How to Ace Every Senior Level Interview

Well, hello. It's so good to be here. I'm Madeleine Mann. Go ahead and say hi in the chat. Say where you are joining us from. And today we are talking about how to ace senior level interviews. This is truly my specialty. I work with a lot of clients who are going for competitive roles. These are jobs that are highly skilled, Maybe they are high-level individual contributor roles. Other times they are, you know, director, VP, C-level roles that also require people management. And no matter which one it is, everything we're gonna talk about today is going to be highly relevant. These are roles where the stakes are higher, right? These companies are paying more for these roles than others. Um, and, and the, these roles have an outsized impact on the organization. They impact the other employees because they are influential people on their team. They impact the strategy as they're highly influential when it comes to key decisions in their function and even in the complete company. So we're going to talk about how to ace those interviews, because if you were pretty decent at acing interviews earlier in your career or for lower-level jobs or for jobs that paid less, you might suddenly get to this point where you're thinking, wait, Why am I not acing them anymore? Or why am I getting pretty far in the process but then not getting the offer? And that can be super frustrating and, uh, a difficult nut to crack. But I want to say hello and welcome. It's so good to see you here. Um, the wonderful thing about today's session is that it is interactive. So I come here live every week to talk to you, to be here in the same space and time as you and answer your questions. And boy, do you have amazing questions. I want to say hi to Donna, Ryan, B. Mark, and Vanessa. Hello. So good to have you all here. Keep saying hi in the chat. It's so great to all be here and talking about interviewing, right? So many of you come to my YouTube channel because you're looking for interview help.. So I know that this is a highly interested topic here. Hello, Jowd. Welcome, welcome, welcome back. I know you come all the time. So good to see you back. So, so go ahead and put your questions in the chat. And I will also say, I'm going to actually put a link in the chat. We are doing an info session today. If you are looking for coaching, we're actually going to do an info session. Let me see. Um, let's see, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, about 5 hours from now we're doing an info session. Okay, so that's at 3 PM Pacific, 6 PM Eastern. So, um, I will go ahead and put that in the chat. This is a very small private session. I know if you're watching on the replay you've probably already missed it. Um, we are, we're trying to keep this, this meeting pretty tight-knit. So if you do want access, if you do want to meet with one of our executive team members, we'll do an info session, all that, which we tend to keep it pretty private. You can go ahead and register at that link so you can get your own unique link to that Zoom session. It's— and you can be literally just having a, a live conversation with our team. So go ahead and put that in there. If you're interested in some job search coaching, you can learn more about it there. All right, Irina's here. Shima, Sophie, Felira. Hello. So good to see you guys. Welcome. All right. So today we're talking about how to ace a senior level interview. One thing you need to think about is that job seekers optimize for time. And once you think about it, I'm going to give you a little bit of explanation of what that means. But think about and put it in the chat. What do companies optimize for? Okay, that's my question to you. Put in the chat. What do companies optimize for? So job seekers optimize for time, meaning that, you know, when you are, when you're job searching, your time is their most precious asset. You do not want to spend a ton of time applying to jobs and interviewing really long interview processes only to get rejected. And so you're optimizing for time. You're thinking, okay, how— what is the most efficient way that I can land multiple offers and decide between them without spending so much time, without, you know, ignoring my family, without getting fired from my current job, right? All of those things. Oh my gosh, look at Mark. He says, reading your book and haven't missed an online session. Thank you for all your insights. That makes me so Happy to hear that. And Victoria's here and Kylie's here. Oh my gosh, so good to see you all. So job seekers are optimizing for time. Your time is extremely precious and the job search absolutely zaps that time away from you. So what are companies optimizing for? This is an interesting one. Karen says proof of impact. I really like that. It wasn't the answer I was thinking of, But it actually, I think, I think in a lot of ways it's extremely related. So I think that this is, this is, that's a really good answer. Let's see, Ali says volume or quality. Okay, I wouldn't say I, I, volume can be interesting, but I would say what I've noticed from hiring for a lot of companies is that volume is actually sometimes something that, that companies want to avoid. It's one of the main reasons that companies will avoid posting a lot of their jobs on the major job boards like LinkedIn, Indeed, all of that, because they don't want a high volume. They just want the best people possible. So they'll like go through the networks, they'll go on niche job boards, they'll, they'll post it in certain places so that they're hopefully getting the right people and not too many people. So they optimize for ROI. Yes, yes. So proof of impact, ROI. Yes, I feel like we're in a very similar ballpark of what I was thinking of. I love this. Okay, so what companies are— for companies optimized for finding the correct candidates? Yes. So really what companies are opting— optimizing for is risk. Okay. Job seekers optimize for time, companies optimize for risk. Okay, write that down. When you realize that hiring is a massive risk, you start to move differently. Okay, that's what you need to start thinking about. A lot of people see companies as this, like, all-powerful, impenetrable force that you can't really hurt them. But you can deeply, deeply hurt a company when they make the wrong hire. And I know lots of you here have hired people before in the past. Say me in the chat if you've ever been someone who's been a hiring manager or on a team who hires another person. You know how scary it is of, if we make the wrong decision, this person could make my life really difficult. They could be really hard to train. They could be immediately asking for a promotion or to move to a different