What to Say in an Interview to Stand Out (10 Phrases That Work)

In this video, I'm going to teach you 10 things that I said in job interviews that can land you 3 competing offers like they did for me. Now, these phrases, sentences, psychological triggers as I like to call them, will help to build trust with the interviewer and help them feel safe to hire you, safe to trust you, and so on and so forth. So let's get into it. The first one is, I don't take things personally. And I back this up with a statement. So I might say, for example, once somebody criticized some work that I'd done in PowerPoint and they didn't like the way that I had laid out the slides. And I didn't take that personally at all. I simply asked them, oh, what is it about it that you don't like? And I got curious and we had a discussion about it and then I made some tweaks and then it was ready to go. And I just wanted to hear them out 'cause I didn't know, I was just curious about what they didn't like. So that's number 1, don't take things personally. And back it up, because it's not just enough— it's not enough to just say I don't take things personally. You have to share an example of exactly how you mean that. So by me sharing that somebody gave me some feedback that they didn't like something I did, and I was able to respond with, oh, tell me why you didn't like it, that is showing, not telling them that I don't take things personally. It's actually proving it. On to number 2. Number 2 is I like to say something like, I know hiring is a challenge and it's always a risk. So let me know if there's anything that I can clarify for you or anything that I don't mention. I'm happy to give you references or work samples or anything you need. Now what this does is it shows empathy towards them. It shows how tough their decision is, how you're kind of putting yourself in their shoes by saying, I understand if you don't trust me because we just met, and if you do need anything from me, I'm happy to provide it. I did this in one of the interviews and I landed the job offer for this job. And the response that I got from that particular hiring manager was he looked at me and he said, you seem very trustworthy to me. So it worked in providing him an extra safety net to say, hey, if I understand you don't know me and I could be talking total BS here. So if you need some proof to back up what I'm saying, I'm happy to provide that for you. All right. Number 3, I like to say at the end of the interview, Regardless of whatever you decide, I really enjoyed meeting you and the team, learning about your company, and the discussion that we had was awesome. So let me know when I should follow up. If I don't hear from you, I'll follow up within a week. Does that work for you? And this does 2 things. So first of all, it's gonna take the pressure off. It's gonna say, regardless of what you decide, this was awesome. If you actually feel it was awesome, don't lie. But if, if you really did enjoy the conversation, then let them know that and tell them that regardless of what they decide, you still were happy that you showed up for the interview. And then the second thing it does is it just gives you a, a follow-up date so you don't have to be second-guessing. You don't have to be like, ah, should I follow up? Should I not follow up? When should I follow up? Blah blah blah. Because you're just telling them that and you're just kind of getting it out of the way there. And you're not putting pressure on them to say, when will you know by? When will you decide? Right? Because they don't like that and they might not know. And that way you control the narrative by saying, if I don't hear from you, I'll follow up in about a week. All right, number 4. You can— I, I would say this because this was very true to me. I would say, I really love feedback. I think it makes me better. I think it makes working relationships better. And I think it's really important that we can freely give each other feedback without worrying about what the other person is going to think or without having any kind of weirdness. And then I would give an example. So again, really important, like I did in the beginning. You can't really talk too much about this because working with somebody is going to involve giving feedback and stuff. So you can give another example and you can say, for example, I was working once with a coworker and I gave him some feedback where I thought that, you know, we should try this line of questioning or whatever for the interviewer, for the interviewee, or I suggested that we write the email this way. And he responded with, actually, that's a good idea, but I, I also think we should add this, this, and this. And what it did was it just started a discussion that really covered all bases. So we did a really fantastic job on this email that we had to send out to the whole company, and we got very minimal questions on it. In fact, we got praise for telling us how comprehensive that it was. And I think that's really important for working together and having working relationships because feedback really creates a bigger, a bigger conversation in general. So that's another thing that I like to talk about. I really think this creates safety because a lot of people are are difficult to work with, right? And this is kind of a way that you can prove that you're super easy, receptive to feedback, you take it in stride, and you even enjoy it. And just giving that example of how you deal with it on a day-to-day basis. All right, number 5. So I would say something like this. I would say, I'm the kind of person who doesn't ever look to blame or shame other people for things. I'm always guided by the results that we're trying to get. So At the end of the day, we all want the same thing. And so, I'm usually the person in the meeting who will guide everything back to that end result. And that will usually get people back on track. So, I know in meetings a lot of the times people can go off tangents. They can go off on doing other things. For example, we were in this one meeting. We were trying to get this decision made about what venue we were going to have the event at. And people just kept on bringing up different topics and stuff. And I said, yes, those are important. But can we come back to the topic at hand because we really need to decide on a venue so that we can get it booked. And we, we, we have our choice of the best venue because we're not gonna, you know, be taking forever to choose. So bring it back to the topic at hand, cuz we all have the best, we all want the best results. If we're a team, we want the best results. And I really believe in working as part of a team. So that's how I like to operate. And I don't really, it doesn't really matter to me whose fault something is. It's just we wanna get it fixed and we wanna move forward. So that's something else that I would say, and that's true of how I work. So that's showing, not telling. You know how you hear people say you got to show them, not tell them? This is how you do it with a few of these examples are really good examples to do that. All right. Number 6 is I would say I know what I, what I'm really good at and what I'm not so good at. And so when I spend my time in my zone of genius, which means I'm doing something I'm really good at and everybody needs me to do, then that's going to be the best use of my time. So this is an example I had from a client actually. She said when they asked her, this was a marketing role, and they asked