How expensive it is to “sell” yourself for an interview: secrets from ex-employee Google and Microsoft

We are trying in every way to get rid of the human factor. Centralized testing instead of an oral exam. Online ordering services anything instead of conversations with the operator on the phone. Cash desks in supermarkets instead of gloomy saleswomen. However, the interview - “confrontation” in the interview format - still exists and is not going to give up the position. How to pass it successfully, relive a stressful situation with dignity and finally get a dream job?

Фото: Depositphotos

Tips for Kvadrat.io gives expert: Olga Lermontova - the founder of the career consulting practice Dream Catch Me, in which she helps ambitious professionals to shorten the way to work and education of a dream (including abroad). Travelport Strategy Director, Southern Europe and Africa, MBA INSEAD '13. She worked at Google and Microsoft, changed 5 countries of residence in the process of working and studying. Now she lives in Rome.

Interview Preparation

Interview as an exam: you can try to go there "at random", but the chances of success are higher for those who are prepared. You can really learn how to do an interview: it's the same skill as riding a bicycle or the ability to stand on your hands. Often, however, preparations are not going according to plan, turning into a meaningless choice of shirts and an unproductive struggle with anxiety. How to do everything right?

• Expert comment:

In preparing for the interview, most candidates focus on formal things: their work experience, age, frequency of work change, appearance. At the same time, they pay little attention to the content: why he (s) is the best specialist for this particular position, what they can offer to the employer, what qualities and skills they possess. In fact, the main thing is to highlight key skills and competencies that need to be positioned through stories about their previous projects, successful cases. And focus on that. Ultimately, the job is taken just for the skills, competencies and achievements, and all things like appearance and age are secondary. For the employer, the main thing is that the applicant can solve his problems.

Often people come to interviews from the position of "they will now consider and choose me." Because panic fear all sorts of critics and someone else's assessment. But in fact, you need to go for an interview from the position of "we are chosen, we choose." A candidate in this situation is humanly absolutely equal to the employer and in the same way has his right to choose. And this inner feeling of equal control over the situation gives a lot more confidence. In the end, you will be able to better position yourself at the interview, because you focus on the main thing.

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Asked? We answer!

All the questions on the interview are divided into two types: those that ask you, and those that you ask the employer.

Theoretically, a recruiter can ask you anything. There are stories on the Internet that when they take a job at Google, applicants have to solve the most fantastic problems and answer strange questions. But most companies ask behavioral questions - that is, those that appeal to experience. Answers of the applicant on them allow to evaluate it in conditions as close to reality as possible.

Фото: Depositphotos

The following are examples of questions that Lou Adler, author of the best-selling book Hire with Your Head, made up. Before the interview, answer them in writing: this will help you not to shuffle and not to succumb in a stressful situation (see the book itself for a complete list of questions).

• Which of all your achievements at work is the most outstanding?
• What was the result?
• What situation did you encounter when you started this project?
• Why exactly did you do this? Did you take the initiative? Why?
• What was your position? Who worked with you on the task? What position did your supervisor hold?
• Describe the planning process, your role in this and how the plan was adopted. Describe what went wrong and how you decided it.
• What was your role in this project?
• Give three examples when you took the initiative. Why?
• What is the biggest conflict you face? Who was he with and how did you decide him?
• Give examples of when you helped someone or were a mentor.

If a recruiter has put you at a dead end, try to understand why they are asking you. Thus, it will be easier to give an adequate answer and not blurt out too much.

I have no flaws

The popular question “what are your drawbacks?” Stands apart. What to answer, if you want to appear white and fluffy, and when handing out flaws, you stood in line for modesty?

• Call the real fault, so that the employer does not feel that you are evading the answer. Options like “I'm too kind,” “I'm a workaholic,” or “I'm very meticulous,” are unlikely to fit here.
• Let it be not a feature of a person or character, but a skill or habit that can be corrected.
• Describe the situations in which this negative quality manifests itself in order to make it clear that you are hot-tempered only when deadlines are on or only in the morning before the first cup of coffee. Thus, a small drawback will look even smaller.
• Show your ability to self-reflection: explain why you have this feature and how it affects the work, others, etc.
• Explain how you are working on your shortcoming. ⠀

I asked ash

According to Olga Lermontova, the questions that you ask are no less, and sometimes more important than the employer's questions: motivation. Therefore, on the eve of the interview, think about what you will ask the recruiter.

