little bit of small talk. We'll talk about that in styling. Then they ask you stuff. Then you ask stuff and then it's.
And that's generally what's gonna happen in interview. They may not happen exactly in this order, but this is what you wanna be prepared for. And you really wanna do well at every one of these phases. I'm sure you've talked to people that, did their interview. And at the end it was like awkward and they're like, Ugh, I didn't really end the interview.
That's the wrap up, right? You wanna think about that? So you really wanna think about these five sort of moments or phases within the interview and have a plan and strategy for each. Let's talk through more broadly. The, I. So the first is, tell me about yourself. This is your chance to make your first impression and as cliche as it is, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
And there is research out there that shows that people make the decision in the first 90 seconds. So you really want to get this right? You don't wanna ramble and talk on and on because that right there shows that you're not a concise and clear thinker and that you can't communicate clearly.
So you want it to be. Next you wanna be confident, right? Try to be careful with like self deprecation or, too much too joking. Things like that. If there's sarcasm, be confident, be clear and make sense, and you're gonna, what you're gonna do is you're gonna leverage your blurb, right?
A lot of that work that you did to tightly package your pitch is what you're gonna pull here and being really good at it and rehearsed. Don't come off as rehearsed, but knowing the talking points is gonna really help you come off as confident next is be relevant. Don't just have your cookie cutter bio, make sure that your bio and your tell me about yourself speaks to the role, right?
If the role that we've been using throughout this class is that retention marketing position at Oscar don't. Come in and talk about how you've done social media marketing. Talk about the times that you did retention marketing and. Metric that you have across your career, that really speaks to it.
And lastly, tell a story. Don't just come in and list a bunch of bullets, right? Talk about what you've done, where you are and where you're going. Get it nice and tight. And that sounds like a lot to cover in a minute to two minutes, but you can absolutely do it. And it's probably the most important part of the interview because if you knock it outta the park, then you're gonna keep your momentum.
If it doesn't go well, you're gonna be digging yourself outta that hole. The rest of the interview. Another thing we recommend that you do before you go into the interview is to do a little bit of. Introspection and self-awareness work on your work style because we may not have that. Self-awareness we recommend that you do those 360 S and understand how you come off because you don't recognize it.
But we have a sixth sense as a species to pick these things up really quickly. So you wanna understand how you come off. And your work style might help you understand that. So we want to talk a little bit about work styles and some of the things to look out for yourself, given your primary style.
And so remember the ones and twos tend to be fast paced threes and fours tend to be a little bit better at listening. The ones and fours tend to be a little more result oriented might not make as much of that small talk. And then the twos and. High people orientation and want to get to know the person.
So we'll go through them quickly. If you're a primary one, what you. What you're gonna be good at is talking about your achievements, right? Ones are very good at talking about the results that they achieved. What might take them a little bit of effort is listening. It's very easy for a one to overpower the conversation and continue to talk about their accolades and their achievements.
But truly listening and pausing might take a little bit more time for the one. So you wanna be mindful of that if you're a primary one or a secondary one, if that one is up there in your first two, be mindful of listening to the questions you want. Like a 50, 50 talking, listening ratio in an interview.
If they're talking a lot, that means it's going well. So as a primary one, you wanna be careful that you don't overpower the conversation. As a primary two, what's gonna come easy is having that conversation and making that quick human connection. What you wanna be careful of is that you don't leave it there too long and start to chit chat about personal things.
Cause if the person's a primary two or three, then you'll able to be able to talk about those things, but you won't ever get to the actual credentialing and. What might take effort as a primary two is having the fortitude to sit down and do that research. As a primary two, you're gonna be fast paced.
You'll be fine. You'll put it off to the last minute and you won't get that research done. So we strongly encourage you if you're a primary two to really carve out that time, get focused and do that research because it's gonna let your personality shine and what you're already really good at with just connecting with people will be even better for the primary three.
