How to Win a 30-Minute Interview with the Hiring Manager

0:00 If you get a 30inute interview with a hiring official, you should get hired. Period. If you don't think so, that might be because you're not sure what you should focus on in those 30 minutes. Not everything matters equally. Many people I coach are worried 30 minutes, it's only 30 minutes. How am I going to get everything in that I want to say to prove that I'm the right candidate for the job? But not everything matters equally. There have been dozens upon dozens of my recruitment clients who have called me after an interview with one of my job candidates and they would say to me, "Andy, I knew within seconds I was going to hire this person." And those are only the ones that were willing to admit that they made a judgment call that soon. But we all know we tend to make based on our biases and our belief templates, we we tend to make snap judgments and then we want to rationalize our way in to our initial feeling. So if they could do it in seconds, how much could you do with a whopping 30 minutes if you knew what to focus on? That's what we're going to do today. There's four areas. I'm going to get you dialed in on what those are, help you understand how to approach them, how to think about them and prepare for them so that when you get 30 minutes with a hiring official, you're going to get hired. Now, if that warm-up does not sound like it's jamming, you know you're going to love what what's about to come, right? You may as well just go hit that like button if you're here with me live. Hit that like button so you don't forget because I think this is going to be a lot of fun. All right. So, like I told Shane, I'm going to tell you the first thing, and I don't think this is going to blow you away. It's not to anybody's surprise, but it's likability. It's likability. They immediately get a reaction and energy from you. And there are certain things that occur right away. I always say attention is most expensive in the beginning. And how you capture their attention is important, but how they feel about what you're communicating, your body language, your smile, what you're saying, how you say it, the level of enthusiasm. So, I want you to be thinking about the likability. So, there's the greeting, there's the energy you bring, and then it's how they feel when they talk to you. Not just what you're saying, but how they feel about what you're saying. There's a a story I've told a time or two about a candidate, Jason. I love this guy, sales guy, was interviewing with one of my businessto business software as a services recruitment clients. And he was interviewing with the COO. Her name was Joanna. And I said to Jason, "All right, listen. We're going to work on your hello. I I I need to" And this is when we were doing a lot of phone interviews. This is even way before the Zooms and the Google Meets and all that other the Teams and all that other stuff. And I said, "I I need you to practice this with me." He kind of giggled. I said, "No, no. I I mean it."

3:07 I said, "When you when she picks up the phone, when you start talking with her, I want you to be enthusiastic. I want you to say, "Hey, Joanna, it's so great to meet you. I was really looking forward to talking to you. Andy said so many nice things. I want you to practice that just so that it's natural." After the interview, she and I I debrief with him. Then I call her. She said exactly what I told you earlier, Andy. I knew within 5 seconds this was going to be a great interview. I knew I was going to want to hire this guy. I needed to talk a few other people, but this is looking pretty good. He he's he's our guy is what she said. And so I want you to I want you to pay extra attention to this. I think the thing the thing that I really want you to note about this is if it takes energy to talk to you, you're in trouble, right? So, if it if it's difficult to talk to you, you're in trouble. You need it flowing. You need the energy going. And so, it's not just what you say, but how you say it initially. All right? Because the hello itself or the initial greeting is pretty pretty easy. But that's the first impression. All right? So that's that's number one. I think the others are going to be a little bit a little bit juicier. All right. This one I use the word fit fi t like fit but really how you operate and how they operate is that in sync. So you could call it you could call it alignment. You could call it culture.

4:38 But what I what I really want you to understand about this and maybe even write this one down. You do not get hired for your experience. You get hired for how your experience fits into their world. That's really important because they need to be able to see that I could take you and drop you right in. It's not what you did, it's how what you did applies to what they need you to do. So when you when you think in terms of fit, I want you to think in terms of these areas.

