If you have 20 years of experience in sales and you know all the sales techniques, that’s

great—but you still

have to bring your sales experience to the interview. And believe it or not, most salespeople
do not!
You Don’t Have to Be a Great Salesperson to Sell
Yourself in Interviews
Even if you’ve never sold professionally, you can still bring a great deal of sales skill to your
interview, dramatically
improving your performance. Just approaching the interview actively as a sales call and
developing
an interview presentation will have significant positive results, and any additional sales
techniques will
provide incremental improvements. Let’s begin with the most important sales skill: listening.
Selling Is Mostly Listening
This sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? When we think of selling, we think of a salesperson
actively telling
us about his product or service and convincing us to buy it. Indeed, that is true for bad
salespeople. However,
good salespeople do a lot of listening first; then, they use what they have learned to guide
you through making
a purchasing decision.
There is a general lack of awareness that listening is the most critical interviewing skill, as
well as the most
important sales skill. This is another example of the type of misguided interview suggestions
you may get.
As noted earlier, most books emphasize answering questions—but that’s talking rather than
listening. Good
answers depend on good listening.
There Are Two Parts to Listening
Listening is an active process that requires intense thought. As such, there are two parts to
listening.
Empathetic Listening
Empathy is the ability to put yourself into the mental shoes of another person and
understand his or her
thoughts and feelings. There is a distinction between merely hearing words and really
listening for the message.
When you listen empathetically, you understand the other person’s perspective about what
he or she
is thinking and/or feeling.
Understanding another person’s perspective is a critical challenge. During interviews,
candidates are so intent
on being able to answer questions and talk about their skills, background, and experience
that they often do
very little empathetic listening. Their focus is on “Here is what I want to tell you,” rather than
on understanding
the hiring manager’s perspective on the challenges he is facing.
Experienced candidates often listen with a bias, based on their years of experience in an
industry. They may
ask, “What are your challenges?” but already have an answer based on what they know to
be challenges in
the industry. For example, a consumer-package-goods brand manager candidate might
ask, “What are your
greatest challenges in the supermarket?” It is well known that private-label brands are being
challenged
severely by supermarket store brands. The hiring manager might mention this challenge but
also mention
two or three more personal challenges, such as team coherence, internal support for her
product, or the crushing
cost of ingredients. A candidate who is not actively listening empathetically will not register
the hiring
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Active Interviewing: Branding, Selling, and Presenting Yourself to Win Your Next Job
manager’s greatest personal challenges and may just respond to the well-known industry
challenge. In doing
so, the candidate misses an opportunity to both bond with the hiring manager and address
a more pressing
problem.
Listening empathetically requires suspending your existing beliefs. You are developing an
understanding
from the interviewer’s perspective; regardless of “rights and wrongs,” it is the interviewer’s
perspective that
counts. If you disagree, say to yourself (not out loud!), “I don’t think that’s true, but I
understand that you
see it that way.” Then respond based on the interviewer’s perception, not your knowledge.
Empathetic listening is easier when you connect with the other person. In an interview,
being genuinely interested
in the interviewer makes listening and interacting far easier. The interviewer has a personal
and professional
life he brings with him to the interview—keep that in mind. Too often, interviews are cold
cross-examinations with no personal connection. It’s important to remember that in addition
to being interviewed,
you are meeting another human being who is living on the same planet. It is no different
from meeting
a person at a social event and spending time getting to know him. In an interview, the focus
obviously
needs to stay on a professional level; however, being curious and asking questions about
an interviewer’s professional
background and career goals is appropriate and a good way to connect personally.
At one point in my career, I was interviewing for a position as a senior career consultant.
The interview did
not go particularly well, and after 45 minutes, the hiring manager was wrapping up the
interview. You know
the signs: “Thanks for coming in. It was nice meeting you.We have other people to
interview….” Just before
standing up and escorting me out the door, she asked me whether I had any final questions.
In an inspired
moment, I asked her, “How did you get your position?” She settled back into her chair, and
we spent the
next 40 minutes discussing her career path, our common passion for working with people
and helping them
with their careers, and the joy of seeing people land jobs. She invited me back to do a
training presentation
to the staff, and I ended up being hired.
Information Processing
In addition to practicing empathetic listening, listening requires information processing. This
includes objectively
collecting facts, categorizing the facts, and then prioritizing them.
Much of what you hear in an interview is factual: “We have this many accounts of this size.
We have this
many employees. We have this many deliveries a day. Our revenues are….” Some facts
are interesting to
know but not critical to your landing the job. Some facts are very important to the position
and addressed
as you answer questions. For example:
• “Our major initiative next year is to expand our sales of plastic products by 30 percent by
opening new
markets in Asia.”
• “We are measuring success in this position by the reduction in parts defects and reduced
production costs.”
• “A major challenge is shortening our time to market with new products by 10 percent
during year one
and an additional 5 percent during year two.”
These facts are important and serve to focus your answers. Address how you would
achieve the goals using
the stated percentages. For example, “I would approach reducing time to market by 10
percent by doing
the following….” Using the facts demonstrates that you are listening and that you heard the
interviewer
(and what hiring manager doesn’t love being heard?). In turn, this gives your answers
greater focus and
credibility.
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Chapter 4 Using Basic Sales Skills in Your Interviews
Most Candidates Are Hearing When They Should Be Listening
Hearing is passive, while listening is active. Let’s use music as an example: Putting on
headphones and relaxing
is hearing. Paying attention to the beat, tempo, and various instruments and comparing that
version of
the song to other versions you may have heard is listening. Listening in this context is
actively engaging with
the music and paying attention.
Listening in your interviews involves active engagement and an ongoing effort to
understand and analyze
what the interviewer is saying. Mostly, it is getting out of your own head and focusing on the
interviewer’s
words and meaning.
