Trial period
If the employer is on the fence, you can offer to do a two to four‐week trial period, perhaps at reduced pay or as an intern.
Say that you’re keen to work there and feel confident that you’ll work out. Make it clear that if the employer isn’t happy
If you can’t get the job you want right away, consider applying for another position in the organization – like a freelance position, or a position one step below the one you really want. Working in a nearby position gives you the opportunity to prove your motivation and cultural fit. When your boss has a position to fill, it’s much easier to promote someone he or she already worked with than to start a lengthy application process.
How to prepare for interviews
If you can show the employer you can solve their problems, you’re most of the way there, and you can ignore most of the interview advice out there. However, you won’t always have time to show, and there’s more you can do to become even more convincing.
Here’s the best advice we’ve found on preparing for interviews. It’s also useful for getting leads while networking.
If you’re not actively looking for a job right now, skip this section for now.
1. When you meet an employer, ask lots of questions to understand their challenges. Discuss how you might be able to contribute to solving these challenges. This is exactly what great salespeople do. A survey of research on sales in SPIN Selling by Neil Rackman, concluded
“there is a clear statistical association between the use of questions and the success of the interaction.” Moreover, when salespeople were trained to ask more questions, it made them more effective.
2. Prepare your three key selling points ahead of meetings. These are the messages you’ll try to get in during the discussion. For instance: 1) I have done this work successfully before, 2) I am really excited about this company, 3) I have suggestions for what I could work on. Writing these out ahead of time makes it more likely you’ll mention what’s most important, and three points is about the limit of what your audience will remember. That’s why this is standard advice when pitching a business idea. If you’re not sure what you have to offer, there’s an exercise at the end of Chapter 5 to inventory your career capital.
3. Focus on what’s most impressive. What sounds better:
“I advised Obama on energy policy” or “I advised Obama on energy policy, and have worked as a high school teacher the last three years”? Many people fill up their CVs with everything they’ve done, but it’s usually better to pick your one or two most impressive achievements and focus on those. It sounds better, it makes it more likely you’ll cover it, and it makes it more likely your audience will remember it.
4. Prepare concrete facts and stories to back up your three key messages. For instance, if you’re applying to be a web engineer, rather than “I’m a hard‐worker”, try
“I have a friend who runs an organization that was about to get some press coverage. He needed to build a website in 24 hours, so we pulled an all‐nighter to build it. The next day we got 1,000 sign‐ups.” Rather than say
“I really want to work in this industry”, tell the story of what led you to apply. Stories and concrete details are far more memorable than abstract claims.
5. Work out how to sum up what you have to offer in a sentence. Steve Jobs didn’t sell millions of iPods by saying they’re 30% better than mp3 players, but rather with the slogan “1,000 songs in your pocket”. Having a short, vivid summary makes it easy for other people to promote you on your behalf. For instance “He’s the guy who advised Obama on climate policy and wants a research position.”
6. Prepare answers to the most likely questions. Write them out, then practice saying them out loud. The following three questions normally come up: (1) Tell me about yourself – this is an opportunity to tell the story of why you want this position and mention one or two achievements (2) Why do you want this position? (3) What are your questions for us? Then usually the interviewer will add some behavioral questions about the traits they care most about. These usually start “tell me about a time you…”, then are finished with things like: “exhibited leadership”, “had to work as a team”,
“had to deal with a difficult situation or person”, “you failed”, “you succeeded”. You can find a list of common
interview questions by following the link in the footnotes.57
7. Practice the meeting, from start to finish. Meet with a friend and have them ask you five interview questions, then practice responding quickly. If you don’t have a friend to help, then say your answers out loud and mentally rehearse how you want it to go. Ask yourself what’s most likely to go wrong, and what you’ll do if that happens.
8. Learn. After each interview, jot down what went well, what could have gone better, and what you’ll do differently next time.
To learn more about sales, our top recommendation is SPIN Selling, which is based on in‐depth research by Neil Rackman.
Stage 3: Negotiation
Negotiation begins after you have an offer, that is, once the employer has said they’d like to hire you.
Most people are so happy to get a job, or awkward about the idea of negotiating, that they never try. But ten minutes of negotiation could mean major benefits over the next couple of years. So, actually consider doing it.
For instance, you could ask the employer to match your donations to charity. That could mean thousands of dollars of
57 “How to answer the most common 31 interview questions” on The Muse:
https://www.themuse.com/advice/how‐to‐answer‐the‐31‐most‐common‐
interview‐questions
extra donations per year, making those ten minutes you took to negotiate the most productive of your life.
You could also negotiate to work on a certain team, have more flexible hours, work remotely, or learn certain skills. All of these could make a big difference to your day‐to‐day happiness and career capital.
Negotiation is not always appropriate. Don’t do it if you’ve landed a highly standardized offer, like a Civil Service position – they won’t be able to change the contract. Also don’t do it if you’re only narrowly better than the other candidates or have no alternatives. And definitely don’t negotiate until the employer has made an offer – it looks really bad to start negotiating during the interview.
However, we think negotiation should be tried in most cases once you have an offer. Hiring someone takes months and consumes lots of management time. Once an employer has made an offer, they’ve invested many thousands of dollars in the process. The top candidate is often significantly better than the next best. This means it’s unlikely that they’ll let the top candidate get away for, say, a 5% increase in costs.
Explain the value you’ll give the employer, and why it’s justified to give you the benefits you want. The idea is to look for objective metrics and win‐win solutions – can you give up something the employer cares about in exchange for something you care about? For instance: