How to Ace a Job Interview for a Senior Level Job

Hi there. Welcome. We are live. Go ahead and say hi in the chat. I'm Madeleine Mann. And today we are talking about how to ace the senior level job interview. So these are high stakes, right? When you move up in your career, as you go for these higher level positions, there are fewer of them. I mean, you look at the pyramid, right, of of professionals and the positions get fewer and fewer, the stakes get higher. And what is going to differentiate you from the next person is you're going to win by inches instead of feet. Okay. And for those of you on the metric system, you have to win by centimeters versus meters. Right. And so it's so important that we, as we move through our career, that we're actually using different strategies. Or additional strategies because it does kind of build on each other over time. But you may have been really good at interviews earlier in your career and now you are probably just as good, but it's not getting you as far. So I'm seeing folks saying hi in the chat. Hello, Heman. So good to see you, Lady. Hello all. Yes. Jeffrey's from Kansas City. Morongo Phoenix says good morning. So good to see you all. Thanks for saying hi in the chat. So yes, we're going to dive into really these interview strategies and as well as I answer a lot of questions live during these sessions. I call these my office hours because I am here to answer your questions. We have really good conversations. And so any of your job search questions, I'm happy to answer. Let's see. Oh my gosh, just what I need today. I have a second round of country head level interview. Oh my gosh, thank you from India. Thank you for tuning in. I'm super rooting for you. Randy's coming here from San Diego. Strat says from— is from Boston. Then we have X4 4. Jackie says from Pasadena. Oh, I love Pasadena. I love Heritage Square over there. It's really fun to go to all their events. Um, all right, fight on, says 7th One. Woo! Very cool. All right, Michael from San Antonio, Becca from Ohio, Sandy from Toronto. All right, lots of great folks here. Thank you for saying hi. So Let's talk about how to shift our strategy depending on the roles we're going for and how to really be competitive, especially for these senior level jobs, to really ace the interview here. So when we're talking about some of the lower level jobs, say more individual contributor roles, those roles are really looking for proof of ability. Can you do this job? That's the number one thing they're looking for. So typically saying, hey, can you do this? Hey, can you do that? And even in some cases, they're not just looking for proofability, but they're looking for proof of potential. So they may ask a lot of behavioral questions and whatnot. And they— so they're trying to see what's your attitude, what's your personality? Are you someone who's naturally hardworking? Someone who naturally goes above and beyond? Are you someone who's naturally creative? All those things. And so that's the individual contributor level. So they are looking for both, you know, proof of ability and proof of potential. And that's why maybe you did really well because maybe you just are a lot of those things. Maybe you are creative and hardworking and all those things. And it shows up when you are answering behavioral interview questions. And so maybe in those individual contributor interviews you did well. And then did you have the skills they were asking for? Yes or no? If the answer is yes, then you likely were getting offers. And all of those things are true and all those things are important as you move up in your interviews. But now we have to add on several different layers. Oh my gosh. 7th One says, applying for my first VP role. Recruiter found me and it's my dream job. Yes, I love to hear that. I, you know, so many of my clients, they are getting sourced on LinkedIn right now. Sourcing is up about 30% in the past couple of years. Companies are sourcing a lot more right now because of all this inundation of— inundation of applications from AI sources. It's— they're getting a lot of fake applicants. They're getting a lot of people who don't even really qualify or anything like that. And so it's faster for them to then click out of that and go source people, go reach out to folks and say, hey, you have the right skill sets we're looking for. So it's so important. That is a huge focus of my coaching program is, okay, let's make sure that you are optimizing your online presence so that you are being found for these roles. And a lot of my clients are landing over 50% of their interviews just inbound, not even applying. So that's so great to hear. And I'm rooting for you for your, your VP role. Going from director to VP is a huge leap. It's even bigger than going from manager to director. VP is like this whole different stratosphere. So I'm really excited for you. Okay, so now we're kind of moving up to more of mid-level interviews. So this could be like quite advanced individual contributor. It could be manager, senior manager, sometimes depending on the company, maybe a director. Sometimes directors way, way above. This, this is where it gets a little fuzzy as far as leveling in companies. But usually this means that you might be managing people, that your influence is growing. And that brings up the stakes a lot because if you are crummy at your job or you have a crummy personality or you don't work hard, that is going to— oh my gosh, my microphone has been all the way across the table. Hopefully you could still hear me. Okay. I'm just realizing my microphone is like way over there. It's like shouting into the void. All right. Hopefully this is a little better. But when you are managing other people, if you were bad at your job, you are now hurting other people significantly more. Right? How many of you— say me in the chat if you ever had a bad manager. Right? That is what they're worried about. Because then if you're a top performer and you don't like this manager, then you can lose all these great top performers and it's terrible. So that's when it starts to get a bit more serious. They also start to care more about industry-specific experience. Okay. I mean, how many of you had had that experience where you have perfectly transferable skills, but because you're not in the exact same industry, they get a little bit weird? Like, oh my gosh, I don't know if you can do this job because you don't have experience in our exact industry. It's like every industry I've worked in, I've learned the industry. You just learn the industry. Exactly. Yeah. I'm seeing folks responding to me here. Here we go. Saying yes. Oh, much better. Yeah, people are saying that my audio is better. Okay, cool. Yeah. What you— what— you've been a manager for a few years but never have managed people, just an individual