1. Ask questions that illustrate that you already see yourself in a new role. For example, specify how you plan to assess the effectiveness of your work, what results are expected from you in a month, quarter, year.
2. Formulate questions based on important criteria for you. For example, if comprehensive professional growth is important to you, ask how the company invests in employee training. Remember: not only the company chooses you, but you choose it.
3. Do not ask about common things.not directly related to your place in this company. This is at least strange.
4. Do not ask obvious questions., the answers to which are on the company's website or in the job description. Otherwise it will seem that you are not very attentive.
5. Do not ask at the interview about the "buns", salary and social package. Please specify the salary plug before this - at the end of the screening interview (phone call), when you are invited for an interview. All other nuances are external motivation. It is better to be interested in this when you will have a concrete job offer.
6. Feel free to find out who did this work before you.why the vacancy was released and why the company is not looking for a candidate within the state. You can also clarify the difficulties encountered by the previous employee in this position. This will help you understand where to lay the straws.
7. Be interested in the facts: Your question “What steps does a typical working day consist of?” will show that you are not concerned with common words, but with concrete actions.
8. Do not be afraid of light provocations: ask what the company is the strictest taboo? What aspects are extremely important (say, sales plans), and where can management compromise (for example, the start time of the working day)?
9. Pay attention to who interviews you. Future colleagues can ask about the pros and cons of work. The potential boss is to ask what are his main goals and how you could help him achieve them. Applicant-ac is the one who in the dialogue himself offers projects and tells how they can be implemented.

How to talk about salary

Jobs posted without a salary fork are annoying to everyone. On the other hand, a clear salary range prevents you from earning more: as a rule, candidates do not discuss the amount above it. Who should be the first to name the possible / desired amount - the employer or the candidate?

A potential employee is more likely to lose when he first voices the amount. After all, if the company was willing to pay more, then now it will not do that. And if the employer planned to pay much less, then now he will doubt the candidacy of the applicant. What to do?

• Expert comment:

There is such a cognitive distortion as the “anchor effect”. When a person calls a certain number in a negotiation, he “anchors” the discussion around her. And very often, recruiters use it. When they ask the candidate what his desired salary fork is, the candidate names something ... The recruiter remembers this figure and is not ready to move much higher than this maximum, as he perceives.

Pattern: Depositphotos

At the same time, the candidate is also “anchored” with his current salary or previous work experience and will not be inclined to rise much higher than the usual amounts. Therefore, try to avoid situations in which you, as a candidate, will voice your future salary. How can I do that?

1) With the help of the correct determination of the level of companies: not to be hired by unknown one-day firms that even Google does not know about, but to settle for normal companies with a normal reputation, where it is clear that they pay either average market wages or slightly higher average. This is the best option.

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2) Properly position yourself even before you get to the interview - through the resume, through the cover letter and during the screening interview (phone call, when you are invited to the interview) to immediately set a high level.

If the question about the desired salary was asked to you in the forehead, then I would recommend to say that you are ready to consider an adequate salary for this role and this market. Add that you cannot yet share your thoughts on this matter, because you still do not fully understand what full functional spectrum expects you in this place.

This is a fair answer, because, as a rule, the question about wages is asked at the first screening with HRP, and at that moment you have not yet spoken to the direct manager and do not have a clear understanding of what exactly is involved in the role of the employee in this position.

Interview as a sale, or How to learn to talk about their successes

Sometimes changing the angle of view helps to find new successful solutions where, it would seem, everything is already clear. For example, an interview and a job placement is, in essence, the same sale, only “in profile”. With only one difference: you sell your time, knowledge, skills, experience. Understanding this increases your chances of success at times.

Judge for yourself: a talented “sales person” focuses on the problems and desires of the client and tries to close these “pains” with the product, showing how the purchase will solve the problem. To better understand the customer, the seller needs to get into his skin, show empathy and ask the right questions. Realizing that it will be able to work, the seller in the product description focuses on this, without downloading the client with unnecessary information.

So in employment: it makes no sense to contribute to the resume of your experience as a janitor, if you are not hired to work as cleaners, but as sales managers. That is why it is recommended for each job to create a new resume.

The same applies to the cover letter: it must be relevant and relevant for a particular position, as well as “sell” you even before the recruiter has opened your resume. The main thing - to clearly understand what and to whom you want to convey.

Фото: Depositphotos

How to talk about achievements

To correctly tell about your successes, use the following formula:

1) description of the situation;

2) what was your task?

3) what were your actions;

4) to what result they led.

Common mistakes here are the absence of a description of the result or of the specific actions that led to it.

