I’ve handed you an opportunity. Now what?
How I look at interviewing is pretty simple.
If I've read your resume and I call you, if I take time out of my day to meet with you, it's because I think you're a good candidate for the role. Or, at the very least, I'm willing to explore how you'd fit.
Either way, I've handed you an opportunity. What you do with it from there is up to you.
Nerves are fine
If you're nervous, I can deal with that. Most people are. Sitting across from a stranger and talking about yourself for 45 minutes, with a job on the line, isn't a natural situation. Part of my job is making you comfortable enough to show me what you can do.
What I can't deal with is not being prepared. Nerves happen to you. Preparation is a choice.
I'm not just interviewing your resume
When I meet with you, I want to learn about your skills and experience. Of course I do. But I also want to get a view of who you are as a person, because I'm not placing a resume. I'm placing a person into a team, a manager and a business.
Here's an example. I was once running a confidential search for a client in a fairly controversial industry. Because it was confidential, the candidates I met didn't know who the client was until their first interview with them.
One candidate was lovely. Great experience, easy to talk to, everything you'd want on paper. But as we talked, it became clear their personal values were completely at odds with what my client did. They would have been miserable there, and it wouldn't have worked for either side.
Nothing on their resume could have told me that. Only the conversation could.
Think of it as a scoring system
When you walk in to meet me, or anyone else, think of it like this. You start with no points. Every answer you give is assigned a value. Whoever has the most points at the end goes through to the next stage.
It's not pass or fail. It's comparative. You're not just being measured against the role, you're being measured against everyone else who's in the running for it.
That changes how you should think about every answer:
A vague answer doesn't lose you the job. It just doesn't earn you anything, and someone else's specific example will.
"We did this as a team" scores less than "here's what I did, and here's what changed because of it."
Knowing about the company and the role earns points. Not knowing costs you, because someone else will.
Being able to say why you want this role, not just a new role, is one of the easiest points on the board.
The points aren't random either. The criteria are built with the employer before anyone walks through the door: what the role needs, what the team needs and what success looks like. Your job is to show me, answer by answer, that you're the person who meets them best.
You've already done the hard part
Getting the interview means you're in the running. Out of everyone who applied, you're one of the people we decided to spend time with. Don't waste that.
Prepare. Know your own resume. Have real examples ready. Ask good questions. Let me see who you are.
I've handed you the opportunity. Now it's over to you. The points are yours to earn.