Page 84 - Oscar Adler - Sell Yourself in Any Interview_ Use Proven Sales Techniques to Land Your Dream Job (2008)

SELL YOURSELF IN ANY INTERVIEW

Most books and articles on interviewing give a laundry
list of potential questions and attempt to teach you pat
answers to use during an interview. This book doesn’t do that.
Memorizing a long list of questions and answers does not
allow you to respond in the moment to the specific needs and
wants of the interviewer. Relying on someone else’s questions
will make you sound stilted and awkward or slick and super-
ficial, and attempting to reconfigure a memorized answer to
fit a question that has been phrased differently will only add
to your anxiety. In all the job-search literature, little is written
about why you need to ask questions, and even less is written
about how to do it effectively without rubbing your inter-
viewer the wrong way.

WHY DO YOU NEED TO ASK
GOOD QUESTIONS?

Interviewers are motivated by interesting, stimulating ques-
tions, but they should not feel as though they are being cross-
examined. Job seekers naturally have many questions, and
more will arise during the course of an interview. Some will
be to find out the specifics of the position; others will be more
general in nature. Asking questions, and doing it effectively,
is one of the most important components of the interview.
“Most people think all they are supposed to do is answer
questions during an interview,” says Linda Burtch, managing
director at Smith Hanley Associates LLC, a national recruit-
ing firm. “I tell all my candidates that their job is to ask ques-
tions.” When you ask good questions, you show that you
know the industry and that you have done your homework.
With each question you ask, you hone in on what is impor-
tant to the interviewer.

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