The Secret for Converting Job Interviews into Job Offers

You probably have many professional strengths, and you know all about the technical skills and professional accreditations you must have to be successful.

However, there is one skill that no corporate experts ever consider important — because all this special skill does is help you.

What do I mean?

Look at the years of experience and the number of jobs you’ve had.

Work out how much real time and successful experience you have turning job interviews into job offers.

Like most of us, not so much, huh?

In short, this is your weakest professional survival skill while it is also the most important to your long term financial survival and success.

Fortunately, all you need do to turn this weakness into a strength is to adjust your approach.

They Really Want To Hire YOU

As you sit waiting sweaty-palmed in the lobby, I promise you that interviewer is kneeling behind a desk and praying,

“Let this be the one I can hire. All I want is someone who can do the job and plays well with others. Someone who won’t give me headaches – then I can make the hire, and get back to my real work.”

They want to hire you, and all you have to do is give them the reasons to make that choice.

While you go to a job interview to see if it is the right opportunity for you, what must come first is answering that hiring manager’s prayer.

So, focus on how your skills and personality can help the hiring manager and that department play their role in supporting company profitability. There’ll be no offer and nothing to consider unless you do.

Everyone Gets Hired for the Same Job

Every job, in every industry and at every level exists for these same reasons:

1. To win and keep customers.
2. To support profitability by bringing in money, saving money, or increasing productivity.

So, no matter what your job title, you get hired to be a Problem Solver.

Then, it’s obvious that the job offer will go to whoever knows their job well enough to:

• Understand how that job helps the department contribute to company profitability.
• Anticipate the problems that might happen, and prevent them from occurring by the way you do your work.
• Solve those problems when they, nevertheless, do crop up.

That’s the consistent theme for most work.

The KEY to Winning Job Offers —

Show that you have the analytical skills to anticipate, prevent, and solve the problems that get in the way of profitability.

The Biggest Job Interview Mistake

You naturally go to interviews intent on establishing that your needs will be met, like those considerations about pay, benefits etc.

These questions are perfectly reasonable.

But, ask those questions too soon, and you tell the interviewer that your personal needs are more important to you than the job’s deliverables. That’s not a good message to send…

Asking the Right Questions

A job interview tends to be a one-sided examination of skills. However, you can turn any interview into a two-way conversation between a couple of professionals chatting about a common interest (the job).

You show your interest by asking questions that demonstrate your understanding and engagement with the guts of the job.

Asking the right questions at the right time has a massive impact on your ability to win job offers.

Consequently, you answer the interviewer’s questions, ideally with examples that showcase you doing that aspect of the job well, then finish your answers with questions of your own.

• Ask about the common problems in the area under discussion, their causes, and how management likes them handled.
• Ask what differentiates the people who handle these problems well from those who don’t.

The answers you get will give you greater understanding of what this customer wants.

Those answers will also give you fresh insights to differentiate yourself from your competition by making additional points about how you handle such problems.

Timing Your Questions

The time to ask those questions that will help you evaluate the job’s suitability to your career plans comes only when an offer has been made.

This is because once a hiring manager has decided to offer you the job, s/he is eager to close the search and get back to work.

At this point your questions and needs will be met with serious answers and greater flexibility.

Until then, keep your questions focused on the responsibilities and deliverables of the job, and those pesky problems that get in the way of the job’s responsibilities being executed successfully.

A New Goal for Job Interviews

You should have one simple goal for every job interview: Focus on getting to the offer.