Primary threes are very good listeners. And so it's gonna come easy to build that rapport. Primary threes are able to instill a sense of trust incredibly quickly. What might take effort is being a really strong self advocate that threeness tends to come with a lot of humility and support. And so sometimes it's tricky to advocate for yourself.
So you're gonna wanna make sure that you've got those accomplishments well documented, and that you can speak about them confidently with excitement, the things that you helped accomplish. And if it helps you to talk about it as being part of the team, that's good. But remember, at the end of the day, they're hiring you.
And you've gotta have that confidence to say, I achieved this. You can use, we achieved this and you can be mindful of those words, but you've gotta self advocate and you can, you're gonna be a team player. So you can say that you've done that then as a primary four. What's gonna come easy, IST researching.
You're gonna be really good at researching the company. You're gonna have all the data, all the information to really help you do it. What might take you a little effort is connecting with the person that primary foreign is gonna be a little bit more of a listener and is going to probably be. A little more critical of the situation looking for what matters for you.
A little anxious about it potentially. But you can try to turn that around, get those metrics, get all the things that you've done as your accomplishments and achievements and help those boost your confidence to go in and knock it outta the park. With that interview. All right. So that's a little bit of a wrap up on the work styles.
Again, use the work style tool, go to it, read it, read the job, searching section, read about interviewing. And hopefully that'll give you some tips to better understand your style as you go into the interview. Now you need to anticipate behavioral questions and behavioral questions are the ones that help the company understand how you would behave in a certain situation.
So oftentimes they'll start with, tell me about a time when you. They're trying to craft the scenario and see how you behaved in that situation. And oftentimes there's kind of two major categories. There's tell me about a time that you were awesome. And tell me about a time that you messed up and they'll be framed in different ways, but those are categorically, like the two big buckets about behavioral situations and they wanna see that.
Do you have that wherewithal to talk about those things? And more importantly, can you talk about what you learned. So there are two main strategies for how to answer a behavioral question and so that you don't ramble on and on, and you make sure you hit on the main points. So the first method, the one that we like is called the car, it keeps it simple.
It's the context, the action and the result. So where were you, what did you have to do? What was the scenario and the problem? The action. What action did you take? What was your role? Be specific and then. What was the outcome? How did things get better as a result? So here's an example, I volunteered to lead a committee for four people tasked with investigating poor customer reviews and a low NPS.
So what was the action? I analyzed reviews. I discovered customer wait times were the issue, right? So the I'm showing you the things that I did. And then. What was the result? The solution was a change in the workflow and the wait times dropped 25%, which we increase NPS from five to eight. So you want to think about those achievements that you have on your resume?
How can you bring those stories? You don't have to come up with entirely new stuff. And another tip is have a few, don't be surprised if in an interview they say, okay tell me about. So always have two. The next method is the star method and a lot of companies explicitly prescribe the star method and it's very similar to the car method.
The main difference is that the C is broken out into two, the situation and the task, and then the action and the result are pretty much the same. So situation, where were you, what was the scenario or the problem task? What was your responsibility? What was expected of you? What did you have to do then?
Action. What did you do? What was your role be super specific. And then what was the outcome again? So we'll use that same scenario. What was the situation? Poor customer reviews, low NPS. What was the task? I volunteered to lead a committee. What was the action? We discovered the issue. We did our research and what was the result?
Increased the NPS because we changed a process. And you want to get really good about talking it this way. So context, either a situation and task or the whole thing altogether, the actions you took and what was the result? And how was the business better? So those are the two methodologies for behavioral and you, we have a database of questions for you that you can practice on.
And again, they're gonna fall into two major categories. What was the time that things went wrong and what was the time that things went great. And the other thing you're gonna want to talk about is what you learned in the process and how you got better as a result of it. So we've got this database it's linked to in the tool section of the platform.
Let me go ahead and pop it open so you can see some of the. This database of questions is built in air table. If you haven't signed up for air table, it's totally free and you should be able to do this, but here we've got a list of questions. A lot of them we've sourced online. But it talks about the kind of question where it came from, who was the person.
and you can see even things that you might use to answer. They're categorized by the different types of questions that you would see. And so you can go in and read these and practice, and it's a resource for you to start to anticipate the kind of behavioral questions that you'll get, or interview questions more broadly that you should expect throughout the interview.
All right. Jumping back to the presentation. The last thing we're gonna cover is questions that you ask. So we talked about. Tell me about yourself, small talk, your work. Style's gonna be helpful there. Then they ask you mostly through behavioral or credential type questions. And now you ask them, this is your opportunity to show that you did research.
You've come to. you've come informed and you're excited about the company and you really want to be there. So talk about the day to day responsibilities. Now don't ask anything that's in the JD already, cuz that's just gonna look lazy. So if you have any open questions that show that you've been thoughtful and you're thinking about where you're gonna take the role, those are the things you ask.
Now you can ask questions about onboarding and training and what does career growth look. You can ask about what are some of the success metrics? A question I like is, so what does good look like in this role, right? That then they can start to shape and draw the contours for you of what success could look like.
We'll have had this kind of impact. We'll have seen these metrics go up. Those are, that's gonna show you that they've thought about it and that'll give you a good sense of what to expect once you get there. Questions about the company and the company's. Question about the team, things like, who am I gonna be reporting to?
Who does this role report into, what's that team been like? Has the team had good turnover? Those are all questions you can ask culture. You can ask questions about the culture of the company. What's it? What do they do? How do they build culture? Those are all things that are very acceptable to ask.
And then what. People might have some reluctance to do as next steps, which are absolutely fine. Cuz this is your way to understand how did the process go? How did the interview go? And you can see you can start to gauge their excitement about the interview. So what are next steps after the interview?
Who could I possibly speak to next? Things like that are absolutely acceptable in the current time, probably through. Maybe the rest of 20, 21 or three quarters of it, there's gonna be COVID related things that you can ask, especially as some companies are coming back to the office, those are things that you can ask.
If you're expected to come back to the office, are they remote? Have they changed any processes? How has the pandemic changed the company? Have they changed their goals? Do they still expect to do the same thing? These are all things that you can absolutely ask and are important that you ask.
So you get a good sense of how the company handles these situations. All right. So with that, we've covered the interviewing process. Again, these are like the one-on-one interviews is not necessarily a panel interview or the different types of interviews that might happen for very specific roles, but for the one-on-one interview process, be it the screener, a hiring manager or someone who's on the hiring committee, these tactics, and these tips should really help you get through the process with way more success.
So with that, we'll jump over to the next section in this section, we're gonna talk about video interviews. Video interviews before the pandemic were common. Now they're incredibly common. And I would say they're here to stay, especially for the first few phases of the process, cuz they're so much more efficient and this gives you the advantage as a job seeker.
You don't have to take time off of work. It's really great. And I think they're very empowering for professional careers to be able to interview via video. So you really want to do it well, and this is your chance to stand out. Cause a lot of people don't take into account all the details and all the things that can really help you stand out in the interview process.
so there's lots of different platforms. You wanna familiar, familiarize yourself with them. You wanna look into this when that calendar invite gets sent, what platform are they using? So are they using zoom, which has become incredibly common Skype, Google meet. Microsoft teams, Cisco WebEx go to meeting there's lots of different platforms.
So you wanna make sure that you download and test them prior to your interview. If it's not in the calendar invite, I would ask which platform do you guys use for your video interviewing? So you make sure that it works. You don't want any technical glitches with the platform and you wanna be comfortable with it.
You want to know that it works with your webcam, works with your microphone. So test the platform, install it, make sure it. The next thing you wanna do is. Don't rush into the last minute to the interview, get their early removed distractions, get rid of pets and kids, make sure that they know you're about to have the interview.
Don't have them barge in. People have been incredibly forgiving, but I think, we're starting to get to a new normal, so be mindful of this. Get into the right mindset. Come prepared. Try to relax. Take deep breaths, breathe in through your nose, Excel through your mouth. Do some breathing exercises.