job because they lied about what they were looking for in their next opportunity, or they were completely overqualified. They could destroy morale even if they're a wonderful employee, but they're kind of a job hopper and they just found something else and they leave within a few months, then we have to redo the entire hiring process over again. It takes so much time, it takes so much money, it takes so much headache. And so hiring is a risk, especially when we get to these senior level jobs, because these jobs are really expensive too. So usually, you know, the cost of a bad hire is more than double that person's salary. So financially, it is a huge risk to hire. So now you need to move differently knowing that these companies are not invincible. They are actually scared of you. They are scared. And that's why— have you ever gone through an interview process and the company's hired no one? There's a lot of reasons for that. But one of the reasons is they just were too scared to hire. They said, let's continue to be overworked than have a bad hire. Because you know what happens when you have a bad hire? You, you're more than overworked. You're emotionally exhausted. You're like trying to, you know, retrain that person. You're trying to fix things. You all know anyone who's been in that situation, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So I need you to start shifting, shifting your mentality of how do I risk manage here? Oh my gosh. Nuvik says, thank you for your insights. I use your YouTube videos every single time I interview for the last 4 years. Oh my gosh, I love to hear that. That is so great to hear. And then Mark says, oh my gosh, I've absolutely had a few of those problem hires early in my management career. Yes, that is huge. Exactly. And it takes up your whole week, right? It's like every day you're trying to manage this person, all that. So here's the issue is that if you're going for senior level roles, you being a bad hire now impacts so much more of the organization. It impacts it strategically and impacts the people reporting to you. It impacts, you know, the vast number of touchpoints you are having in the organization. So how do we then risk manage? Let's talk about it. So one of the most important things to do is to show them what it would be like to work with you. Here's the issue. Interviewing does not do that. What does interviewing do? Interviewing shows who in the candidate pool is the best at interviewing. Also, interviewers are notoriously bad at asking great questions. Why are they asking things like, where do you see yourself in 5 years? And you know what, uh, you know what, how many light bulbs are there in San Francisco? Like all these things that they have this you know, pop psychology reason for asking. But it doesn't actually get to the core root of, is this person going to actually be a great fit? As well as they'll ask questions. And, you know, you, you've experienced this. They'll ask questions and then you'll watch my channel and realize, oh, the intention of that question is actually completely different than what they asked. Just even take, tell me about yourself, for example. Tell me about yourself. Really, the question they're asking is, Hey, I just, I just came from another meeting. I haven't— I either haven't read your resume, or it's been a minute since I've read the resume. Just tell me what is relevant on your resume just to get my head on straight so that we can just kind of frame this conversation. That's what they're asking. They're not asking— they do not want to hear about your employment history. They don't care. They care about what is relevant to me. What's the information relevant to me to make this call as smooth as possible? And please make it quick because this is not This is not the main event. This is just to get the ball rolling because I'm switching context from other meetings. And frankly, I didn't prepare for this meeting very well. Right. Because you don't need to actually tell them about yourself because you already did. That's called your LinkedIn. That's called your resume. It's called your cover letter. Okay. You already told them about yourself. Why would they be asking that? Because they are trying to get you to lead them. And that is what you have to realize when you're going for senior level roles. You need to be more comfortable leading in an interview, not in a way where you are you are changing what they're asking or, you know, strong-arming the interview. When you actually lead the interview, and this is a huge thing I teach my clients, the interviewer doesn't actually realize that you're doing that. And they get off the call and they say, that was the best interview of the week. But it's because they don't know how to ask the right questions to get the right responses. So if we're going back to the premise, that you need to show what it would be like to work with you, then you need to go into the interview with a game plan of how you're going to show that. The worst thing you could do, especially for senior level interviews— this will work, this works if you're going for junior level roles. You can just sit there and wait for them to ask you questions and just do your best to answer them. That's fine for junior level. Once you get to higher level roles and higher paying roles, the stakes change. You can't go in without a plan. Sometimes you can, you can luck out. And they can maybe ask you great questions and you can— your experience is extremely relevant. So it all works out. But the reason why my clients are landing 2, 3, 4 job offers in this job market, whereas others, other, you know, job seekers are saying, I can barely get one interview, is often because they're going into these interviews with a plan. And so they're making sure that the that the question mark of is this person going to be a good interviewer is, is kind of not that important. Um, yes, the risk is even bigger when you hire the wrong senior candidate. That is 100% true. That is exactly, that is exactly what I'm saying. So when, um, so let me give you an example. So my client Matt, he was going for senior level, I think, right? I think when in my program he obtained a VP of Sales role, which is so interesting because he came into my program and he said, Madeline, I hate selling myself. I find it extremely awkward in the interview to sell myself. And that is so interesting. And that's the same. I have so many clients that are working, that work in sales and that work in marketing, and they can sell anything. They can sell a web to a spider, right? They can market a glass of water to a fish. So they're so good at that, but when it comes to themselves, they're sitting in the bottle and they