contributor. Yeah. Trying to break into medical device. Definitely had bad managers. It inspires me to be different. Laura says— oh my God, Laura Bailey, good to see you. Yeah, it says me, me, me. Yes. Oh my gosh, we've had these experiences. So we're then, you know, it's, it comes into this idea of minimizing risk. And this is something you should definitely write down, is your job, especially as you're moving up and you're going for more of these senior level positions, is that the companies are scared. They are scared to hire you because the risk is so high that if you are a bad hire, you're going to ruin some things. Okay? You might ruin their strategy. You might destroy the morale of the team. You might just be really expensive and the investment doesn't pay off. And you might think, no, but I'm great. Uh, yeah, but any of us here who have ever hired anyone or even been on a team, we've seen these hires where they're probably actually great people and talented people. They were just maybe hired for the wrong position at the wrong time at the wrong company, right? We just need to plant that flower in another garden and it'll flourish. So it's not necessarily the person is a bad employee, but they were— there was a bad compatibility there. So that is what they're terrified of. So I want you to really keep this in your head. These companies are scared to hire you. They're so excited to hire someone and they do get really excited once they found the right person. And that's why I wrote my entire book on job shopping, right? A lot of— I know last time I came on live, like a lot of you said you dread it, reverse the search. Because what I found is that when you eliminate that feeling of, ooh, I feel like it's risky to hire this person, and turn it into more of excitement of, oh my gosh, we need this person, that they, they're going to relieve so much of the work I have to do, all this kind of stuff, then you start becoming a job shopper. And that can happen in even the worst of job markets. Even, I mean, it's happening all the time. And it doesn't have to do with the job market. It has to do with the company evaluating you and you doing such a good job in the interview process that they say, oh my gosh, this person is the obvious choice. They are above the others. And I would feel stupid to let them go because we've tried all this hard work through this hiring process to let this wonderful person go. So that's why job shopping is so powerful, because it is unlocking that feeling of FOMO that companies get when they interview you, going, oh my gosh, this person's perfect. This person is great. I really enjoy talking to them. They have really good ideas. They feel like a coworker already. Those are the feelings you're trying to create. And that is why my clients are so successful at landing multiple offers even in this job market, because this feeling of being excited about a hire and desperately wanting the process to end and being relieved that they finally don't feel like there's a question mark above one of the candidates who they're afraid to hire is such a good feeling. Um, so let's see. I hear a lot of feedback that I haven't worked in specific industry after 2 interviews, it's hard to make the pivot. Yes, yes. And I've definitely had this experience with a lot of folks. Um, I've shared a lot of videos of folks who have helped through this. Um, Tina is a really good example who I love to talk about, where she didn't have any automotive experience but was like, I'm going to work at Toyota. And she really— I work— she got rejected by Toyota because they're like, you know, you don't have the experience. And I worked with her to Basically, like, quell all of those hesitations because you need to eat, sleep, breathe whatever is the new industry. You can't just be like, "Yeah, well, seems good. You guys are responsible for teaching me once I get there." No, you need to show up and show that you've already done the hard work and that you're doing the hard work. Be mixing in the same circles, be going to those conferences, be, you know, meeting those people online, all those types of things. Things. The issue and stress is the waiting after the interviews, maybe even the follow-up emails. Never get a response. Yes, it is. It can be more stressful to just hear nothing than get a rejection that's, you know, straightforward. So I completely hear that. That is probably like one of the number one most stressful parts of the job search is you feel really out of control of your future and you're— you don't know where you stand. Yeah, and John wants to get into the, once again, to the aerospace and aerospace industry. Yeah, Strat has read Reverse the Search. So good to hear that. Now need to go back and reference it again. I know this is definitely, it's kind of a book where you have to write notes in the margins and, you know, you can read it and absorb the concepts, but then there's also a lot of of individual things that you have to also act on and do. So it— a lot of people told me, oh yeah, this is my third time reading it, this is my fourth time reading it. Of course you don't need to read the whole thing again, but you can just like keep revisiting certain parts that you need, that you want to focus on. Cool. So Stephen says, can we talk about an assessment interview that I'm having on Monday for a senior level at a financial institution? What, what is the assessment? Are they asking you to create a presentation? Are they asking you to create a work sample? I'm curious to hear, Stephen. And what can you lerst on the job? What can you learn on the job? What can you learn on the job? What can you learn? Hmm. I'm— maybe I'm not totally understanding this question. So any job, probably a lot of us have ever had, we become qualified for that job about 6 months in, right? We actually don't have all the context of the way that organization works and, uh, you know, the, the strategy, or a lot of the— even some of the skills we don't already have. So you should be learning a large amount on the job, but, but a lot of interviewers don't have the imagination to understand that that's literally how every single job works. All of us are unqualified until 6 months. And so you have to show them that you know enough and that you have examples of achieving this type of knowledge and you have the context to where, you know, even though you're going to need to get ramped up, you still know a lot about it. And so it really is like It's, it's putting their mind at ease of, no, I've got this, I'm confident I can make this happen, versus being like, oh well, I haven't used exactly the software you guys are using, so I actually don't know if I'm going to be able to do this, right? We don't want to bring that kind of energy. Okay, so, um, what do you do when they ask you to create something but