Alex shares practical advice on interviewing, focusing on authentic self-presentation and building rapport. He covers how to stand out to hiring managers, why most candidates fail to connect, and what actually matters when you're in the room.
So I'm Alex and you're Neil. Okay. Hi Neil, how are you this morning? I. I'm very pleased that we're getting to talk. That's the power of LinkedIn, where like minded professionals have an opportunity to connect. Oh sure, Alex. I was really looking forward to this. Me too. So without further ado, I would like to just tell you a little bit about myself. And I don't want to be the usual boring person that is going to give you every single year, every single class I took in university. I don't want to discuss my resume. So I invented a very creative way to introduce myself to like minded professionals. Oh, Alex, that's really cool. So please go ahead. So I like to tell my professional life, my professional story in three chapters. The first chapter is when I went to university, the early career development that I had, and how I became fascinated with transformation and how organizations work. My second chapter is my current chapter where I'm at upb and I have been with them for quite a few years. And my role was always to transform the organization to run more efficiently. I have done that. My work is done here. They have transformed to run better than they ever have. And now I have to hand over the baton to somebody else so that they could run on their own. This is something that happens to transformation leaders. They help companies transform and then they go on to the next one. The impact I want to create in my third chapter is to continue to help organizations transform, run more efficiently. And most importantly, I'm passionate about being the co pilot to a C suite executive. I never want to be in the front lines. I will allow the C suite to complete their vision, but I will be there behind the scenes to make sure that that vision is implemented. So with that being said, I would love to hear what's going on at Acolyne and how can my expertise in transformation help you? I want you to stop thinking the word interview because the word interview is all about performance. There's a hiring manager and there's an applicant and the applicant needs to perform for the hiring manager. If you were in customer service or if you were a front desk clerk, maybe this is good because I'm judging how you will appear to customers. But when you become a very high functioning professional, high level person that has a track record, you don't need to perform for anybody. When Deloitte comes in or Accenture, you think they're performing for anybody. They don't give a shit. Okay, we're here, we put you on our calendar. Okay? That means you're special that you're on our calendar, and we are 100% confident that we can help you. And Deloitte wins every other deal, if not more. And so does Accenture. People drop out if Accenture is in the race. They're not interviewing. They're telling you what to do. It's your choice to do it or not. If you go in thinking that I'm an expert. He has a transformation problem. I'm not sure he's going to tell me about it. Get out of this interview. Okay. Two friends talking. What you're going to do is you're going to try to build the rapport. That's why it's so important to start with this little, like, cute, you know, I want to tell you about myself, but I don't want to be like everybody else, boring. And you'll say, oh, wow, that. That's so unique. Yesterday, last night, I have a client who's a very big marketing person at Amazon. She hates her life, and she is interviewing, and she's sending me the interviews for me to evaluate. Yesterday, she bombed at an interview because she just went right in to bash Amazon. I said, linda, what are you doing? They don't want to hear negative on the interview. If you're bashing Amazon, that means you're going to bash them in a year from now. You need to build the rapport with the person you're talking to go into the three chapters. It's a unique thing, and it breaks the ice. And people will laugh. Alex, they want to feel what it's going to be like to work with you. People want to have fun. So many people are miserable at work. They want to have. I'm not talking about you're going to be dancing. But they want to enjoy their time if you're working with them. It's a. It's a. It's an elementary human thing. So when you show the side of you, it shows that you're fun. You had so many people working for you, and some people, the minute they walk through your office, it's like you would rather get your tooth pulled than to talk to them. It's like, oh, my God, they're here. I don't really want to talk to them. And then there's some people, they're like, you know, they're pleasant. You know, even if they make a mistake, they will say, alex, I don't know how this happened. My apologies. I forgot my whatever. But you like that person and you feel connection with them. Listen, transformation can be very Painful. There's a very famous book that we all read in the United States. It's called who Moved My Cheese? It's a brilliant book. It's very. You should get it and read it. It's very short. It's called who Moved My Cheese? And basically, it's all about that. People hate change. People don't want to change. People are creatures of habit, and very few people see that change is good. You must read this book. It's a brilliant. It's so simple, but yet it's so powerful. It's like the golden rule. Don't do others that you don't want done to you. It's like that. It's almost. For children, transformation is not an easy task. You're going to go in, you're the new police officer, and if you are not a nice guy and if you are not pleasant to be around, people are going to chase you away. Okay? I don't know if you ever saw this movie with George Clooney. It was called up in the Air. When they hire him to come into a company to fire people, okay? He goes in and people, like, curse him. They cry in front of him. It's like, you should die. How can you do this to us? All he had to do is just deliver a message differently. Like, listen, I know you're losing the job, but honestly, it's the best thing that ever happened to you because you've been stagnating in this role all along. You have an opportunity now to go do something that you will like, you know, you have hated this job for the past five years, but he was like, oh, you know, we're giving you the papers. That's it. It's time to go. And you would just sit there and people would fall to pieces. So what I'm trying to say is the message can be really bad. The delivery. Like, for example, our Donald Trump, his message is right on. His delivery is horrible. And that's why people hate him, because what he's saying is true. We got to build the wall in Mexico because it's like everybody's coming in, okay? We have to get rid of these politicians who are 95 years old and falling asleep at the. At the. At the. In the interviews. He's talking, we have to run this like a business with China. But he is not delivering in a nice way.