can't read the label. They're too close to their own experience. And so, what Matt was doing before he was in my coaching is he was saying things like, "Well, I have 20 years of sales experience. Well, I have this. I have a technical sales degree. Well, I have these accomplishments." And that's not what they want to hear. We think that that's selling. That's not what they want to hear. Instead, he started showing up to his interviews almost as if he was already a hired consultant, almost as if he was already on the team. And so he started, you know, he would, he would be really engaged in his interviews. He'll say, well, you know, tell me about this. And then they would say this and he'd say, well, here's how I see that. And he almost felt like they were in a meeting with a coworker, with their already leader, instead of someone who's like, well, you know, did you know that I have all the right qualifications and I have this certification? No. So what they did is he displayed his expertise. So that was huge. And so he got multiple offers and he got an— and I think the offer he got was $80,000 more than the role he had gotten before he got coaching. So that was phenomenal to hear. Yes. And Shima says, I agree with Matt, even though I've been trying this, it feels So cringe. How do we get over this? Well, it's exactly what I just said, Shima. It's you don't sell yourself. Stop selling yourself. You don't have to. If you're showing what it's like to work with you, like if you're already a hired consultant who has worked for a company, you're not going to go into the meeting and start selling yourself. No, you're going to start going to the meeting and solving problems and thinking through things. So just stop and get that mentality out of your head. Oh my gosh. Classy K says, thanks, Madeline. You have given me great tips even when pregnant and interviewing for my current job where I'm excelling at it for 3 years. You're my source for all professional development materials. Oh my gosh, you all, I am a words of affirmation person, okay? Literally, y'all, I've been doing this for, I think, I don't know, 8 years, putting myself out there online, sharing these things. And, you know, every single video I put out is takes so much time, so much energy, um, and I'm just so glad that it is helping you all, um, and been helping millions of people. It just, it really makes it all worth it. Um, so, um, when— and you know, it's interesting because, let's see, Mark said it earlier. Mark mentioned my book earlier. Let me see if I can find that. Reading your book. Okay, so here's something interesting, you guys, because I think a lot of you are afraid— I've gotten this question before— of what if we give away too much in the interview and they steal our work? Oh no. Okay, so first of all, frankly, they're hiring someone because no one else wants to do this work. Okay? They, they like— even if you give people the most amazing strategy, execution is where 90% of the actual work comes from. So that's the first thing. Second thing is, I came out with my book, got published by Penguin Random House a little over a year ago, April 1st, 2025. In that time, in that book, I go very— it's very detailed. I've gotten so many amazing success stories from that book and people being like, wow, this is a system that finally works in the job search and it's amazing in this job market. Do you think my number of clients has gone up or down? Since releasing a book that has the formula to land a job in this market? It's gone up. Why? Why would that make sense? I'm getting— I'm giving— you guys can just go to the library. You don't have to pay anything. You can just get it for free. Just go to library, get my book. Why does it go up? Because people, when people see, like, spend the time with me reading and all that, they go, oh snap, She knows ball. She actually knows what she's talking about. This is, you know, 270 pages of proof that she knows exactly what she's doing. And that's another reason why I go live, is so that you guys can see I'm unscripted. I can answer any of your questions on the fly. I know exactly what I'm doing. I know I'm amazing at what I do. And I know I can get people, you know, I know that I can help thousands of people land job offers. So When it's actually the more you give, the more you get. And that's my mentality. So, so, you know, we have to stop thinking like, you know, I created a manifesto, right? I published it, I made it accessible to anyone in the world and I got more clients, right? And that's the same thing you need to think about when you're putting for jobs is stop being so like, oh, what if they take this information or whatnot? No, actually the more you are showing what it's like to work with you, the more opportunities you will get. Oh, okay, this is— let's see. I— oh, I like this. I'm sorry, I missed this question earlier. I think someone asked me, what's— what is— what small talk is best to start with? I feel like I'm losing the game in the first 30 seconds. Okay, Nicole, here's something really easy to do. So first of all, when someone asks you, how are you doing, let's do something a little different. Okay, now the thing about small talk is that people are grateful, even if you just volunteer really dumb information. Like, let's say, um, you know, if you ask— if Nicole, if you ask me, Madeline, like, how are you doing today? I might say, um, great. So I always say— I always say something, always make it positive, never negative in an interview, okay? With your friends and your family, you can totally make it negative, but always Choose something great. So you can say something like, oh my gosh, amazing. I, I made myself a giant fruit smoothie. And so I, you know, I'm going out, right? Whatever. You know, just something that— or, or, oh, it was incredible. I actually got to do some yoga this morning before launching into my workday, which was phenomenal. And then they can either pick up the bait or, or not. Right. So and that's another thing for you is if they volunteer information, like they might say something like, hey, sorry, I just got off a call. 