Why You Should Hire a Result…Not a Position

For those of us involved in interviewing skills training, it always comes as a surprise—our program participants come in with the feeling that it is up to the interviewee to impress the interviewer. Rarely do they consider that, when you are looking to hire the best, it should also work in the opposite direction—the interviewer should be ready to impress the candidate.

The best interviewers prepare thoroughly and look for the best. They select the candidate who does not just fit the slot on the org chart but fills a real business need. They look behind the resume and listen carefully to the answers to their questions. If they are hiring for sales, they look for the critical few behavioral skills that support successful selling for their unique sales strategy, organizational culture, target customer and industry. If they are hiring for frontline customer service, they look for someone with the right attitude, communication skills and service competencies that match their specific service strategy.

Know the real business need. Understand the critical few behavior-based competencies it takes to fill that need. Then hire someone who demonstrates those skills and fits your culture. Hire the result, not a position.

3 Easy Tips to Close the “Interview Language Gap”

In an exhaustive review of job descriptions on the one hand and resumes on the other, interviewing skills training researchers have uncovered a huge disconnect between the language used by hiring managers compared to the language used by potential job candidates. And yet they are working to fill the same positions. Shouldn’t they be using similar verbiage?

It is up to recruiters to use terms that resonate with their target new hires and it is the responsibility of job seekers to match their resumes to the way the open position has been described. They are the ones, after all, asking for consideration.  They are also the ones who need to fit into the unique organizational culture to succeed.

Here are the tips to close the gap for hopeful hires:

1.     Be specific. Tailor each resume to each job opening. Look for the skills required and make those first on your resume list.

2.     Recognize that interviewers are more interested in what you have done with your education and experiences than where you attended school or worked previously. Unless your degrees are relevant to the current opening, put education facts on the second page.  Unless your previous company gives you an edge, focus on accomplishments, competencies and aspirations related to the job at hand.

3.     Reduce the hyperbole. Exaggerating your accomplishments or describing them in superlative terms fools no one. Focus on what you have done by using anecdotal examples that make sense for the job, title, company, culture and industry.