Cuz interviews can be really overwhelming and very stressful, but you want to be natural. And that's one of the things that is hard to convey via a video interview, but be natural. Try not to be stiff, try to connect with the person, get rid of distractions, get rid of your phone, turn off any chat you have iMessage on your phone, on your computer.
Get rid of all those things. Turn off all the notifications. Join early, be ready. It's better that you're there waiting. And then they get there. Then they be waiting for you. Don't give them any reason to not be impressed with. and again, silence, all notifications. Be mindful. No distractions
cannot stress this enough. Test your technology. I can't tell you how many times I have been in an interview and the person's internet drops out or, something disconnects, and then we have to reschedule the process goes on. Have a backup and be ready, know the email of the interviewer. If your internet goes out, be prepared.
Have if your phone has a hotspot possibility, turn that on. If you've got backup internet at home, there's a one in a hundred chance of this happening, but you'd be surprised. It happens all the time. Download their software. So if the, if you can do it via the browser, but they have a native client, which means you can install the software on your computer, do that in advance.
Make sure it's ready. Try to do a meeting with someone else. Make sure it works. Set up your camera angle. Don't do that thing where, you're looking at it from the side or they're looking at like the side of your face. Those things are all weird. Try to look at the person in the eyes as much as you can, and be mindful of your surrounding. All right. And then test your sound. If you have to wear a headset, that's fine. If you can do something like AirPods so that they don't look so clumsy, you want your sound to come off clearly and you want to be able to hear them. You don't wanna be saying, Hey, can you say that again?
I didn't hear you. So really test your tech it's worth investing in it and making sure that it works well. Whether that's like a podcasting microphone or again, AirPods or some sort of headset, I don't recommend a headset with a microphone. That just, it's just distracting and, people are just looking for reasons to say no.
So try as much as you can to present your best self and have it look as natural as you.
all right. So some things to think about on how you physically present yourself. So you wanna dress well, right? Be mindful of your background and yourself and how all those things come together. If you've got a lot of color in your background, don't get too colorful on your foreground. If you've got, no color in the background that maybe you want to stand out a little bit, I wouldn't do anything.
Two flashy colors. So be mindful of the culture of the place. If they're a suit and tie or a, formal dress wear kind of place, then you want to show up that way. Don't go to the interview in a t-shirt and then the inverse is true. If their culture is one of hoodies and sweatshirts, don't come up formally in dress, really tight, be mindful of how you adapt and you show how you would fit in.
You want this person thinking. , this is what it would feel like to have this person in a team meeting. I can absolutely envision them fitting them right into our culture. People think about those things again, they're looking for reasons to say no. So think about that. Choose your colors wisely. Don't blend in too much.
Neutral colors, nothing too crazy and avoid busy patterns. Cuz sometimes the camera, when it's doing it's like rep pickling, it can do weird things. So solid colors, nothing with crazy patterns and. You know too much clashing color, then thinking about your video itself, set up your lighting, right?
Make sure that your lighting is clear too many times. I've seen people with the lighting in the background, they do it with a window behind them, which that's gonna throw off the lighting and it's gonna make you look really dark. So make sure that you have light coming on. You. and not behind you be very mindful of that.
And you want extra light cuz then your camera is needing to do a lot of digitization to brighten it and it gets very pixely. So the more light you have more often, the more a webcam can crisp it up. Make eye contact with the camera, try not, if you have two, a camera set up on the side and you have two monitors, don't do, I've seen too many meetings where people do this and they're talking to me and they're looking at their screen, but their camera's here, don't do.
Make eye contact, frame your shot, right? I be thoughtful about how it goes together. Don't be on the side, don't be too up close into the camera. Don't be too far away into the camera. Look at, think about those things and frame yourself nicely. And again, keep your background and simple.
Personally, I am not a fan of virtual backgrounds. I think there are times that you can use them where they're helpful, but I would say try to use a natural background. Clean it up, make it nice. And don't have too many things going on in the background. If you've got a bookshelf full of a whole bunch of things, be mindful of what books are there.