her, would you be able to write our blog content for us? And that was not her zone of genius. Writing blogs wasn't her zone of genius. She was more into the Google Analytics side of it, the campaigns, looking at the numbers, analyzing them, providing feedback, and then someone else would write the content. But her sweet spot was really in the analytics and the managing of the campaigns. So in the interview for the marketing director, when they asked her, you know, would you be able to write the blog content? Her response was, well, actually, that the writing part isn't in my zone of genius. If I'm perfectly honest, my best— my time is not best spent writing. However, I do know some fantastic writers that we could get at a good rate, so I could make sure that gets done for the website and that it brings us the traffic and leads that we're looking for from that writing. But me personally, I'm not going to be the best person to do the actual writing. So this shows that she's strategically thinking where her best time is to be spent, how she can get the most bang for the buck for the company. And that shows them, okay, she's thinking about this strategically. She's not just saying yes to everything, right? Number 7, uh, I would say something like, I believe people are inherently good people. Everyone's going through their own struggle in their own way, and my nature is to kind of look to understand before proceeding with any kind of action. So for example, if somebody was underperforming Or if somebody wasn't meeting a deadline, I would definitely go to look at what was going on with them first. When most people's response might be to blame somebody right away or like accuse them or get upset, I really have that, have developed that awareness in my years of working to be like, hmm, I wonder what's going on with them. 'Cause we never know. The person's dog could have just died or they could be having a really difficult time at home. And I think it's important to check in and get curious. Before we start making any— coming to any conclusions. I believe people are doing their best, even if their best isn't great at that time. All right, number 8. I know I'm human and I make mistakes and I have lots of fails under my belt. So I would talk about some of that. I would bring in the vulnerability and talk about how I'm someone who brings all those lessons into this role and how I know that I've failed a lot in the past, but that's only because I'm willing to take risks. I'm willing to do things that other people might not be willing to do. And then I back this up with a story. So I'll say, hey, so one time I made this big mistake. I left 200 people waiting for the bus, and it turns out my assistant had gone and done something that I didn't approve, and we had to deal with that situation. That's a story for another day. I'll probably tell it in another video, but it's basically just talking freely about my mistakes and being able to pinpoint the learnings from it. So for that particular story, it was next time I would go back and I would make sure that she had a checklist and that I was checking off everything And she did because we didn't have a system like that. So she just signed off on something. It was for the wrong day, and I was left holding the bag when 200 people were waiting for the bus and the bus didn't show up, and she had signed it— signed a contract for the wrong day. That's the short— there's a longer story than that. But anyway, talking about it freely in a fun way and being able to say, hey, I learned from my mistakes. I'm not ashamed of my mistakes. I know I'm a human and I make them. And I'm okay with it, kind of tells them, okay, yeah, we understand. And also it makes— does a culture check, because if they're not okay with you making mistakes, if they're not okay with that, you're not going to want to be there because you don't want to work in a zero mistakes tolerated culture. All right, number 9 is, it's basically impossible to offend me. So this is true of me because I believe it's a choice to be offended, and it makes people feel comfortable. It makes people feel comfortable, and you want people to feel comfortable around you. You want them to feel like they could say anything, and then you decide whether not you want to be in that environment or not, right? And you can decide that it's not the right fit for you, but I believe you can always choose to be offended or not. You can choose, okay, I don't, I don't think this fits quite right for me, I don't think it's the right fit, but you don't have to be offended. My thought if somebody says something potentially offensive is always, that's always about them, it's never about me. It shows more about who they are than it does about me. And also, it doesn't do me any good to be offended, so I just decide that I'm not offended, and then I can just say that. Um, number 10, I like to see each person for who they are, their unique strengths, their unique abilities, and that'll always show up in the right environment. And I know that everyone brings something completely different to the table, and the thoughts and ideas that someone else has I might not have had. So I'm really welcoming of getting everybody's idea and then just applying the one idea, because I know we can't do everything all the time. And then I would provide an example of that. So I might provide an example of how I heard everybody out and then made a decision. Right, in a leadership capacity, for example. So, my old boss was really good at this. He would say we were considering moving offices. And so, he would put a poll in Slack and he would say, where do you guys think the office should move to if we are to move? Stay downtown, move to Langford, move to this place, uptown. There's a few different suburbs around town. And so, he would get people's votes. And even if people didn't vote for the one he was planning, he would say, okay, thank you. I've heard everybody's reasons and ideas and this is the decision. Right? And then he would make it, but he would hear everybody out, and that was enough just to be heard. People didn't actually need to have their idea implemented; they needed to be heard. So just this is all kind of showing, showing, not telling. Just because you have to show them with examples. That's what really gets the interview going, and it really is what solidifies them wanting to hire you. Is I'm a team player. I'm a human. I make mistakes. I'm okay with my mistakes. Are you? I'm very considerate of other people. I don't take things personally. I'm honestly pretty chill, easy to work with, and I'm, you know, pretty fun. And I also know, you know, where my time is best spent, where it's not. I know where I'm being efficient, where I'm actually making you the most money, and where I'm losing you the most money. Like, it's a very self-aware set of things. So if you hit these points in the interview, you're definitely going to score points. And if you want to get a full education on interviewing, career, and if you want to double your salary in 1 year or less, which is what I did, sign up for my free 3-day training. So I have a 3-day training series. I will go through all the breakthroughs that I've had with all of my clients. I've coached hundreds of clients. I've helped hundreds of people and land 6-figure jobs, double their salaries, and I will help you do that too if you want. So Sign up for the training below, grab one of my free resources, and I can't wait to meet you. See you there.