Summary:
IamGale here, the 22-year old hypothetical multimillionaire psych and marketing guy.
I was hired to help the local youth community centre find qualified youth workers. And I have a story for your about the big mistakes people made in these interviews...
The bar was set so low…
Even if you had no experience working with youths, if you avoided the mistakes below you could have gotten a job here. It was ridiculous. The pay was £23,000/year which is good for the entry-level position.
Today, I’m going to show you the mistakes three candidates made in their interview and how you can avoid them. I'll also show you one technique that dramatically increases your chances of getting your dream job. And my personal story of using it.
You’ll learn:
- 9 Mistakes These Candidates Made In Their Interview
- How to Nail Every Interview: The “Briefcase” Strategy
- The Big Mistake I Made Using The Briefcase Strategy
9 Mistakes These Candidates Made In Their Interview
Something about a community centre draws the most interesting candidates. I'm going to tell you the story of three wholly different people. We had:
- An Italian Sexologist
- A Prison Social Worker
- An Ex-Lawyer turned Hospice Carer
The interviews are in a small room. Including me, there are 6 interviewers all asking questions to the candidates. Our first application is the Italian Sexologist. He's got a hipster haircut and an interesting interviewing strategy.
Mistake #1: Not Backing Up Esoteric Knowledge
Mr. Italian Sexologist starts immediately leveraging his academic background. He talks about how he has rare in-depth knowledge of Sexology. How he’s a trained and qualified sexologist. And starts dropping esoteric academic terms.
A few board members are impressed by this. But the chairman digs deep and he has trouble backing up his claim. The DHV fails. It might have been because of his bad English, but it didn’t leave a good impression.
Fix: Clearly explain your esoteric knowledge or else it’ll look like BS
Mistake #2: Not Engaging the Panel of Interviewers
The interview continues and Mr. Italian makes another big mistake. He only engages the person that asked him the question. As there are 6 people here, the other 5 start to get really bored. At the end of the interview, only 1 out of the 6 liked him. Connect to everyone.
Fix: Don’t solo in on one person, engage everyone.
Mistake #3: Telling Boring Stories
He gives boring stories. In interviews, your employers want to hear how you’ll make their company even better, save them money, and build their reputation. To discern this, they ask you questions. Questions where you answer with fascinating stories of how you made your company better, saved them money, and built their reputation are what they want!
This guy desperately needed a storytelling 101 class. In University, my favourite class that I ever took was a beginner intro to screenwriting. Mostly because the professor was an acclaimed Hollywood writer that made every class fascinating. Now at interviews, I tell exciting stories that draw everyone in.
Mr. Italian Sexologist told stories that were flat and boring.
Fix: Tell exciting stories about how you improved your company.
Mistake #4: Not Using Anyone's Names
The Italian Sexologist also didn't use anyone’s name… This is so important. Obviously, since there are 6 people it’s a challenge but do not move on until you’ve remembered each person’s name. Out of all the three candidates, none of them did this. It's a big deal. Each time I asked the interviewee a question I used his name. It helps them pay attention to your question. Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence people makes this his #1 rule.
Fix: Use your interviewer’s name.
Mistake #5: Have Jeb Bush Low-Energy
No, we’re talking about the prison social worker. While she had an excellent interview overall, it could have been better. Her mistake was that she entered with very low energy. It was like what I imagine what it's like to talk to Jeb Bush.
And she refused to take off her coat… Very odd, but halfway through the interview she warms up and nails it. And because she went after the Italian sexologist, she looked like an All-Star when really she was just okay.
Fix: Come in with high energy.
Mistake #6: Fail to Smile and Be Friendly
Now we’ve come to the Ex-Lawyer. This guy should have been the best candidate but he made some dumb mistakes that made him almost lose the job. He was the smartest, hardest working candidate. He was 6’4, jacked, ex-rugby captain, upper-class background with a law degree.
His big mistake was that he was so stoic. He never smiled. And because he was so big, he physically scared the interviewers. I’m great at picking up on body language but you didn’t have to be an expert to notice this. Hardly anyone but me would actually look at the guy if he wasn’t talking to you.
Fix: Smile and be friendly, aloofness works for girls but not for interviews
Mistake #7: Be Monotone
Now the Ex-lawyer is also monotone. He’s hard to listen to. And this big scary guy is also boring. That’s a bad combination.
Fix: Use vocal variation in your interview answers to keep your audience interested.