5:14 Now, when I say fit, there's going to be fit that kind of goes along with anybody. Like, if you're a go-getter, you're great to talk to, you're a self-starter, you're ambitious, you've you've got a great outlook and a great attitude, everybody's going to like that, right? So the ambition part or those those aspects that generally every employer is going to like well we know that needs to be in place but I want to focus more on the analogies and the vocabulary part. So what I think what I think hinders a lot of people is that you know what to do. You've done it before, maybe in that environment or maybe even different environments, but the way in which you draw comparisons and the vocabulary or nomenclature that you use does not exactly sync up with their terminology or with their level of currency, new technologies, new processes, new ways of doing things, what the new vocabulary is. You need to be up to date on this. So when you are when you are going through this and you are using analogies and examples, you need to make sure that you are syncing what you're saying to how it translates to them if you are not using the exact vocabulary. While that may be okay, you are going to need to be more overt about what that means. So when I was doing this over here, what that looks like in your environment is this or you would add this step or you would call it this stage or whatever it may be. You need to be very very specific so that you sound like them. They they would feel that they could drop you right in and this is what they would do kind of walking in the door. I wouldn't have to teach them what these things are. And then the other thing that absolutely destroys you on the negative side, I put the word risk here, but what I almost wrote down on this card, although I thought it was a little harsh and then I backed off, but now I'm going to say it. Don't do anything stupid. Okay? So, when you think about what you're sharing with them, you will automatically be bonged for certain things. When it's, you know, if it's a 5day in the office job and you say something like, "Well, I'm not I only want remote." While that may be true, I don't want you to say it because now they're thinking even if I rationalize this person into the job and I don't love that they don't want to come into the office, they're going to be a flight risk or other things that you are saying like I'm I don't want to travel. I don't want to deal with those kind of clients or anything that will immediately neuter your candidacy. So when I'm looking at fit, I'm looking at do you fit from an overall culture standpoint? Meaning, do you have the traits I'm looking for in the way in which we operate? Hey, we're a startup, so you got to wear many hats. You can't be too bummed if you have to pick up somebody else's work as priorities shift. Or you might need to get up to speed very quickly on a new area that you're not familiar with. We recognize you're not familiar with it, but we just need you to have a good attitude and figure it out. If they're sensing that you don't fit like that, it's not going to work. Right? If you're asking a lot of questions related to the environment early on with the 30 minutes with the hiring official, these are going to these are going to absolutely kill you. So, I just want you to be focused on fit. That's what I mean by fit. All right. So, you got likability, you got fit, and I would say the punchline with fit is if they have to translate you, you're in trouble. Meaning, if they're decoding, if they have to decode what you're saying, you're in trouble. Okay, third third item. Oh, sorry. I like I like my cards in order. Okay, third item. The th singular story. Now, I call it a power story. I call it a car story. But basically, the one story that matches what they need that shows them I can do the job. I can walk in and do the job. Meaning, I'm ready. Meaning, what I'm about to tell you and what I've done in my previous life maps greatly to what you need me to do. This is what I call a power story where it aligns very closely.

9:46 if not exactly, but as closely as possible to what it is they need you to do. I have the car format for those of you that go to the Andy Lasvita School of Interview Storytelling that sells you best. C A R. We're not going to go into the entire structure. The point for today's talk is have one great power story that matches what they need. They're not going to remember five stories. They're not going to remember three stories. They just want to get a sense because they're val evaluating you for likability. They're evaluating you for fit into the organization and into the team. They're trying to see do you essentially know what you're doing and can you actually walk in and do the job. So that's number three. You need you need to kind of map that out.

10:35 And then the fourth thing that's really important are your questions. Your questions are for them, not you. Your questions are to position you, not gain information as a priority. That's a secondary reason for asking the question. They want to assess how do you think and what will you be like to work with? Are you insightful? Are you interested? That's what they're doing. They're trying to get a sense of what will this person be like? what does this person care about? But if you can sell yourself in the process as your line of thinking, as the strategist, as the analyzer, as the executor, as the whatever it is that you're doing, this is going to help you greatly. And the things that I would say about the questions, I wrote this one down cuz I wanted to really drive this home. They want to know how you think. So when you're asking a question, what they're getting is this is how the person thinks, what you care about. If you ask weak questions like what's the culture like? It's lazy. It's lazy and you're not a critical thinker. If you ask questions like what's a day in the life like these are superficial question. If you heaven forbid ask what's the work life balance like? I don't care if it's a large company or a small company or a startup or whatever. Don't ask that question. Erase it from your vocabulary, but they want to understand what you're going to be like to work with. So, I want to make sure that you're asking thoughtful questions. When you ask questions such as, "What does success look like?" Let's get that down so we know what our outcomes are. shooting for? What are the challenges standing in our way so we can eventually have some dialogue about how I'm going to help you overcome those? And what value would you attach to them so that I know how meaningful they are from a business perspective, whether that's a tangible benefit or an intangible benefit, whether it's dollars and cents, revenue and savings, or whether it's political capital or clout or cache or brand internal brand reputation or whatever it might be, efficiency and so on. So, I want to make sure that you're focused on those four things. That's what's going to matter most. So, when you think about if I only have 30 minutes to operate within, am I likable? Am I representing a great fit? I don't want them translating me.

13:06 I'm going to translate me for them if I need to. What's the story I'm going to tell? Yes, there could be little offshoots and there could be follow-ups, but generally speaking, they're trying to the hiring official is trying to gauge all this in the first in the first 30 minutes. And then the other thing is what kind of questions do you ask? You may not have a lot of time to ask questions. You don't need to ask a lot of questions to prove how you think and what you're going to be like to work with and what you care about. You focus on those four things, you will do great. Don't over complicate it. It's only 30 minutes. They're going to be talking some of the time. you're going to be talking some of the time. So that's it. You should be good to go. Next 30 minute interview that you have, I welcome you to come back to this video and drop a comment on whether this worked or not. But remember, we're talking about 30 minutes with the hiring official, not necessarily the recruitment screen. That's a completely different process. I I'm sure I have a video on the YouTube channel that I can't remember the title of where we have a 30-minute screen with the recruiter, but this is a 30-minute interview with the hiring official. So, lots of luck on your search. If you enjoyed this, please do click the like button, share it, make sure you subscribe to the station if you're here with me live. We're going to the Q&A. If you're watching this on the recording, I'll see you next