People pick up on these things. So just think about it. Don't give them any excuses to say no. All right. So thinking about that background, if you're going to use virtual background because you need it, cuz your existing background is just a bit of an issue and you want to go with the virtual background, be wise about how you do it.
Get something that perspec. Feels right. You see the picture on the. has a nice clean wall. It's not gonna need to do too much work to, cut you out. If you are gonna use a virtual background being mindful again about your light so that the computer can do the work. Think about getting something like a green screen that makes it easier and, cover up that background.
Don't just. Let whatever's going on in the background happen. And that's very easy for us to do, cuz we're hopping on zooms with our family, with our friends and we don't even think about it, but you want to think you're a movie director. You wanna think about every part of the scene what's in the background.
What does it tell about you as a story? Craft the whole scene, be mindful of it. All right. And then body language really matters. It, because we're in zoom, I think a lot of times we let our guard down and we don't realize that these things matter, but they absolutely do. Don't sit there like this with your arms crossed, try to make eye contact, use good posture, stand up, connect, have a smile.
If you stand up right. That usually the circulation go through your body and you'll breathe better. Smile when you can engage, nod, agree, sometimes you might even need to do a little bit extra and then be aware of using your hands. Sometimes that's actually a good way to connect with people and engage.
If some people just sit there stiffly and talk and they don't really use voice attenuation, don't let that happen. Show. Energy show your personality, have that come through, try to ha try to connect with the person. And then again, put away your phone. Try not to have any distractions. One of the things that I've seen happen a lot, because we're on zoom is, and they can't see our hands.
We might look at our phone, we might check something cuz they're talking and we get bored. Really try not to do that. The only thing I would say you'd make an exception for which is a huge advantage is your notes. Cause they can't see this area down at the desk. So have your notes and be prepared.
That's really great. If you've got two monitors, maybe set it up on the side, but don't make it too obvious that you're. All right. Be prepared, have the backup plan, if there are any issues, be apologetic, try to address them. If someone barges in the room, stay calm, stay collected, cuz they're gonna get an opportunity to see how you handle pressure.
And so that's actually a chance for you to show that you've got it under control. You're totally fine. No big deal. And that you can do it professionally, right? Cuz that's gonna happen. And again, people are sympathetic and they understand, don't freak out, stay calm, just work yourself through it and then move on.
If it's something that is, unrepairable in the moment, then say, Hey, is it okay if we reschedule and then we'll follow up, but stay calm and don't let them see you freak out and and get to that next phase. All right. So with that, we've covered. a lot of the details on how to run through a zoom interview.
Again, main thing you really want to be thoughtful of is how you frame the picture. The lighting that it doesn't look bad, the angle, and that the technology really works. It's not something to be too overwhelmed about, but get good at it. You're gonna need it for meetings anyway. And so it's a new skill.
That's really important that you build up and the more you stand out, the better you'll be able to do in zoom interviews. All right.
So with that, we'll jump to the next section. in this section, we're gonna talk about how to style your interviewer. And I've made a few references to it in other sections of this class.
And honestly, it's one of my favorite things that we teach, cuz I think like it's the cheat codes for interviewing and it really expedites your ability to connect with people. So with that, let's jump right in. So what you want is empathy, right? You want to be able to understand what matters to their, this person.
Them. And you want to be able to connect with them as quickly as possible, and you want it to be an authentic connection and wants. You want to show that you understand them, what matters to them and the faster you're able to do this, the more you'll be able to get out of the relationship. and it'll translate into negotiation.
So we really want you to try to understand the work style. It requires a little bit more of a fluency with work styles, but that content's all on the platform. And you can go to the work styles tool to dig into it and learn about other work styles. But this should really help you to build a rapport with each interviewer.
And so this isn't just one thing you do across the board. You do it with each interviewer. So let's jump in and talk about how you might do that. One thing to look. Is the interview going fast? If you think about the times you've had interviews in the past, was the interview, was the interviewer asking you a lot of questions?
