Madeline Mann shares three tactics to turn job interviews into conversations: flip questions by asking clarifying follow-ups, prepare substantive questions about timeline and candidate weaknesses, and use menu answers that let the interviewer choose what to hear more about.
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You ask anyone who hires this is what your competition does to steal away that job offer in the job interviews. But I'm going to give you powerful strategies so that you'll land job offers at nearly every company you interview. At last time I talked about these strategies, the response was, pardon my German, ridonkulous. There were oodles and oodles of success stories. And stay to the end because I will tell you the best way to not ramble in the interview. And that's not even height. This is a really helpful framework. The overarching skill I'm going to teach you in this video is how to make an interview feel like a conversation using three powerful strategies. If you can pull this off, you will leave the job interviewer feeling like you're possibly the most competent person they've ever spoken to and have no choice but to choose you. Oh, and hello, if you're new here, I'm Madeline Mann. I'm a human resources leader and job search strategist who turns job seekers into into job shoppers. You may recognize me from being a top job search instructor on Spotify and LinkedIn, learning the host of Job Shopper, or you may have seen it on abc, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, and more. Subscribe because what's the best that could happen? You land offers at every company you interview with from now on. Strategy number one. Flip the question. You will lose job offers if you're not making the job interview into a conversation. Here's a really easy trick to do it for some questions you are asked fin by asking a question such as if they ask what's your leadership style? And you answer, my leadership style is answer. And then you make it more of a conversation by asking does that fit with how you all work? Which leadership styles are most successful here? And this is important context for you should you work at this company? And another example is they ask why should we hire you? And you answer, my understanding of the role is and then you explain explain the role and then how you were qualified to rock that role. And then ask, is that how you see me fitting in here? Again, we are making this feel like an authentic conversation and we are learning so much more. And this question is really tricky. So I will link a full video in the comments and description to help you craft your answer to why should we hire you? So this approach is insanely effective for two reasons. First, candidates who ask questions show that they are high value, they're critical thinkers and vetting the company. Second, you are given the opportunity to discuss and even Reframe your answers. If they seem to disagree or misinterpret your answer, you can address that on the spot. This could save you from a hasty rejection strategy 2 Ask questions at the End of the Interview Asking questions during a job interview can damage the impression that you're making, such as if those questions are something like you asking a bunch of questions about their vacation policy before you get to the offer stage, or you're asking asking questions that can be easily answered by you doing a bit of searching online, such as asking what does your product do? Don't ask that. But failing to inquire more about an opportunity is actually a common reason that a candidate is not selected for a job. It's the same as Jeopardy. If you want to win, you do need to ask questions. You come across as someone who isn't properly vetting the opportunity otherwise, but it's all about what you actually ask. Well, I have some questions that are super effective. Ideally your questions are customized to this opportunity, but I did create a document of 15 really good questions to ask that are not super common and played out and so I will link that for free in the comments and the description. And a few of my favorite approaches include tailoring your questions to the interviewer so asking them how long they've been at the company or what's better is if you just look this up before the interview so you already know this, and then asking if it's been over a year, how has their role changed over time or what has kept them at the company. Company if it's been less than a year, asking them how their expectation of the role and the company was different from their actual experience once they joined. Another great question to ask the hiring manager is has the search for this role been moving along quickly or has it been a long road of interviewing? If it's the latter, ask what are some of the things that the candidates have been consistently missing when you interview them? The answer to this question is some of the most valuable information you could ever get dream of. Whatever their hang up is, you now know what you need to address head on in your interviews to ensure they don't let that stop them from choosing you. Another way of asking this is if they hire the same role. Frequently you can ask what type of candidate is most successful in this role. Again, use that information to craft your future key points when answering interview questions do you typically ask questions in a job interview? Say yes, I ask questions or no, I don't ask questions in the comments. I'm curious to See what's more common. Strategy Number three Give Menu Answers Here is the secret to stop rambling in job interviews and get the exact information the interviewer is looking for and it's called.
A menu answer. This is a strategy I created for when you're asked these broad questions and interviews and possibly those questions aren't well crafted, but there is an intention behind them. When this happens, you need to help the interviewer to guide you further with a menu answer. So if they ask you a broad question like what is your project management experience? What do most of us do? We start rambling in circles until we see or hear some sort of acknowledgement that we're on the right path or we are far too concise and say yes, I have three years of project management experience. What should you do instead? Many answers such as Project management is a huge part of my day to day for the past three years. I define the team's project scope and objectives, I manage project schedules and costs, and I have extensive experience with different project management software. Would you like me to dive deeper in any of those areas? So here you're giving them a menu of what they can focus on because you're not sure what they are trying to get out of this question. Is it simply checking that you have the experience so they just want a really short answer? Are they waiting to hear if you've worked with certain software you don't know? And so by providing a broad answer like a dame was something to say and asking them to narrow you down, you will give them the answer they are looking for. Another real world example of this is a sales leader who's impressed by a candidate he was interviewing. She was quite the underdog candidate who didn't have much sales experience and had been a stay at home mom for the past few years. The sales leader told me when I asked her to walk me through her experience. She said I've done a lot in my career. Where would you like me to start? And he loved that she took the time to understand what he was looking for before word vomiting her entire background. Now there is a concise and highly effective way of answering the question Tell me about yourself that I swear by it prevents you from tossing a big old word salad. And I have a free download worksheet to help you craft your perfect answer which I will link in the comments and in the description. So remember to grab that Tell me about yourself guide and the 15 best questions to ask in a job interview in the comments in the description like this video and subscribe to this channel. You've got this wi fi high five.
