Standing Out on an Interview | JobSearchTV.com

Standing out on an interview is an important quality. After all, if you sound and act like everyone else, they can choose anyone, but the idea is that they choose you. How do you get to that point where they want to choose you? I'm going to be sneaky here? This is an exercise in you, understanding who you are and what your brand is, what you’re capable of doing as a human being, not just simply in terms of your skills, and I want you to go through an exercise that i think will serve you very well.

The first question is – and you really ought to write these down because you may not remember everything:

What are the strengths that others see in you when working on a team?

What roles do I seek to fulfill when faced with an extreme obstacle?

What are my go-to skills to overcome it? How do I overcome the obstacle?

What was the most successful project I ever took on and what made me successful? What’s the most important team role I fulfilled and how?

Now in going deeper (and by the way, write your answers as long as you need to in order to really understand them. Take some time with this because you’re going to synthesize this into your stories and the follow-up to your stories when you interview) What strengths and skills come up over and over again for you?

What are your motivating skills?

What are the things that excite you?

What burns you out?

What gives you a lot of duress or just wears you down every day? What strengths and skills are going to be most useful in achieving your career goals?

What’s missing?

What skill would I like to build upon that i need to do better now?

The idea is, you want to understand your differentiators. So, for example, I understood mine when my wife came to me one day after listening to me talk to an applicant about a situation (I was doing recruiting at the time) they were confused by. She overheard me talking to this person and said "Boy, you take really complicated ideas and make them very simple for people!" That’s really is one of my strengths, which comes in very handy as a coach, as a Youtuber, as a podcaster and as a writer.

What are your strengths that keep showing up time and time again? Work these into your stories? Not just simply when you do your first cut at the STAR framework, but when they start digging in deeper to understand your role and responsibilities and how you did things. Work these into your conversations on interviews and that’s really what helps you stand out.

ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a career and leadership coach who worked as a recruiter for more than 40 years. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 2300 episodes. He also hosts Job Search TV on YouTube, and Amazon, as well as on BingeNetworks.tv for Apple TV and 90+ smart sets.

I do a livestream on LinkedIn, YouTube (on the JobSearchTV.com account) and on Facebook (on the Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter page) Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 PM Eastern. You can send your questions about job search, hiring better, management, leadership or to get advice about a workplace issue to me at TheBigGameHunter(at)gmail.com. In the subject line, put the phrase "Office Hours." You can also message me through chat during the approximately 30 minute show.

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