There are five elements to listening:
• Paying attention. Give the speaker your undivided attention and acknowledge her
message. Put aside
distracting thoughts. Don’t mentally prepare your response partway through an interviewer’s
comment
or question.
• Demonstrating that you are listening. Look at the speaker directly with good eye
contact and nod
occasionally. Use body language and facial expressions to indicate that you are actively
listening. Use small
verbal comments, such as, “Yes” and “Uh huh” to encourage the speaker to continue.
Maintain an open
posture, facing the interviewer and demonstrating your receptivity.
• Providing feedback to clarify. Personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs can
distort what
you hear. As a listener, your role is to understand what is being communicated. Reflect on
what you have
heard by paraphrasing. “What I’m hearing is…” and “It sounds like you’re saying…” are
good reflecting
statements. Ask questions to clarify certain points. “What do you mean when you say...?” “Is
this what you
mean?” Be open and receptive to corrections to your understanding. It’s far better to be
corrected than
to continue based on a misunderstanding.
• Deferring responding. Don’t interrupt. Interrupting is a waste of time. It frustrates and
insults the
speaker and limits your full understanding of the message. If you are fully in listening mode
and not formulating
your answers, you will not interrupt. If you find yourself interrupting or resisting the impulse
to
interrupt, refocus on active listening. Not interrupting can be a challenge with an interviewer
who drones
on. However, even the droning conveys a message, and it’s your job to determine what that
message is.
• Responding appropriately. Active listening is based on respect and understanding.
Remember, you
are gaining information and learning the interviewer’s perspective. You gain nothing by
disagreeing with
the interviewer or trying to get points by “being right” or seeming smarter than the
interviewer. Be careful
to assert your opinions respectfully. Interviewers are very sensitive to arrogant candidates
who think
they have the answers and act as if they should have the interviewer’s job.
Listening to the Flip Side
Interviewers are not good listeners, which creates a problem for you. Depending on the
study quoted, people
remember between 25 and 50 percent of what they hear. That means when you talk to your
boss, colleagues,
customers, spouse, or interviewer for 10 minutes, he or she pays attention to less than half
of the
conversation. You hope the important parts are retained in the 25 to 50 percent, but what if
they’re not?
Further along in the book, you will read about using an interview presentation to improve the
interviewer’s
retention of important information. This is part of fixing your interview.
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Active Interviewing: Branding, Selling, and Presenting Yourself to Win Your Next Job
Listening Begins at the First Contact
Candidates have multiple contacts with employers during the hiring process, beginning with
reviewing the
job description and continuing through each round of interviewing. Most candidates take
routine contacts,
such as scheduling an interview, at face value and do not actively listen for information. By
doing so, they
may be missing a nugget of important information they can use in the interview. For
example, while scheduling
an interview, the administrative assistant might say, “Steve won’t be available next week for
interviewing;
he is traveling in Asia.” Hmmm…interesting. There is nothing on the company’s website
indicating that
the company has any business in Asia—is this a new initiative? Do you have international
experience? Have
you traveled in Asia? If you have, bringing it up in the interview or including it in your
interview presentation
may tip the scales in your favor. Even a seemingly innocuous comment can provide useful
information.
Listening Pitfalls
A number of listening pitfalls trip up candidates. These may include:
• Being so intent on what you have to say that you listen mainly to find an opening to
make
your point. You may be thinking that you have a very important point you want the
interviewer to know,
and if you don’t say it now, the opportunity will be lost. In reality, you won’t lose the
opportunity, and this
pitfall often results in an interruption—never a good thing during an interview.
• Formulating and focusing on your answers quickly, based on what the speaker is
saying.
Candidates often are so concerned about giving the “right” answer that they get nervous
and stop listening.
They also have the misconception that they have to answer a question immediately after it
is asked.
It is perfectly acceptable to say, “Let me think about that,” and then take 30 to 40 seconds to
formulate
an answer. A thoughtful, considered answer is better than a quick, confused, or off-target
response.
• Focusing on your own personal beliefs about what you’re hearing. Your personal
beliefs form
a filter that may distort the interviewer’s meaning. It is important to be aware of how your
beliefs distort
what you hear and adjust for the distortion. You can do this by becoming consciously aware
of your beliefs.
For example, the interviewer might be talking about the importance of offshoring certain
functions in
their department. Perhaps you are opposed to sending jobs overseas. Your opposition may
impact how
you listen to the interviewer’s message. However, if you say to yourself, “This is an area of
disagreement
for me. I need to stay in active listening,” you will be able to focus on the message and not
your internal
resistance and judgment.
• Evaluating and making judgments about the speaker or the message. While the
interviewer
is busy making subjective judgment about you, you are busy making subjective judgments
about her.
Judgments can distort how you hear things—both positively and negatively. If you have a
positive impression
of the interviewer, you might tend to believe what she is saying and not ask clarifying
questions. If
you judge the interviewer negatively, you might prematurely dismiss what she is saying and
not listen fully.
Be aware of your judgments, which can be as simple as whether you like or dislike the
person, so that you
don’t lose the message.
• Not asking for clarification when you know you don’t understand. Many candidates
think that
asking for clarification is a signal to the interviewer that they don’t understand and that, as a
result, they
will appear stupid. A candidate of mine walked out of an interview sweating because the
interviewer used
an acronym he did not know, and he didn’t ask what it meant. Throughout the interview, the
candidate
was hoping he wouldn’t be caught; as a result, he was a nervous wreck and performed
poorly. It turned
out that the acronym was an obscure, little-known term that he couldn’t have known
anyway. The interviewer
was either impressed the candidate knew or guessed that he was covering up—probably
the latter,
since there was no job offer.