Were they moving quickly? Were they talking a lot or was it a bit slower when they asked you questions? They processed it and they listened and they thought a little, and then they came back with a follow up question. Think about the pace of the conversation again, was it a fast pace? Tell me about, tell me this.
Tell me this. Tell me that or, what about, okay that's interesting. What about this? That's a pacing thing. So think about those interviews you've had, and that's what you're gonna want to be looking for in an interview. So what does that mean? If they're fast paced, they're probably a primary one or two.
If it's a little bit slower, a little bit more operational and they're better at listen. They're probably a three, four. Now, one thing I want to call out is that you are styling the interaction and not the person high correlation with the interaction and the person, but there are some companies that teach an interviewing methodology that then.
May wash away the person's style, right? So some companies may have a very three, four style of interviewing. Some companies may have a very one, two style of interviewing, but again, I think it's a high likelihood that the person will reveal their style in the process, cuz. That's how we are, but one, I want you to think that you're styling the interaction and the discussion and less, so the person, again, they're probably one in the same, but it's styling the exchange.
So the next thing you wanna. Think about and think about interviews you've had in the past. Cause that's really what we want you to see is, think about those conversations. You've had those good, bad interviews. Think about, did the person try to get to know you? And what that means is did they try to understand where you're from, where you grew up, where you went to school, not what you majored in, but where, who do you know, do you have any people in con in common?
They're focusing on you and that, that personal side, or are they quickly trying to hone in on accomplishments and credentials again? What did you major in? What did you study? What did you do when you there, what accolades did you get? That's them more trying to focus on results. Neither is better or worse, but what that's gonna do is it's gonna tell you, what does this person have a higher concern with?
Once you have that you're able to discern if they're a primary one, four or two three, if they're focused on results and they're trying to focus on understanding your accomplishments, your credentials, the kind of work you did, high likelihood. That's a one four exchange. If they're trying to connect on who and the people and the, those details about you as a.
Probably a primary two, three exchange. All right. So once you have those two, what we call 50 fifties, you can start to get a better understanding of what that person's primary style might be. Another thing you can do is you can research this in advance. If you go to a person's LinkedIn page and that they're posting a lot of personal information, pictures with their kids, again, not very common on LinkedIn that would tell you they're probably on more that two, three side.
If they're posting a lot of credentials, all company, not revealing where they're from in their bio. It's just all about their work, probably on that one, four side, right? They're really reserved and you're not seeing a lot, might a higher likelihood. They might be on that one, three side, if they're quite active and what would look like a little more like digitally extroverted, probably on that one more one, two side.
So you can come into an interview with an assumption of their style, but then you wouldn't wanna vet it real time in the meeting. And so one of the things I like to do is when I do my, tell me a bit about yourself is I'll leave in one little bit of personal information. Because that's a way for me to direct the conversation and give them some bait to latch onto.
So I'll say, I'll end in. Yeah. And I grew up in Miami. If they connect with that then, oh, tell me a little bit more about that. Or I've been to Miami or I've been meaning to go to Miami. Okay. Got it. This person's a people person they're on the two, three side, if they, okay. That's great. Now let's talk about your credentials.
They're probably on that one, four side. So between that, and then seeing the pace of the convers. I can usually start to get a sense of their primary style, which would then tell me the things that I need to do to gain that person's trust. If they're a primary one, then what I know is they care about the what have I done?
The interviewer will be direct. It'll be quick. And they're trying to understand if I'm good or not. Like the oneness tends to be impatient. They don't wanna waste the time they wanna be efficient. . And so if you've been in an interview with a primary one you can probably feel it.
They're asking very pointed questions. They're moving very quickly. And then once they feel that you're qualified and they think there's a potential to hire you, they might lighten up a little bit and then start to get to know you, but they wanna know the what have you done when you're interviewing with a primary two?