'Um, you know, my— we're doing construction on my house,' right? When anyone volunteers a little piece of information, that's your thing to hold on to. So you might say something like, 'Oh my gosh, you know, how many months is it going to take?' Or, 'Um, is it— are you really— you know, is there a big change that you're really excited about that's going to happen to your house?' Whatever it is, right? Um, uh, you know, 'Are the contractors on schedule?' I feel like they're famously, you know, the The timeline gets thrown out the window, right? You just— it's a bid for just further communication. So I would, I would do things like that. All right. Let's see what other questions we have. So how do you figure out the interview during the interview, what the team dynamics are really like? So Nicole, Nicole again, it's got some great questions here. So how do you figure out the team dynamics? So I would say instead of— I think a lot of people are given advice like, ask about the team dynamics, like just kind of like, what are the team dynamics? Which you could do that. But usually people, the way humans' brains work is there is kind of like a web of memories and you need to trigger things that are closer to that web so they can think of it. So for example, what about the dynamic dynamics do you want to know? Be more specific. So let's say you want to understand how collaborative the team is. So you might say, with this role, like, which, which team members will I be collaborating with? And, you know, are they— is that collaboration already happening or would I have to shepherd that or whatnot? Right. Whatever it is. Right. Whatever is the team dynamic you want to hear about. If you wanted to understand, is this a team dynamic where you're expected to work around the clock? You might ask something like, Um, uh, how many days a week do you guys typically work, uh, past 6 PM, right? Or how many days in the past week did you work past 6 PM? You know, those types of things where you're just kind of getting an understanding, a pulse, um, of that. So, so you, you just want to think about what you actually want to know and work backwards from that. So how do you get past ageism? So Donna Okay, so I have a ton of, ton of content on this, especially my coaching goes into this. Over 40% of my clients report ageism as a challenge for them in the job search. And I would say, last week I went live at this exact same time for a session called How to Job Search Over the Age of 40. And we talked a lot about ageism there. And I remember one of the attendees You'll see his comment, I think, pop up on the screen. He was like, this was one of your most helpful sessions you've done. So I would definitely say check that out. But I would say that ageism is one thing that if that's something you're experiencing, possibly come to— let me put in the chat the info session— come to the info session today because that's a huge— I just put it in the chat, the link to it. For job search coaching, I have a ton of clients who I, I coach around ageism. And I have seen statistically no difference in time to hire for, for my clients under 40 versus over 40. So, so that's been great. Are people still job hugging, says Nicole. It is a low resignation time. If you were looking at the data, fewer people are resigning. So I would say that yes, there are, there are people who are on the more, more people are staying at jobs even if they're not super happy with them versus different, different times. So let's see. Good. Good point. Proof of concept, as engineers would say. Okay, so Pam says, every conversation I would ask AI, what would Madeline say? Thank you, Madeline. Okay, so I will say this: AI lies a lot about me. I actually created a Madeline AI that has over 1 million words that I have written or spoken. Even including like this live session today will immediately be put into my AI mind because I was testing this on AI and it would say things like, well, what's Madeline's glory formula? And it would say so confidently, it'd be like, gee, go, you know, get lots of contacts, right? Like things that are just not true. Like it would just create What glory is? And it would just make it up and it would sound really good, actually. So AI lies a lot. I wouldn't, I wouldn't actually trust this. It would probably kind of put things in my voice and a little bit like that. But I will say I did build out an entire AI mind that I give to my clients. And so if you're interested in that, kind of have like 24/7 Madeline mind, definitely you could definitely maybe even just come to the info session today. Um, yes. Okay, so, um, I had an executive assistant to the CEO position and have been laid off. I'm so sorry. I'm completely beside myself about interviewing. I was— as I was with my old company for 14 years and things have changed so much since I interviewed for my last job. What do you think is the absolute most important thing to do during an interview? Yes, I have so many clients who have experienced this where they're getting back to the interview game. And what we have to acknowledge here is that interviewing is a skill. Okay. So we— Roseanne, you are probably amazing at your job, but you might not be amazing interviewing. And just those two things are not the same. Okay, so they're two separate items. So you— the first thing is that you are here right now. That means you probably watch my YouTube channel. Maybe, maybe, maybe you just kind of— well, actually, no, you're on LinkedIn, so maybe you just kind of stumbled upon me or whatnot. But just know I do have a YouTube channel filled with interview advice and how to be interviewing. So first of all, you're already like on the right path. Okay. Because interviewing is a skill. So you need to get familiar with not only what are some of the common questions you'll be asked, but you also need to start mining your past experiences for really good examples. Because here's the bottom line, and this is what's super important for everyone listening who is going for these more senior roles, these more highly skilled roles, these more highly paid roles. One of the biggest things that gets people rejected, especially when I'm hiring for leadership roles, is they're not specific. They say, well, I mean, I've been doing this for 20 years, I've been doing this for 40 years. Yeah, like, you know, that happens all the time. And they can't get to the specifics. Well, how did you do it? Oh, can you give a specific example of when you did that? And frankly, they keep everything super high level. And guess what? They don't get the job. But they kind of brush it off because they're thinking, well, you know, the question you're asking me about a time I had to deal with a, you know, a challenging, you know, scheduling situation or difficult executive. Yes, that happened all the time.. So you need to start taking it really seriously of getting those examples. And, you know, definitely, I mean, I would say grab my book, Reverse the Search. That will help you a lot as well as if you want to come to today's info session, I just put that in the chat. I think it also pops up on LinkedIn as well. As well as I have a ton of free resources on my website, www. I'll put this also in the chat, MadelineMann.com. And I think it's resources. Let's see. And those are a bunch of free resources