you don't want them to steal it Or they're not paying for it. Um, so I would say, I think it's, I'm never really worried about anyone stealing anything. I mean, you know, I think a lot of creating ideas and that kind of stuff, I mean, it's, it's largely about execution. And I do think that having to do assignments and stuff like that, is a very— it honestly, like, anyone, any company who has you do an assignment, you should prefer that they had you do an assignment, which I know you probably like, oh, it takes so much time though. But it's the most fair, and also it's, it's the most fair to someone who is maybe career changing or doesn't have all the big fancy accomplishments, or is maybe coming back from like being a parent, a stay-at-home parent, right? So You know, it is, it's just like proof in the pudding. It's like, can you actually do this job, yes or no? Instead of, do you have shiny companies on your resume? Do your bullets look great? It's like, no, actually, like, can you do the actual work? So I wouldn't worry too much about them stealing things. I mean, in general, it's like, even in my business, I put so much out there online. I'm like endlessly generous with the amount of information I've put on online at this point. Um, you know, people copy my stuff Constantly take any line out of any LinkedIn post I've ever posted, search for in the search bar, and I guarantee you'll find a handful of people who are not me who literally just took my post and reposted themselves claiming it's them, right? Like, you just have to be like, but, but, but should I stop posting content so that you all don't know if I'm good at what I do or not, right? Should I just not go live and so you don't know, right? My whole livelihood is Having folks like you trust me enough to hire you as my career coach so I can feed my family and pay for my gasoline and whatever. So it's the same here with you is you're doing some free work or you're doing some free examples and it's really for people to be able to trust. It's so funny. It's people tell me, "You need to do more free stuff." They're always asking for it. It's like, "Okay. And then you complain about companies?" asking for like work samples. Like, that's what we're doing here is exactly the same thing anyways. So I wouldn't worry about it, uh, I wouldn't stress about it, uh, life's bigger. It's wild how it— how much more important it is to show your value versus worry and like try to hold things back. Um, that's what, what I do. I give, I give very freely. Um, so The other thing I will say though is that companies shouldn't really be having you do projects that could be used and shipped, right? So for example, I think I had, I had someone do a marketing test for me and I had them do it for a fictional law, law school, like LSAT prep program, right? So it's, it's like a, it's a coaching program that prepares people who want to be law students to take the else out or something like that. It's not career coaching. So every asset they built, I couldn't then repurpose it for my business, but it's a parallel business to where, oh, I can see how that skillset would be similar. That's really what they should be doing. All right. So let's see. So Let's see, um, what do you do if you have an interview with a recruitment firm that didn't provide the job description and then go into an interview with the interviewee expecting a specific role, i.e., cybersecurity PM? Yeah, so this is not that uncommon to do an interview with a recruiting firm where you don't have the job description, I would view it as a networking opportunity. So I wouldn't be so harsh about, oh, this is exactly the role I wanted and all this stuff, and I wasn't set up precisely to, to ace this interview. I would talk to them. What are you hiring for? What types of companies? Um, if you are someone who has already done the hard work of understanding exactly what you want next, share that with them. Share what you're working on. Ask them lots of questions. See how much of the search, they can share with you and view it as a networking opportunity. Even if the role they bring up is totally the wrong role. Cool. You now have a relationship with a recruiting firm who maybe is hiring for roles that you could want in the future. So I would really, I would really, you know, embrace that. Yeah. And Andrew says you are the perfect example. Exactly. Exactly. People, people be, be taking my stuff all the time. All the time. Um, let's see. Um, all right, so we have, I have an interview for a manager-level role with an IT company. This is going to be a screening interview. Any tips to pass the screening interview? So a first-round interview is testing 3 things. First, Do you have the skills? Okay. You want to answer with menu answers. Okay. That's a, that's a phrase I coined, which means that they'll say like, oh, do you have any experience with X or Y or Z? And you'll say, yes, I've done this, this, this, and this. Is there anything else you'd like me to tell you about that? Right. Where you're not diving in super deep into things and starting to talk and on and on. No. Sometimes a lot of times in the first round interview, there's checking. Hey, do you have this skill? Hey, do you have the skill? All right, let's move on. So you just, you give them that information and you say, hey, would you like me to expand? And then they might say, yeah, could you actually dive in on that one skill you mentioned? Or they might say, no, that's good. I just want to make sure you have it. Okay. The second thing they're evaluating is, do I like you? Okay. So what's important to know here is, you know, you need to be, make sure that, that this is not just, uh, first of all, do not be reading your answers. For that interview. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, please tell me, you guys, you don't read scripts during interview. It comes across as so inauthentic. People will just, just in their core of their heart will not trust you. So, uh, you need to come off as authentic. You need to take a special interest in folks, um, and you need to start getting good at, yeah, building that rapport. So The third piece you have to look out for is logistics. They're asking you, is the salary range okay? Can you move to Salt Lake City? You know, do you, uh, you know, do these hours work? Whatever it is, can you start on this date? And if there's something that's a little wonky there, then they're going to eliminate you. If those three things are there, then you'll move on. If you are not moving on from first round interviews, And I'm actually going to go into— I'm doing like a 5-day masterclass in, um, a few days. I'll actually even— maybe someone could put in the chat. It's like www.selfmadeway.com/masterclass. Um, and I'll be going into like— there'll, there'll be a day where— I think it's actually