Mistake #8: Make Your Potential Boss Look Bad
The ex-lawyer out alpha’d the director. This is a huge mistake. That why Robert Greene wrote in the 48 laws of power, that law #1 is to never outshine the master. His law background, his accomplishment, his physical presence, made the director look like a skinny beta loser.
And the director did not like this. He was really against hiring the guy because he felt so outdone and maybe a little emasculated around him. No one wants to hire someone who makes you look bad. So make sure to position yourself below your interviewer.
This was why he almost didn’t get hired. But another smart director and I realized this guy’s potential and helped convinced the other director to get him hired.
Fix: Compliment the director and position him above you
Mistake 9: Too Vanilla
You fail to polarize yourself. This one is counter-intuitive but you want to show your interviewers that you’re different. You want to make them remember you amongst all the other candidates.
I learned this from Peter Thiel in his book, Zero to One. He writes that this is his favourite interview question is this:
“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
This always gets good answers from candidates. But bad answers will sink your case. For instance, The Italian Sexologist answered that he believes that it’s bad to spread false information about sex. I inquired further but he couldn’t give any specific examples...
Whereas the prison social worker said she heavily believed in the law of attraction. And the ex-lawyer said he believed that moderation is the underrated way to succeed in life and gave good examples from his life as a career-driven lawyer.
Fix: Believe in something slightly controversial (context is everything, cherry-pick your answers for your audience).
How to Nail Every Interview: The Briefcase Strategy
This is a game changer. And it creates the best impression in all your interviewers. I learned this from Ramit Sethi and this is probably some of his best advice.
Watch his video explainer
Here’s the gist:
The context is that you’re about to go in for your first interview. They’re trying to get a feel for you. And eventually, they ask you think the company should do differently to increase sales or accomplish their objective.
This is the moment where the magic happens.
Instead of going into a long monologue, you pull out a 2-6 page report detailing exactly everything you would do for the company.
This WOWS your interviewer. I’m sure some redpillers can testify to this if they’ve used this or seen it. I’ve used this for every interview I’ve had for the past year and it’s magical.
The briefcase strategy works because it shows you’re prepared to help the company succeed. And you’ve clearly thought about how to do it.
But with this approach, there’s one mistake you must avoid. I say that because I made this mistake and it cost me the job.
The Big Mistake I Made When Using the Briefcase Strategy
Now this is an advanced mistake, that no one even attempted at the interview. But it's important to know when you start using this.
I was applying for two different marketing jobs. I used two polar opposite strategies and I learned a lesson that I’ll never forget.
The first one I walk in. I’m quite good at interviews because I’m great with small groups in private settings. I use lots of eye-contact. Use their name. Engage everyone. Tell good stories. I’m quite good. I delight them with marketing campaign proposals tailored to their business. But there are some mistakes you can’t forgive… Because at the end of the day, they want to know you’ll make them more money.
Company #1:
The interview is going really well. But I make an embarrassing mistake. I tell them I’ll increase their email list by 100 subscribers in the first month. Even thinking about this hurts because they were probably growing their email list by 50 new people just organically. So to invest thousands of dollars in a new worker with that little return would be an awful investment for them.
But for some reason, I thought I had to be conservative about my first-month results to not disappoint them if I didn't meet my quota. But that's useless if I didn't get the job.
Good marketing is making the BOLD promises and doing everything you can to keep those promises. So I didn’t get the job, but I fixed this mistake for my next interview.
Company #2:
Here’s how I fixed this in the next interview:
I entered with boldness. I title my whole marketing campaign for them, “How I’ll Double Your Revenue.” Obviously, that was very optimistic but they loved it. And I got the job. I still freelance for them today.
Fix: Make BOLD promises to improve the company
Lessons Learned:
Interviews are easy. They come down to being confident and showing your interviewer why hiring you will be the best decision they’ve made in the last year. No one’s perfect and we all get nervous. For some highly competitive jobs, you need to be on your game and really practice before hand. For others, if there’s low competition and you kill it. Simply avoid the mistakes I’ve listed and use the briefcase strategy--you will easily be the favoured candidate. To sum it all up.
1. For Interviews do this:
- Back up esoteric knowledge
- Engage everyone
- Your stories should centre on how you helped improved your previous company
- Use your interviewer’s name
- Come in with High Energy
- Smile and be friendly
- Use vocal variation in your answers
- Don’t outshine the master
- Be selectively controversial
2. Use the Briefcase Strategy: bring in a written report on what you'll do to improve the company the interview.
3. Make Bold Promises.
Thanks for reading. Be sure to share your interview stories and strategies in the comments. Either from being interviewed or watching the horrible mistakes people do in interviews. Let me know in the comments below.
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