like the Story Toolbox that I think you should definitely use and all of that. Um, oh no, it's not resources. Let's see, it's called free resources. Okay, let's put that in the chat too, um, so that you can really start preparing. Because you're right, um, that is, uh, that it's, it's a skill that you need to build that you haven't had to build in the past 14 years. How to treat the CEO in the interview, challenge them, sharing results. Yeah. So I love this question. I have coached a ton of people through CEO interviews as well as I've been interviewed by many, many CEOs in my career as interviewing for head of HR jobs. And frankly, I'm damn good at it. So let me tell you a few things now. A CEO who is a hired CEO versus a CEO who is a founder are a little, a little bit different. Okay. If your CEO is also the founder, think of her or him like a parent of a child, and you are interviewing to, you know, take care of their child, right? They have so much pride. Their entire life revolves around this company. This is, this is their identity. And so the more you can come into the interview with amazing questions and amazing resources, they— that amazing research, they are going to— and even straight up compliments. Complimenting a founder goes a long way. I remember being in an interview with a founder and CEO, and I said to him, we were like 3 interviews deep at this point. He'd met with me already like a couple of times. He was really giving me the hard sell. Some of my former coworkers already worked at the company, so I basically had the job. They just wanted to sell me on the opportunity, which I ended up declining. And he was like, I sat there and I said, one thing that's really stood out to me is that the employees here are incredible. You've assembled a really amazing team. They deeply respect you. And there's just blah, blah, blah, right? I gave a few true genuine compliments. And I could see the tears in his eyes. That is what you want to show a founder is true appreciation for the work they've done. And it of course has to be authentic. You don't want to just be blowing smoke. That's, that's embarrassing. For like a CEO who's hired, a lot of times they will do a you ask interview. A you ask interview is where they expect that you are going to ask all the questions. And so you might, you know, they might ask you a couple things and they might grill you a little bit. And yes, having the right results and all that kind of stuff is great. But they are going to probably expect that you're asking them lots of questions. And so you need to be prepared for that. And they need to be smart questions. I didn't know that 40 was a part of ageism already, says Angelina. I mean, 40 is incredibly young. But even in the world of HR, there are certain, even certain requirements and provisions that start at 40 to deter ageism, such as, you know, when signing certain like exit agreements, that kind of stuff, people over 40 tend to get more time to do it so that they're less coerced. Like, there's just a lot of things like that. I know 40 is incredibly young, And 40 is very much, you know, completely in your professional prime. But I put the session as, you know, job searching over 40 because I just have so many clients who are in that bucket and I wanted to speak to that group. How do you get past the ATS in spite of, of customizing resumes using AI? It's hard to get by the ATS. So, so a lot of my clients tend to get anywhere from 30 to 50% of their applications accepted and get an interview from their applications when they apply online. The reason being is, first of all, you have to have the right timing, right? So that's, that's tough, right? So Second of all, you have to be compatible. So that includes, you know, making sure that your application is amazing. And so that's, I think, like, you know, I don't know what, you know, you say, people say like using AI, I don't really know what that means. That's like saying like, I use the internet, you know, it's like, okay, but which, which tool are you using? Are you just using a general, you know, LLM model, you know, or LL, language learning model. There we go. Or are you actually using a very specific tool? Like I've built very specific tools built after, modeled after my Glory Formula, and that's what's working, right? So I'm not sure exactly what tool you're using, but, you know, make sure that, you know, we have our, we have a bespoke tool, a proprietary tool that we have our clients use, and then we also are editing it as coaches. So that it's like very, very good. And then, and then your application has to actually be seen. So the issue that we're running into right now is that there's tons of tools that will like auto-apply to things to hundreds or even thousands of jobs. And that is actually making it so that the people who are legitimately qualified are getting buried. So, so that's why you don't know when you apply if your application is going to be seen.. And so that's why it's super important that you are taking measures outside of the ATS to make sure that you are getting noticed by the company. All right. Oh my gosh. Okay. Large language model. There we go. Thank you. Thank you, David. You guys are great. Okay. Claude perplexity. Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's like a, that's like a giant. That's like me saying like I use Chrome or Safari, right? It's like, okay, you know, but, but, you know, it would— it comes down to the prompts. And, you know, are you creating, um, you know, certain tools on top of those tools? Like that, I wouldn't just kind of, uh— yay, Rosanne! I've already signed up with you and purchased a package. I'm looking forward to all your help. Yes, I'm so excited. Let's work together. Um, I'm so excited for you you to have incredible results. Let's go. All right. So let's see. Why do hiring managers ask technical details while they are hiring for a management position and then make the hiring decision based on the technical knowledge of the candidate while ignoring his management and problem-solving skills? Says, yeah, such an interesting question. So one of the things I had actually written down today about this session is one of the major things that gets someone who especially is like a people manager rejected is because they don't seem like they actually know how to do the job. They've been out of it for so long. They've been kind of sitting in their— this is the way they're perceived. Okay. It feels like they've been sitting in their ivory tower for so long that if I ask them, okay, well, how would you execute this? They can't even describe it. They would say like, well, I would tell the team member to execute it. Right. Now, if you're going for really large