Page 85 - Oscar Adler - Sell Yourself in Any Interview_ Use Proven Sales Techniques to Land Your Dream Job (2008)

ASKING QUESTIONS WITH SKILL AND FINESSE

Learning to pose appropriate questions in your own
words also will help you to feel comfortable and confident
and demonstrate that you are a strong, independent individ-
ual, not a carbon copy of every other candidate. This chapter
examines several skills that will help you to ask questions
effectively and encourage communication from your inter-
viewer. The more you learn from the person interviewing
you, the better you will be able to turn your features into
suitable benefits for that specific job.
What you don’t know can hurt you. If you launch into a
monologue about yourself, you might make unwarranted
assumptions about the interviewer, the company, or the posi-
tion. You may miss what is important to the interviewer and
even risk being offensive. Simple things—such as whether
you are the first or last interview of the day or of the overall
search—can influence how the interviewer perceives you.
If you don’t ask, you can’t know.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OPEN- AND
CLOSED-PROBE QUESTIONS

This is a skill known by most salespeople, and once you know
how, you can use it successfully during an interview. Closed
probes are questions that require a specific answer or clarifi-
cation. Generally, closed probes limit responses and should
be used only if you need a very specific answer.
In contrast, when you use an open probe, you get more
than just the facts. You give the other person room to explain,
often eliciting a range of value-based information, such as
feelings, attitudes, and opinions. When you know how a per-
son feels about the information, you know how to respond
with a fitting benefit.

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