This is gonna be a great conversation. They're gonna wanna know who, they're gonna want to know about you. What have you done? They're gonna wanna know your story, right? And it's gonna be a great conversation. If you're a primary to, you're gonna really connect with them very quickly. The risk you run is that you guys will talk, talk, and you don't actually get to the meat of the role.
But the primary two, you want to connect with them on a sincerity basis. You also want to try to get to know who they are and they're gonna appreciate that. So those are the things you're gonna look for when you're interviewed by a primary two. Again, there's gonna be a lot of talking, probably at a fairly fast pace, but talking about maybe like softer topics.
when you're interviewed by primary three, they're gonna focus a lot on the how and process. They're gonna wanna understand, how did you do things, things you could look for, are they keeping a task list? Are they very good with their notes? Are they running a process and have their questions all documented?
Those might be some telltale signs of a three and. They're gonna wanna know that you are capable and that you've got good process and that you come in and help the teams. It's gonna be a high team orientation. They're gonna want to know about you, and they're gonna wanna know how you work with others.
So those are gonna be some things that you're gonna want to emphasize. If you're being interviewed by a primary three, then if you're being interviewed by a primary four, they're gonna want to know why. Primary fours are very inquisitive and also pretty high on the skepticism. So you're gonna need to prove more often than not with data and metrics that you've got these credentials, cuz they're fall on that result side and they want to know that you got it done and that why you did it.
So very operational oftentimes ask very poignant questions. And you'll feel it. So they'll, and they'll oftentimes come back with good follow-ups so be mindful if you're interviewed by a four, you're gonna want to be prepared and make sure that you've got your information, especially, if you are a primary two, and you're coming in to just kinda build a rapport and chit chat, that's gonna be kinda like oil and vinegar with a primary four.
So you're gonna want be mindful of that. When you are interviewing with a primary. Here's some tips for interviewing with each style. So if you've styled as a primary, if you've styled your interviewer as a primary one, you're gonna want to greet quickly, make eye contact, use direct language. Don't be too squirly.
They have a six sense for confidence. So you're gonna want to get into a good place. Don't get into right wrong debates with them. You're gonna want to be a little bit more submissive in that sense. And if they really feel strongly about something, see how you can redirect it. I see your point acknowledge that they're right.
And then wrap up by asking good informational questions and any action show that you're on it and that you can get things done. If you're being interviewed by a primary two, try to be upbeat, try to be energetic, try to use warm body language, try to connect. That's what the two wants to do. The two wants to connect with you as a person.
They wanna see that they like you and that they would like working with you as a person, your culture fit. Be mindful of that and be prepared to share some personal things. Nothing too crazy. If you're on that two, three side, that's gonna be a little easier if you're on that one, four side as your style, that might come a little harder.
So just think about what that is, again, where you're from, where you went to school, but the two wants to know that they want to get to know you and they wanna know your story. If you're interviewing with a primary three, You want to connect with them? You don't want to try to overpower and be too loud.
There's kind of a calmness to a primary three. You're gonna wanna ask open ended questions so they can come back to you. You're gonna wanna be steady and measured and don't overwhelm them. Threes tend to be on that more introverted side. So if you're extroverted, make sure you don't overpower them.
If you are more on the introverted side, figure out a way to. and make sure that you follow up. Again, that threes tend to be more on that finishing side or more of that defensive positioning versus offensive positioning. So you're gonna wanna make sure that you follow up with them and show that you follow process and that you've got those operational abilities.
Then if you're interviewing with a primary four, You're gonna want to defer to them a little bit and see how they wanna run the conversation. And you're gonna wanna see how formal informal they are, right. Using logic really matters. So you're gonna want a lot of facts, you're not gonna want to use too much abstraction.
There's gonna be a little bit more of a literalness. With a primary force. So you're gonna be very mindful of your words and the language that you use, cuz things can be taken quite literally and then pay attention to their process and how they're processing, what you're bringing to them. So that again, you can connect and you can show your credentials.
That's gonna be very important to a primary four that you've got the abilities and that they trust your judgment and why you did the things you're. All right. So with that is some information on how to think about work style in the interviewing process. How to think a little bit about your work style, but more importantly, how to think about the style of your interviewer.
