By Bill Meyer
Ross Taylor is an articulate sales and marketing professional with ten years of progressive experience selling consumer products. He was invited to interview for a sales management position with a large manufacturer of healthcare products.
Ross (not his real name) goes through the necessary preparations of having his blue suit cleaned and pressed, hair styled and he researches the company. He believes that he is ready to “knock their socks off” in the interview and get the job offer.
The morning of the interview, he makes all the necessary preparations, checks his appearance and of course arrives on time.
Ross feels that his answers to the interviewer’s questions are well formulated and succinct so he is feeling good about his performance and his candidacy.
Several days pass and not hearing from the company Ross initiates a call only to hear that they are sorry but they have found a candidate that seems to “fit” the company better. Disappointed, Ross sits and ponders what he could have done to establish a better fit. Sound familiar?
Understanding the Meaning of Rapport
The key element in the decision making process for most interviewers is the question of fit or rapport. But what exactly is this?
Rapport is the ability to enter someone else’s world and make that person feel as if you understand them. Rapport is the essence of all successful communications and is the ultimate tool in producing positive results in our interactions with others. Never is this more in evidence than in a job interview.
By the time the department manager is involved in the interviewing process, every applicant has been deemed “technically qualified”. So the chance that one candidate will be able to outclass their competition strictly on the basis of skills is not realistic. Therefore, in order to succeed you must do a better job at convincing the interviewer that you will be more compatible or be a better fit.
Think about the last time you met a new person. How quickly did you decide whether you wanted to get to know that person better? If you are like most of us, probably within the first few minutes.
In that time span, you have “sized them up” and determined whether you want to invest more time. Sure you have noticed their handshake and smile but you also assessed their interest level in you through the questions they asked about you. So also with the interviewer. Beyond the polite pleasantries that most everyone demonstrates, the interviewer assesses how interested you are in their problems or challenges – the reason they are seeking help.
Take Control
The vast majority of people experience interviewing as an interrogation rather than a conversation. As a result they feel as if they are on the defensive from the start being subjected to a barrage of questions about themselves or their work history. Recognize that you are there to learn as much as possible and that learning only takes place when you are listening. You want to focus as much of the conversation as possible on the interviewers’ problems.
An appropriate time to assert yourself is in the initial stages of your conversation. You want the interviewer to share with you why the position is open as well as the major challenges of the position as he/she sees them. This approach enables you to be more selective as to what accomplishments you will highlight.
It is totally up to you to ensure that the interviewer sees and acknowledges the correlation between his needs and your previous successes. As every successful sales professional knows, before a customer will buy a product, they must see and verbalize the benefits to themselves. This is equally true of the interviewer.
If you want to be more successful in interviewing, you will need to be more other-centered which is focused on the needs of the buyer – the interviewer.
American writer and humorist Mark Twain said it best when he wrote: “One learns people through the heart not the eyes or intellect.”
Bill Meyer is a Senior Vice President of Consulting Services with Quest Management Consulting, a full service Managing Consulting and Outplace firm. Bill Meyer can be reached at bmeyer@questmc.com.