day 1 where you get to audit. Okay, I have like the percentages of how often your application should be accepted. How often you're in. You should go from first round of interview, first round interview, second, second to third, how many, how many offers you can get. And you can audit yourself and we'll walk through strategies of how to improve at each stage so that, you know, if you're stuck at a certain stage, like if you're stuck at the first round interview stage, what do you do and all of that. So I'm doing 5 days of teaching. It's going to be so much. Again, talking about giving away so much. But it's also crazy because it's like every time I do these things, it's I don't think I'm giving away that much because I'm like, this is— even in 5 hours, I couldn't even begin to go into the depths of the levels of what I think for each and every person who is there. Because if I was to talk to each and every one of you, I would give you different slices of advice and different things I would send you to and different rabbit holes I'd send you down because you have a unique situation. Okay, very cool. Um, all right. Oh, another user has, um, an assessment, um, recommend, uh, interview phase. How do I avoid submitting strategies for documentation for free? Oh, okay, cool. All right, so we talked about that one. Um, how many interviews are typically conducted for senior roles before a decision is made? I was recently on my fourth interview before it being asked to do a presentation. I thought that was pretty weird. So when it comes to senior level interviews, the sky is the limit. Oh my gosh. I have seen people go for VP and C-level roles that they're like, this is my 9th interview, 10th, 11th. And you want to know why? Because they're, they're, they're not learning more about you at that point. What they're doing is they're getting buy-in from every single person. It is more of interview tourism, right? They're just having you tour around and so that everyone can, can put their stamp of approval. Everyone feels like they participated, even though it's the, you know, the way I structure interviews is very precise of each interview has a specific mission where every single interview extracts a certain piece of information so that if I'm interviewing someone and then you're interviewing someone, that the, the Venn diagram of the information we extracted doesn't have much overlap. So it's actually worth our time. It's not a waste of time. I remember interviewing at a company which I ended up taking the offer. It's a lovely company, but their interview process is horrible. And I did 4 interviews in a row in one day. And every single person, every single person interviewing me asked, tell me about yourself. And we just started with that in every interview, and it's like, hmm, this is, this is what we're going to waste our time on, even though everyone else has asked me that, and you have my resume, and you have my LinkedIn profile, and you have my cover letter. Okay, okay. Um, so yeah, it's, it's just, it's pomp and circumstance at a certain point. Okay, um, Yay! Strat says that, um, I've got— I've had a few interviews in the senior VP role at a certain employer, and you're waiting for their answer, but I got good feedback. Yay! This is exciting! Way to go! Um, very cool. Okay, so, um, if, if I'm going to— from a supervisor to a manager How do you convince them that you could do the job even though there are some aspects of the job you haven't currently handled, such as prepping department budget, that kind of stuff? So ideally, especially if you are moving up in your own— in the same company, I would try to do the job before you do the job. Now, of course not— I mean, you know, if you're not in a certain level position, you can't necessarily get your grubby hands on the budget and stuff like that. That might be sensitive, and you have to get that level to do it. But try to find as many things as possible where you're assisting on those things. You're asking for bigger projects. You're asking to kind of be brought on certain things. You're learning, you know, even look at job descriptions, even if the company you're working for doesn't have that job description for the next role out. Look at other companies that are very similar and look at this next step up from what you're doing. And I want you to circle, okay, what are the things that I'm missing? And either educate yourself on those things, try to ask for stretch opportunities because, spoiler alert, your company is not going to just usually offer you stretch opportunities. They don't know that you want to stretch. You need to say, I want to stretch. So really making that effort. And then, you know, when in doubt, when there isn't, you know, an ability to learn that skill, You just need to really stand 10 toes down and say, hey, remember when we got that new tool that no one knew how to use and I got ramped up in a week and a half and I started teaching everyone else how to do it? Yeah, that's how good I am at ramping up at things. I have no, I have no doubt I can handle the budgeting. OK, just give me, give me some time. OK, cool. Great, great, great. Is a portfolio relevant for senior level roles and/or a 30, 60, 90 day plan? I would say it's more relevant than ever because like I said, you need to, you need to be more competitive than ever with senior level roles. And the more you can show what you've created and the less you're just talking about yourself, the better. Okay, so here's a few things that I see a lot of senior level— I'm talking director, VP, C-level candidates— that gets them rejected. So, they're constantly rejected for rambling. Okay. We talk too much. We will go on and on. We'll answer the question, tell me about yourself, and think that we need to actually tell our career history. No one cares about your career history. They care about what have you done that's relevant to what we're doing right now. Okay. Shoop. Your answer gets so much more concise. Also not providing specifics. So what you're referencing here is a portfolio. Those are specifics. I can't tell you how many people I've coached. I coached a lot of executives to get over this. I also you know, help hire people. And so many executives fall into this one trap. Okay, so write this down. It is this idea of because you've done something so many times in your career, you find interview questions to be shallow and trivial and you answer them as such. Okay, this is, this is life-changing. So please, please zero in if this could be something you struggle with. So they might say something like, you know, well, "Tell me about a difficult client you've had to deal with." Let's say you've been doing this for 35 years. You're like, "I have dealt with difficult clients every week for the past 35 years. What are you talking about?" Then you might say