companies, it's less important. But if you're going for like a smaller or mid-sized company, that means that they— there's going to be times where you need to be the one who is executing something or, you know, being a little bit more detail-oriented. You know, if you're, if you're a marketer on a small team, even if you're the VP, sometimes you might be the one who's editing the text on the website, right? It's a small task, but you need to be able to do it. So that is why they sometimes get this fixation of, I want to make sure that this person actually has the expertise. Now, you bring up the good point that once you're a people manager, and especially depending on how large your team is, the management and the problem-solving skills are so much more important than the individual technical skills. But yes, it depends on the, the company, especially the company size. And they do fixate on it quite a bit. And then you get into the job, you're like, this isn't that big of a part of the job. Pam says, how do we know how well we have done in an interview? I so wish I could record all my interviews to learn. I would get insights that way. Yes. So that is actually how my clients get feedback. We have found, like, that's one of the reasons why my clients have such dramatic transformations is because they go into real interviews. They get— they— my clients tend to get a lot of interviews, and then they go into the interview, and then they— I then listen to the recording, or another coach listens to a recording, and we say, okay, here's where you got the interviewer really interested, and here's where the interviewer stopped listening. Like, I, I had a client who came to me. She, she ended up getting 2 job offers, so, and everything ended up working out, but She went through an interview and she lost. She didn't get the offer and she was super upset. And I said, well, do you have the recording of it? She said, yes. Okay, well, give it to me. Let me, let me tell you. And I was able to pinpoint the very— there was two moments that happened at the interview. I was like, well, those are the two moments that made it so that you were not no longer qualifying for this role. And she goes, oh my gosh, I did not realize that that was what happened. So that is huge. You're absolutely right. This is— I would say this is the number one way to get interview feedback because I can, I can listen. I know exactly what the interviewer is thinking. There's been very few times where I've been like, I'm confused. Of course, there's obviously things that are happening in the background, like there's an internal candidate, someone just resigned, and now they're rethinking which opportunities are there. And so there's a lot of things that you as a, as a person just can't help. All right. How to handle several years out of the market. And how to address concerns of being up to date. Yes, Karen, so many of my clients, um, come with this question, so I'm really glad you're, you're, you're asking this. Um, and it's— I just want to first also say it's super normal, you know, especially a lot of us have recent gaps, like a gap from present to even like a couple of years, 3 years, several years you say in your question, several years. That's really normal. OK, so here's what you need to do. There's several things. First of all, they are going to ask you how— they are going to ask you, are you— you know, are your skills up to date? And frankly, y'all, we can't be insulted by that question. That is a really good question, because if any of us have taken several years off of doing anything, you know, speaking a certain language, playing a certain sport, you know, doing a certain profession, You get rusty. So we can't be insulted by this. So you need to be like, the best way to get hired is to be someone who you would want to hire. Okay, so what, what would that be? How are you going to get sharp again? I, that's something I help my clients with is I help them get creative of, you don't actually have to get hired by a company to get work experience working with a company. Sometimes you do things that are pro bono. People are like, like, job seekers are weird about doing some pro bono work to like build up their skills, but they're very happy to shell out thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars on degrees and certifications, things that are much less likely to get you in the door at a company versus like doing several hours of kind of like a pro bono project. That is, uh, an incredible thing to talk about. In interviews, on your resume, all those things that open doors. So I would say make sure to do that and make sure to be able to communicate what, what, what you've been doing during this time. Because frankly, if it's just like, I've just been looking for a job the past 3 years, that's not going to cut it. You do need to have— show that you have built those skills. If you're interviewing for a director or VP, how do you treat the CEO? How do you treat the CEO? That's an interesting way of framing it. I don't necessarily think I would change my answer from before. So when I, when I mentioned earlier that you should be asking really good questions, that's— I think that's a really— it's the main focus. And I think you should, again, what I said earlier, which is displaying what it would be like to work with you, like viewing the meeting with the CEO as a collaborative time where you're almost, you're almost like telling them what would be your plan to execute if you're in this role. And if you don't have a plan, you need to ask them enough questions so that you could build an idea of what that plan would be. I noticed that some companies have been interviewing, but they hire internally. How do you get over the hurdle when you're an external candidate. So here's what I'll say here. Um, companies don't just interview for fun. Interviewing takes a ton of energy. And if they had already thought that that internal candidate was the right one, they wouldn't have put out the job req. They would just hire that person. That happens all the time. So, and I've worked at plenty of companies where the internal candidates, you know, put themselves forward and we are not sure that we're going to hire them, and then sometimes we don't. That's always been kind of an awkward thing when we bring someone in from the outside and we don't hire the internal candidate. So I, I wouldn't view internal candidates as some sort of immovable object, some, some kind of obstacle that is impenetrable. Um, but you do just need to bring the heat. Okay. I've had a lot of clients beat out internal candidates. I've also had a lot of clients land contractor roles, and then they became the internal candidate, and