Again, really spend time on this. You can get some good insights by looking at their LinkedIn profile. And starting to have a sense, having those very simple tests you do at the beginning, are they fast paced or a little bit slower? Are they trying to connect with me as a person or trying to understand my credentials?
And then very quickly you can put them in a quadrant and as the interview goes on, you can fine tune your positioning. But once you know these things and have this toolkit ready to engage with this person and build that trust, cuz that's what we're really looking to do here is have them trust and believe that we will be a meaningful contributor to the.
All right. So with that, we'll wrap up and go to the next section in this section. We're gonna talk about the follow up, right? So the interview's done. You did your wrap up you said thank you. and now the interview's over and now you wait. So the thing you want to do is send a thank you email and I can't stress enough.
How important the thank you email is too many times. I've interviewed people and I never get a thank you. And I say what happened? And they didn't stand out, and they might have, and it, you're hiring, you're interviewing a lot of people, so absolutely. Send a thank you email. It's a great reminder.
And a couple other things to be mindful of is don't send one. Thank you to everybody. Send a thank you email per person that you're interviewed with. If you don't have their email address, go and get it either find it online in the ways that we've taught you or inter email the recruiter, look to the calendar.
But send a thank you to each person directly that you had an interview with and send it that day. Don't wait till the next day. You run the risk of the person going to bed saying, huh? I can't believe they didn't send a thank you. Did you get a thank you, cuz they'll talk to other people cuz oftentimes he'll interview many in the same day.
Send the interview day of ideally two to three hours after the interview do not miss it. It is super important. And I've seen plenty of people on principle who just won't hire a person. If they don't send a thank you, it shows a lack of professionalism, and it's really important that you do it, and we make it really easy for you.
We've got a template you can use. Copy paste it. Add some specificity. If you guys talked about an article or a book, include a link, show that connection, but send the, thank you. Have it drafted in advance in your inbox. That way you can just send it really it's super important. Can stress enough that you send the thank you email and again, send it to each person that you talk to.
If there was just a recruiting screener, send them a thank you as well. It can't hurt. Gratitude is great. Cannot hurt to send a thank you. Everyone that was involved in the process. If someone sent you a referral or someone helped you get an intro, send them a thank you as well. All right. Now it's important that you also keep track of these interviews and that you send a follow up.
So you got the interview, you sent your thank you and you haven't heard back in a week. Now you wanna send an email to either the recruiter or the hiring manager potentially. And you wanna do it once a week for three weeks. Hey, just wanted to check in and see how it's going. See if you guys have made a decision.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with following up. It sh it's good form. As long as you do it, tactfully and respectfully, and you want to keep track in the job tracker. When was the last follow up you sent, use your calendar set reminders. It's a really great way for you to show your professionalism.
Maybe they are hiring someone they follow through. You follow up, moves you to the top of the pile. Really nothing bad can come of you following up as long as you do it well and tactfully, and you do it to the right people. So strongly encourage you to follow up until you get the email saying that they've declined or you get the move, an email to move to the next step.
But absolutely follow up general recommendation is once a week for three weeks. All right. So with that, we'll wrap up on the follow up and wrap up the. Okay. So that was the interviewing class. We covered a lot of material. It is a involved process and it's probably the most important part of the whole job search process.
Cause it's really where you win over the company. And so you really wanna think about how you do that. You wanna be very rigorous and you wanna do your research. You wanna be prepared, being prepared for. Absolutely critical, understanding the company, understanding the people. If you can really level up your game and understand their work style and prepare for how you'd engage with them and understand how your work style will interact with their work style even better, that'll really give you the leg up.
And then the follow up, be mindful about how you follow up. You send that. Thank you. You send those pertinent points that you guys talked about and you show what it would be like to work with you. All right. So with that, hopefully it was helpful. You'll learn more about the interview process, how you can put your best foot forward.
And with that, we'll wrap up the class. Thanks so much.