something like, "Well, generally I do this." You start talking generalities. They can't picture you in the role. They don't like it. They move on. Or another thing you say is you don't even start talking generalities. You just say, Well, it depends, right? And you feel that that is actually the best answer because, you know, it depends, you know, of, of how do you, how should you deal with a difficult client? Well, it depends. It depends on the situation. It's, it's different every time. And the bottom line is, in both of those cases, those questions were not very good. You know, that, that interviewer asked you and you are falling victim to it. Okay. So that is something I am constantly coaching my clients on, is how to not fall victim to bad shallow, shallow questions. And you're, you're falling for them, right? You're just being like, oh, it depends. Or, well, I'm not going to give you a specific example because it happens so often. So just overall, blah, blah, blah. And that's lazy, right? We got it. We got to, we got to go beyond what they're asking for and actually give them what they think they are asking for because their questions are really bad. Also, yes, I'm seeing a couple of comments. So yes, if you do want more information on the coaching, I believe I linked it under this video. Depending on where you are, www.madelamann.com/coaching. Okay, cool. All right, so, um, uh, Wendy says, I interviewed for a senior marketing director role. The posting did not require industry experience. I didn't make it to the next round because I didn't have the experience. Why, why wasn't it listed? Yeah, I mean, they like to do that, right? They like to say, okay, well, you don't need this. And then they compare you to other candidates and like, wow, we really do want someone with this. Just know, and this is super important for everyone to know, I've worked on so many hiring panels and the, the, the way the job description is in the beginning either the job description changes or even if you don't change the job description, what is desired changes over time. And it's kind of annoying to hear as a candidate, but as they interview you, they— and interview others, they start to change what they're looking for. And this is especially, especially true for senior level jobs like Wendy mentions is a senior marketing director role because they start thinking, okay, which components do we really need? You know, with lower level roles, it's like a little bit easier to be just more precise and you hire a lot of those roles at a higher volume and more frequently. So it's more obvious for those. But you know, how, how often are they hiring a senior marketing director? Once every few years, maybe, maybe once a year at most. Right. So, so yeah. So, so it evolves, which is why it's so important to when a recruiter in the first round interview or the hiring manager or whatnot offers to give you some context on the role, Say, yeah, I've reviewed the job description, but I would love to hear, like, how you would describe this role from your perspective. And notice what they emphasize. It may not be exactly what's on the job description. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Okay, so, um, what is the most effective way to approach senior manager interview for a marketing director role with a hiring manager and further interviews? Says Fabiola. Yeah, so as you get into later round interviews, it becomes, uh, more about being really good at showing the way you think. That's, that's exactly what we're just talking about, where I was saying, oh, you know, being a little bit shallow with your answers. If you're kind of matter-of-fact that way, you're probably going to lose the offer. You need to be giving examples, you need to be showing work samples, you need to be asking really good questions throughout the interviews. I can't tell you how often I've heard from a hiring manager, oh my gosh, the questions that person asked. Is the sound on? Oh, I hope it's— I hope you can hear me, guys, on TikTok. I'm also live on TikTok over here. I hope, I hope the sound's on. So, you know, asking really good questions. Yes. The hiring managers would say, oh my gosh, the questions they asked. Were so good, right? So that's huge portion of it is really making it more of a conversation where they walk away feeling like you are a coworker already. Yes. Denise says, do you recommend preparing a short slide deck for a senior level role? Would that actually make you stand out, or would it be better to wait to be asked so you don't burden the interviewer? So this is so interesting to me. Is this idea of being a burden to the interviewer. Because if they don't want you to do the side deck, they're an adult. You can be like, hey, you know, they ask you a question about, you know, we're talking about marketing roles. So we could, we could use that as an example. You know, how would you think through a marketing campaign for in our industry? And you might say, well, you know, I actually was thinking about that and I put together a few I have some slides of some of where I'm seeing different, you know, competitors and where I'm seeing you all land. And I used it to organize my thoughts. Like, could I share my screen? And they have the option to say no. So the worst thing that can happen is they say no, and we've used up the same amount of time in interview as if you didn't have it, really. The best case scenario is that they say, oh yes, I would love to see that. And now We're moving away from the issue I was talking about earlier, which is this kind of fluffy, you know, fluffy answers to actually like seeing the way you work. Now, in my program Standout Job Search, I actually ended up building out extremely robust bespoke tools, right? A lot of them AI-powered, but I had to work so long on them because You have to undo all the bad habits of AI to make sure it is correcting things properly and drafting things properly. The materials that come out of ChatGPT, resumes and all of that, just make my skin crawl because it's just so bad. So anyways, I built all these tools and one of them I built is called a show, don't tell idea generator where you put in what is the opportunity you're going for and it helps you come up with, okay, so what should be in your deck? What should be as a part of like maybe this extra thing, this project you do. And my clients have been using it saying, oh my God, I had no idea this is such a cool thing I could do to bring into my interview and, and get really get them. And, you know, there's always like, like ideas that are a little bit not as, as time intensive and then some that are. And so you could even do something that even just takes an extra 20 minutes but sets you so far and above other candidates. So I love that you're thinking that way, Denise. Um, okay, so let's see. Um, is