• Expert comment:

To start “selling” yourself, you need to “turn on” the confidence that you are really worth something. Most people in the post-Soviet space are very modest and unsure of themselves - because of our upbringing and culture, in which they tell us from childhood, they say, keep quiet - you will pass for the clever. The only way here is to psychologically work out all the restrictive attitudes that say that you cannot “stick out”, that you need to be modest, that other people themselves must understand what you are worth, come and offer you everything yourself.

You can work with these settings in different ways. In the end, it is all the same responsibility on the person, on his awareness. It is necessary to develop this awareness. You can do this through working with a psychotherapist, through listing and analyzing all of your previous work experiences. Actually sit down and write down everything you've done, digitize it in metrics. Think about how much money you earned for the company, how much time and money you saved, what good you did - and you will see that in fact you are a very valuable employee. The objective assessment of the market helps the analysis: find out how much your specialists are worth. That is, find arguments in your favor that confirm your competence and professionalism. Therefore, the first thing you need to do is to maintain the content, the inner sense of self-worth, and only then think how to translate it on paper and in communication with other people.

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Nuances of gender and age

Unfortunately, even in large companies, we often face prejudices regarding gender and age. How to respond to such things that answer and how to return the conversation to the advantageous for you, the applicant, the channel? Consider the most common situations.

- If the applicant is of retirement age, but at the same time active, vigorous, modern, etc., how to shift the attention of the employer from age to positive qualities?

• Expert comment:

I do not think that there are any special strategies that the age candidate should use. By and large, both an age and a young candidate need to do the same thing - to rest on their strengths and relevant experience, which is suitable for this job. You need to remember the working stories that confirm that you have the necessary qualifications and experience in order to fulfill this role. Interweave these stories in response to any questions from the interviewer during the interview. In this way, you will fix your attention on the main meaning of the conversation - on why you should be hired to work. So there are no special strategies here: all candidates need to behave exactly the same way.

- How to respond to an interview for phrases like “You are a young girl, so we will take you to work now, and you will leave on a decree in a year”?

• Expert comment:

First, try to choose a company with a good reputation, where there is a certain basic culture. Including - the culture of basic human values, which makes the above situation impossible.

Secondly, this question itself is inadequate: it shows that the person who asked it, at least has a number of stereotypes and narrow thinking. From this it is necessary to draw conclusions, analyze how this person will intersect with you during work, how his personal behavior demonstrates the general level of culture in the company he represents. If this is your immediate leader, then, of course, I would advise you to think about whether you should go to work in this place.

Thirdly, I do not recommend behaving in any particular way. Trying to “butt” can cause a negative reaction in your direction. Therefore, I would either ignore the question, or try to smooth it out as much as possible and neutralize it, answering something like “I am not ready to discuss my personal life now, but in general I don’t think that having a child is in my plans for the next couple of years”. The task here is not to answer honestly, but to respond in such a way that the discussion will develop further as neutral as possible, and you could already draw some conclusions from the results of the conversation. For my part, most likely it would be the last meeting with the management of such a company.

If you are a self-confident person, you can clarify and ask again: “Excuse me, please, do I understand correctly that now you are asking me questions about personal life that do not belong to the subject of our discussion?”. But you need to expect, as I said, depending on the adequacy of your interlocutor, this conversation can go in completely different directions.

Successful job interview

Ideally, your negotiations with the recruiter should end with a job offer. But if after the interview a person was hired, does this always mean that the interview was successful? And does it mean that the interview, which did not end with the offer, was a priori unsuccessful?

• Expert comment:

You can not definitely draw the line. Interview skills and good work skills are completely different skills. A person can be very pleased at the interview and then be unable to do the work for which they are taking. And vice versa: you can be “no” at the interview and at the same time really approach the position. So if the interview was successful, it still does not mean anything (primarily for the employer).

Similarly, if a person is nervous, and talking under pressure will not be part of his work, then this is not an indicative result - neither good nor bad. In any case, even if you were not chosen (for example, the candidate funnel was very large, and ultimately the company had several strong candidates), you could still like it. And there is a chance that you will be considered for other roles or generally will be remembered. People leave the company, move to other places, and there is a chance that the person you like will remain in the memory.

For a candidate, a negative result is also an experience from which conclusions can be drawn, and with this knowledge in mind, the next time an interview is better.

Be that as it may, remember: the impression about you begins to form with a resume and a cover letter and continues to take shape during a telephone screening interview. And the interview - is the tip of the iceberg and the cherry on the cake called “dream job”.

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