then they landed the full-time role. That's like a huge pipeline that I've been working lately with clients. So you need to up your game. Okay, straight up. It's just you got to be better at communicating how you're going to be great. And it's not, it's not a death sentence when there's an internal candidate. In the pipeline. What does, what does look good like in the first 2 minutes of an executive interview? Small talk, then 30-second pitch to introduce myself. How do I best lead? So I would say a pitch, I wouldn't call it a pitch. I wouldn't call it a pitch. I think, as I said earlier, I would move away from this idea that we need to sell ourselves or that we need to pitch ourselves. I think we need to start focusing more on the company. Okay, so, so when you're thinking about it, instead of— because here's, here's how most of us were taught how to interview. Okay, this is how I was taught. What is amazing about you? What is unique? What is your unique selling point that other teammates don't have? Okay, now emphasize that. Now make a pitch. Now, oh, what you should start off your cover letter and your, your, your tell me about yourself is with something that's eye-catching. That's something, oh, they haven't heard that before. All that's baloney. All of that is baloney. Okay. You know, you know what they want to hear about? They want to hear about how you're going to answer, solve their problems. Okay. So if they're asking, tell me about yourself, they're not asking, tell me about yourself. They're asking, what have you done that's relevant to us? So you might say like something about how like, The— like, you— even if you've worked at 12 different industries, you only focus on the one, the one that they are in. Okay, when you're— when they're talking about your skills, even if, you know, the skills that are for this job, you only spent 20% of your time in your last job doing it, 100% of when you're talking about that last job is going to be about those 20% of the skills. You got me? We really gotta, uh, we really gotta zero in. On that. Okay. Um, can you give an example of the interview game plan? I'm not sure what that means. I don't know what the interview game plan is. But I do have a lot of videos online, such as I recently came out with one, which was like how to do a phone interview for, for senior level interviews. So that goes through like the 9 questions of a first first round phone interviews. That's kind of like the game plan, right? So I would say watch that and that can be super helpful. Yes. So David says knowing people at a company can definitely help, especially with regards to getting an interview. However, it doesn't mean you're going to get the job offer these days. Exactly. Because in the end, right, it's all about— it's— we're all about— we're freaked out about risk, right? And so we don't, we don't want to hire the wrong person. Just because you know someone doesn't mean that you're the right person. Would it be okay to ask after you tell the hiring interviewer about yourself to ask them to tell you about themselves and ask how I can support you, trying to turn it into a conversation? I would say it depends on the vibe of the interview. I think, yeah, I think potentially in a hiring manager interview I would do like pretty naturally. So if you're talking about yourself, um, and, uh, a lot of times they volunteer this information, but I totally think it's fine, um, at either the beginning of the interview or, or a few minutes in or whatever it is to say, and so you are— and so you, you've led this team for how many years? Like 3 years, I look like on, on LinkedIn. Got it. And so This role would be reporting to you in doing this way, right? So I think, I think asking questions like that is, is great. And so I just feel it out. Typically in a first round interview, it's like boom, boom, boom, boom. They're just trying to get through their questions. But especially if it's with a hiring manager, I think they'd like that. I think they'd like to discuss it with you. So I love that approach. All right. Yes. Napturnal says, listening today while working on my first show, don't tell. I love that. Love to hear it. Okay, cool. So would it be all right to tell the hiring manager about yourself? Oh, oh, wait. I think we already read— we answered that one. I've been using the STAR format in leadership interviews. However, I realize the gap that I need to showcase my character. How do I think why it mattered rather than just the actions? Okay, so, uh, AJ, I'm so glad you obviously watch my channel. You guys, uh, I put out a video a few weeks ago called about the CTO test. You should probably see that on the thumbnail, um, about how to do behavioral interviews for senior level roles. So. And it's a really— I mean, I was gonna say it's a really good video. It's not— that's not really for me to judge. But the principles that I teach in that video, I have seen have amazing results in interviews. So that's something I can, I can claim. And that's what AJ is bringing up is that he realized that he was doing the STAR answers, but he was not passing the CTO test. And that is something something you have to realize is that everyone's stepping up their interview game at this point. Everyone has access to the same information you are. Now, are they actually accessing it in the way that you are and showing up to these things? Not that many people are doing this. But what I will say is that, uh, pretty much most people already know about the STAR formula. Okay, your, your competition's all doing it. But I put a video out where if you also pass the CTO test, you are going to do so much better in the interview and it's going to enhance your STAR answers so, so, so much more. So I would say definitely watch that video as well as I'm seeing some more new people in the chat. So we are doing an info session in several hours later today for if you want some coaching and I will go ahead and link that in the chat. Oh, I copied a different. Okay, cool. Um, so that's this thing here. Let me actually see if I can— oops, let me see if I can re-paste it. Here we go. Um, so, um, definitely register. It is pretty limited, um, capacity, so if you do get declined, also make sure you show up at least, you know, within the first 5 minutes because we will not let in anyone else after the 5 minutes. It's not like a really long meeting or anything. And of course, if you at least miss the first 5 minutes, you're probably not going to be able to catch up. So definitely, definitely come to that later today. All right. What about an interview with the interviewer that seems already perturbed even before you've started? How can you sway them to your side and become positive, says