it normal to take notes for questions, not read word for word, but recall— but something to recall a scenario? Um, So I know you're saying the word take notes, but I'm— I think based on the context of the rest of your question, you're not meaning taking notes in the interview. You're meaning bring notes into an interview. And I love that you're saying not real read word for word, but something to recall a scenario. That is exactly correct. You've got it spot on. So let me see. Do I have it here? Oh yeah, I have it here. So I actually have my— I haven't really job searched in a long time, but I do have my notes here. I keep my notebook and let me see if I can show you guys. So basically what I would do is when I go into an interview, I would have like at the top of the page, little titles of the examples I was going to give, like, you know, engineering team termination or something. Right. And only I know what that means. But it helps me that if they're like, okay, give me an example of a time you had to make a hard decision. It's like, okay, engineering team termination. I'd like look down and see that. I'd also have like the names of the interviewers I'd spoken to before, maybe like a couple of details about their past that I could reference, a couple of details about the company, some questions that I wrote down. So it really is like the way you would go into a business meeting where you would have prepared of like, here's like some of the points I'm going to talk about and here's some of the stats that I have. And, you know, here's the important people in the meeting. Write your notes as if it was a business meeting, guys. You are thinking about it like you were writing notes as if you're going into an exam. Okay, we need to stop that. We need to stop thinking like it's like one of those crazy cheat sheets where you try to put all the answers on one paper and it's all written really small. If you're thinking about the interview like an exam, you're likely going to fail. Okay, you need to think of it as a business meeting where you are consultant. You're thinking about, can I solve your problems? And how do you know if you can solve someone's problems? You get under the hood. You have a deeper conversation. You're collaborative, right? So really using that. Cool. So let's see. I'm going to attend an interview for operations program manager at NVIDIA. Congratulations. And which sentences may they ask with this position and how to prepare those answers? So what I would recommend is, so it's attend an interview. So I don't know who this interview is with, what stage. So these are the things you have to consider, right? This is a first round interview, second round interview, third round interview. Who is it with? How many times have you already met with them? You've met with them before. Looking at the job description, you know, reverse engineering what could possibly be questions based on the skills they're looking for, behavioral interview questions that could come from it. Also, potentially, depending on, you know, their website, you might even want to check out if they have any sort of like values or leadership principles or anything like that. Just being ready to answer behavioral interview questions that match those. Is, is good. Okay, so I'm a marketing journalist and sometimes roles concentrate on email or content. Yep. Do my stories need to match those skills? There are so many stories, I get frustrated and end up blah, blah, blah. Oh, y'all are asking such good questions today. Yes. Yes. So when choosing an example to give in an interview, you need to do it in this order. Okay. Relevance. Relevance is number one. Choose the example that is most relevant. The second thing to think about is impressive. Okay. So then choose. Okay. Once I've looked at, all right, if this role is very focused on email, okay, what are the things I've done around email? All right. So now, now out of those, okay, which one's most impressive? Okay, I'll give that one. So that's the way you want to rank it in your mind. Now, of course, there might be certain ones where it's like, tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult coworker and maybe you weren't doing email marketing at that time. Maybe you were doing brand marketing or, you know, whatever, something else. Um, you might do something else there because the, the center of the question isn't really revolving around that actual expertise. Um, cool. And, um, all right, all right, I'm seeing multiple questions about COVID letters. Um, I'm seeing it from Courtney. And I'm also seeing it again from Wendy. So Courtney asked, should I— what should be included in cover letters? And Wendy says, I've read two conflicting approaches about COVID letters. Are they a waste of time or are they beneficial? So, um, I have gotten some really interesting feedback from clients lately. I built a cover letter tool. Like I said, I, I've built a ton. I basically built a tool for every single tiny piece of your job search, from figuring out exactly what is your, your next job choice to getting all the target companies that would be great for your role and your skill set to, you know, getting your resume, your, your cover letter, your LinkedIn profile, your headline, your about section, your, your interview answers, every single top interview answer, every single, you know, deeper strategy quizzes on to, to practice the strategy, everything, right? And what I've gotten feedback on for the COVID letter stuff is some of my clients will ask— I don't, I don't tell them to ask this, but sometimes they'll be like, oh, what stood out about my application? And we've literally been getting comments, I really liked your cover letter. Now, of course, that's all qualitative data and there's tons of people who don't read cover letters. So I'm never going to sit here and tell you that your cover letter is going to be read, especially once you get to like if you're applying to like really large companies that get a high volume of applications. They are very much like, do you have the exact, you know, do you have the exact expertise? Like, that's what they're looking for. Um, and they're not really focused on cover letters much anyways. So yes, I still tell folks to write cover letters. Um, and you know, one thing you'll notice that a lot of COVID letter generators out there, it'll kind of be like, okay, what job are you going for? Or whatever, or just upload your resume. And That, especially if it's like just upload your resume, that is literally the worst. That is the worst indicator that's going to be a bad cover letter because the COVID letter is not about you and your resume. Your resume is about that. It should not be just repeating what's in your resume. It should be instead focusing on the things that aren't in your resume, such as why are you targeting this role, right? How does what you have to offer matching exactly what they're asking for, right? And these cover letters, the reason why people love them so much is because they're so on the nose of what the hiring team needs to know to make a decision. And they're like less than 7 sentences, which too many of us write really long, really long cover letters. No one wants to read that. Um, okay. Oh, this is an interesting question. So 7th One says, I'm nervous to post anything on social media while my inbound is going so well. I comment on posts, but no original content. Would it expedite the process by showing more active thought leadership? So, um, where your inbound is going so well, well, I don't think it would hurt your inbound. Really, the only reason you shouldn't be posting on social media and actively building relationships commenting, building thought leadership is if you're trying to be more covert about your job search. Now, even, even if that's the case, you shouldn't just be on LinkedIn only when you're job searching. So the idea that, oh, now I'm active on LinkedIn, now it's indicating that I'm on the job search, like, let's correct that for the future. You know, like, let's either post monthly or like, you know, bi-monthly or whatever it is. Like, let's start getting some sort of cadence where you don't feel awkward about being on LinkedIn. Outside of a job search. Okay. So that's the first thing. But yes, I mean, uh, I, I'm very upfront with my clients. Many of my clients never touch thought leadership and land multiple offers. So that is 100% possible. You won't even just survive. You can thrive without it. Now, is it a way to absolutely supercharge your network and get more attention and potentially get more interviews? Yes. Yes, instantly yes. So I would consider it, but is it a requirement? No. Cool. All right, so let's See, oh, this is an interesting question. So Dee says, how can you present portfolio if they've been, have been signed NDAs? How high level, uh, cannot be? So, um, so it kind of depends, right? I've, my entire career has been in HR, so it doesn't really get more sensitive than that, right? Such as I've made some really cool compensation structures. How do I share that? Well, I would take, like, let's say I built it out on a spreadsheet. I would block out the sensitive data. So like, let's say the names of folks, their birthdays, that kind of stuff. And then I would also maybe slightly change some of the titles or even some of like the exact compensation. And so I'm showing them, okay, here's how I modeled the compensation structure. So as you can see, you know, these, these people who are in, in VP and above, they're in this bracket of compensation. And depending on the number of employee they are, here's how the amount of equity shares they got is calculated and blow it, right? So you can actually see a lot and understand the way I would think through building out a compensation philosophy and formula through that spreadsheet, even though a ton of it's redacted and some of it is in some ways inaccurate, not inaccurate in a way that would be deceptive, but inaccurate in a way that where if someone like had that information, it wouldn't be— you couldn't one-to-one match it to what is actually happening in the organization. So, you know, just being creative like that to be able to share things in a way where it's more about showing how you think versus, okay, this is the exact, the exact work product. All right. So many good questions. So I have done a lot of research on asking questions at the end of an interview and have received many different answers. What is the right approach to us for a screening round? Okay. So what, what I interpret the word screening to be, and I'm sure most of us do, but of course I always like to like double-check that we're all on the same page, is first round, right? So screening, like, should you get another interview? Like, are you good? So if there's any interview where asking questions is less important, it would be that one. You still should ask questions. You should still should ask a few questions about the company, about the role. But usually that person, unless you are going for a recruiter role, they're usually not on the team that you are interviewing for. So their answers are going to be higher level. So you might ask things like, what do you think is like the most important like part of this role? Like if we're just, just talk about like what's, what's probably going to be the, the majority of this role would do. Obviously there's tons of skills here, but like What did the hiring manager tend to say that is like kind of the most important focus here? You can ask things like that. You can ask about kind of like some of the company goals this year or, you know, how big is the team? Again, even, even asking a question, how big is the team? They may not even know that. So there's just a lot there. And so you can also ask questions about their perspective. So I see you've worked there for just 3 months. Like, how has it been getting onboarded at the company, like understanding what your goals are, like, do you feel like it was clear? Opposite, they've been there for 3 years. I see you've been there for 3 years. How has it been over time? What has kept you there? Do you feel like it's been easy for you to advocate for yourself for raises and promotions? Right? You can ask about their experience. They're going to eat that up because it's like, oh, you did research on me? Okay. Oh, this is a good one. Yes, Adam says, what is your top tip on quelling interview nerves? I'm qualified and can answer questions, but get all nervous during the interview. Oh my goodness, this is so important to talk about. I had failed so many interviews for about 10 years straight because I— any evaluation really, anytime I was being judged it— I would feel overwhelmed. I would start shaking. My brain would stop working because what happens is we feel— we start pumping cortisol throughout our body, which is the fight or flight, you know, hormone that then gets us— it actually clouds our frontal cortex because we are unable to really process things. And that's, that's the area of the brain we need to make critical decisions and speak really clearly and think clearly. And so it's really tough, right? And so what you need to do is there's 3 things, and I call it PAD. So PAD, for P is prepare. So that means that It's really going through my YouTube channel, right? Going through my courses, whatever it is, like learning the strategies of interviews so that you're thinking of like, okay, like here's typically how you'd answer these questions and here's how I'll prepare my Story Toolbox and here's how I'd deal with situational questions and getting familiar with that because that preparation's important. Now that