Jeff? Oh yes, I love this one. So First, first thing you have to do, you have to assume everyone likes you. Okay? Because the bottom line is, they desperately want to hire you. Ask anyone. No one likes to take time out of their job to interview a bunch of candidates. They want to hire someone so that they have less work to do. So it is actually really great to— if you are the right person, for you to move on. So So if they're perturbed, first of all, you do not— don't accept that energy. You always assume positive intent. So you never assume, well, this person's mad at me, or this person doesn't like me, or something like that. I also posted about this the other day. I had, um, like I said, I listened to my clients' interviews, and one was really flustered because the interviewer kept asking him over and over again, like, you know, well, what's your experience with with hourly employees. And what kept, like, kept repeating that question. And he felt like, dude, this is, this is a lot. Like, why, why you keep repeating us? We sometimes misinterpret things where the interviewer continues to challenge us on a point because they're trying to give us another chance to succeed. So we need to, or, you know, I've had a lot of clients interview with CEOs and they'll push back. They'll just intentionally be like, well, why would you think that? Well, wouldn't it make sense more to do this way? And a lot of people will take that the wrong way. But know that anytime you're challenged in an interview, it's because they're giving you an opportunity to overcome that challenge. The worst, which happens more often than them challenging you, is they don't bring up what they disagree with, or they don't bring up something to challenge you, or they don't bring up the things that they feel are possibly wrong with your candidacy. Because they're just like, oh well, this person isn't great because of this reason. And so anytime someone challenges you, think of that as an invitation versus a I don't like you. Um, I got, uh, all the way to the final round of 2, including in-person meetings, lunch, and presentation. I felt off as I was going through the interviews and couldn't recover. How do I avoid that? So, um, I would say, and I've done a lot of content on this, and maybe, you know, it might be good for you actually to go to, um, my, uh, Unshakeable, Unshakeable Interviews, uh, masterclass, because being nervous in interviews is something that is so, so common. It's something that I struggled with for many, many years, and it ended up losing me a lot of job opportunities and just opportunities in general. And so there are several different strategies you need to do, um, to ensure that you are really kind of getting your nervous system set and getting prepared and kind of putting yourself in these situations before you're actually in it. Um, so here I'll put Inshippable Interviews Masterclass in the chat. I just popped it in there. And definitely, that's a free class. Definitely check that out. Because I totally know what you mean. It's when, when the stakes are high, it can just absolutely hijack you. And you think, you look back on that interview, and you think, well, I should have just said this, you know, it's like, once you have, once you're calmed down, once your body doesn't feel like you're being chased by a tiger, you think, oh, well, I should have just said this, but I was too overwhelmed in the moment. That is so, so normal. Um, yeah. Um, all right, so, uh, Zia says, I've heard from a number of coaches that interview is not a num— no, not a one-way road. What advice would you give us to convert the conversation of interview into a conversation while the interviewer wants you to just answer their questions. Well, I would challenge this. I would say that the interviewer doesn't necessarily just want to answer their questions. And interviews actually often, not always, but often appreciate it to feel more like a conversation. So there's so many times when I've listened to my clients' interviews, and afterwards, they'll say something like, where I'll be like, hey, like, how come you responded that way? And one of my clients went, well, I didn't understand what he was referring to when he asked that question. I said, you know, you could just ask. You could ask in the interview of, you know, well, how would you build this out? It's like, well, you know, just so I can understand, like, you know, I've done it multiple these types of ways. Are you guys doing it this type of way or this type of way? Because I can give you different examples depending on how you do it. Oh, we do it this kind of way. Okay. So based on what I understand what you do, I did this and how we would do that. You know, I probably do it slightly different because you guys do this. Is that kind of what, what you would imagine as well? Yes, I would imagine that too, because, well, you said this and it's like, well, have you considered doing this? Oh, that's a good idea. Right. It just turns like instead of just thinking like too many people see an interview like an exam where you are asked the question and you just have to answer it.. But if you see it more as like a collaborative moment of, well, let me tell you this and like, how about this? And blah, blah, blah. It can completely transform. I have a lot of trainings in my coaching program around this. A huge, a huge portion of this is devoted to this because this is an amazing skill that I completely agree. And so, so that's, that's huge. I love that. All right. Um, well, thank you so much for coming to this session. Um, it is always a blast to be here with you live. If you could throw a Wi-Fi high five in the chat, it would make my day. Um, as, as I said, um, you know, we do have an info session coming up later today. If you are watching this after the fact, you to madelamand.com/coaching to see if there's any way for you to talk to our team, um, after the fact. But I would say coming to this info session today will be super helpful if you're interested in, in coaching and all that. So I'll go ahead and throw that link in the chat. Um, it has been so much fun to come on this live with you. I'm here every Tuesday, or mostly every Tuesday, at 10:00 AM, uh, Pacific 1 PM Eastern, and it's always fun to see you all. Thanks for this session. Oh yes, let's get you guys up on the screen. We got the Wi-Fi high fives, woo, from Becky and Barry and C and Nicole and Susie and Donna and Karen. Thank you so much for coming today. As always, you always bring the energy, you always bring great questions, and it is absolutely my pleasure to be here with you, um, and I will see you next time. And hopefully, uh, we'll see you guys, uh, at the next thing. All right, whoop!