is where 95% of people stop. And they still fail interviews constantly. So like, what? I have all of these amazing notes and all this like prep. Why am I still failing the interview if I've like, you know, done the mental work? You haven't done the mental work. So it brings us to, um, the A of PAD, which is, um, is associate. Yeah, associate. So how are you going to like associate your brain with certain— a certain message. So for a lot of people who have deep anxiety, what are— what is the kind of message you're associating with that? So is it, I'm being judged, this is a huge opportunity for me, and if I blow it, this could, you know, further spell financial ruin, right? There's these thoughts. We need to change that. So How can you reframe that? And maybe everyone put in the chat how you would reframe that. For me, one of the statements that's helped me is, this is like meeting a future coworker. I just need to chat with them. I need to understand them. That's my job here. They're just the same as me, right? We are equals. Even if they're above me, right? They're still human. Or, you know, they want me to get this job. They want this interview process to end. They want me to be the right person. They asked me to interview here, right? Whatever that is, write that down and speak it to yourself. Now, Adam, this is the third part that, you know, there's several hundred people on this, this live right now. Most of you will never do this, but it is the secret to getting that cortisol to go down on these high-pressure moments. And that is, I need you to do what is called exposure therapy in psychology, right? I have two psychology degrees. That is really the basis of everything I do. And, uh, it's exposure therapy. So what that means is you need to put yourself in stressful situations and answer interview questions. So I need to be answering interview questions in the middle of a quiet coffee shop where people can hear you and it feels really awkward. You should be answering interview questions in the in the mirror while your brother-in-law is in the room and it feels really embarrassing that you're practicing in front of him, right? Like, you need to be doing this in ways that, you know, creates that cortisol spike and you need to learn to manage that. And so that can be hugely important if you practicing it in that way. Perfect. All right. Cool, cool, cool. All right, we have a few minutes left. Um, yes, this is a great question about getting nervous. Love to hear that. Um, oh yes, okay, so Randy says, I pretend they are one of my favorite bosses I've had. I love that. Um, yes, and, uh, change the thoughts. You made it this far. They want you to succeed, and they are interviewing them as much as they are in— and you're interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. Yes, easier said than done. Yes, I love that. That's exactly right. Those are really good ways to reframe this. Um, so, um, let's see, uh, we, we're gonna keep going until the top of the hour. So let's see, we have this question from Susie that says, I've been applying to VP roles at mid-sized companies and reached the conclusion that that ability to trust and connection is Essential. Yes. Thoughts and tips on how to do this well. Love that. That is such a good insight. Yes. Building trust and connection. This is so, so, so important because yes, they, they are like, okay, yes, you have the skills, but do I trust you as a leader? Do I think you're a good communicator? Like the soft skills become so important in this moment. But you can't just say, I'm a great communicator. Everyone loves me. Everyone trusts me. No, you need to show that. So how the heck do you show that? So a few things is really taking that approach of having it be an active conversation. So one thing, a lot of my clients will come back to me and be like, oh my gosh, Madeline, I just had a U.S.-ask interview. And a U.S.-ask interview is where the, the executive who's interviewing you is kind of like, well, I'm here. Yeah. What do you want to talk about? How can I answer your questions? And you're like, whoa. And that's actually how you're often more evaluated about, you know, do, do I trust you? Are you, you know, are you building connection with me? Is by the questions you ask. And so having that deep curiosity about that person, right? I remember interviewing for a role And the interviewer was giving me nothing. Okay, I was the candidate and I was asking him about his experience and he was like, yeah, and so my current team is 15 direct reports. I was like, Jeff, you have 15 direct reports? My goodness, that's a lot of direct reports. Like, how are you handling all that? Like, do you need help? Like, what's going on? And I remember like noticing that like my ability to pick things out of what he said and remark that they were interesting and notice that they were outliers, it softened him. So you being someone who's very knowledgeable about your industry, if they say, "Oh yeah, and so we were able to grow our email list by 25%." It's like, "But your email list was already 500,000." To grow 25% when your email list is already that is already that big is a huge accomplishment. So when you show that you have that type of expertise where you can drop into what they're saying and understand the nuances, that really speaks to them. Also, one of my very, very top strategies that is absolutely killer, and I do a lot of coaching lessons on it in my program, is speaking in frameworks. Okay. So you want to speak with structured thinking. And instead of saying like, oh, okay, you know, you know, answering a question is like, well, I think I would do this, this, this, and this. You want to speak in a more structured way of like, well, there's 3 ways I would handle that. 1, 2, 3. Or the way I'd handle that is I'd approach it through design thinking. So the first step would be empathy, right? So speaking in that way also is like the most delectable, delicious way to speak if you are a leader. Amazing. So this has been so fun to be on here with you. The questions are just absolutely nonstop and absolutely wonderful. And they're also very on topic, which was pretty cool to see as well. Thank you so much for coming on. Let's see, will I be doing one? I think I'll be doing— No, I'm not going to be doing one next week. I know. I am going to be traveling, so I can't do it next week. But the week after that, I believe I'll be doing another live. Please, I know you won't be here. We won't see each other next week, but the week after, please come back. Same time, same place. Okay? We're going to do a great live session. Here with you, Office Hours. I'm gonna send you away with a WiFi high five. I'm seeing lots of love in the chat. Thanks so much, everyone. WiFi high five to you, and thanks everyone for coming live. You guys are absolutely amazing.