Selling yourself

An interview is best approached like a sales meeting where you have to communicate your unique selling points to the interviewer (customer). At the same time you should avoid, or at least tone down, any negative aspects of your employment history.

Your aim is to present as strong a case as you can for their offering you the position. In other words you’re there to sell yourself.

The key is - stay positive.

Good news tends to be accepted at face value, whereas bad news tends to alert people to a situation. If you attract the interviewer’s attention with negative details, they’re likely to pursue this new line of enquiry aggressively. This would mean their dwelling on bad news and your having to face awkward questions about something you shouldn’t have brought up in the first place.

If you should have some career skeletons in your closet, decide ahead of the interview how you can avoid giving too much information away about these areas. Is it possible to avoid talking at all about these issues during the interview? You almost certainly won’t have included negative information in your CV. Alternatively, can you put a more positive interpretation on events, stressing the lessons you learned and how you’ve put these to practical effect since?

Listen carefully, what does the interviewer want ?

By now y ou should have realised that every question asked by an experienced interviewer has a purpose, so it’s important you analyse each question and understand its purpose before answering.

This may sound like a tall order, performing this in real time before answering. Will this lead to long pauses?

No. Your brain can process speech at about 600 words per minute, whereas the average person speaks at around 100 words per minute. Therefore, there really is a lot of spare capacity to process precisely what’s being said.

As the question is being asked, ask yourself:

WHY am I being asked this question?
WHAT is the area of concern for the interviewer?
HOW can I limit that concern?

If you follow our advice you should have a complete armoury of information to draw upon. What you must do then is simple: select the most relevant and positive information you have about yourself then sell it to them.

Sell the sizzle, not the sausage!

If you treat the interview like a sales meeting, it’s worth bearing in mind a well known sales slogan: ‘Sell the sizzle, not the sausage’. In other words, sell the benefits, not the features.

As an example a salesman might be selling an expensive gas fireplace, using a demonstration model in the showroom so the customer can see all the features, such as design, craftsmanship and the ‘real-fire’ effect.

So a good salesman won’t waste his breath describing what’s patently obvious to anyone looking at the fire. Instead he’ll stress the real but unseen benefits – the unique selling points or USPs - like speed of heating a room from cold, fuel efficiency, self cleaning flue, etc.

In the same way your features, skills, experience and abilities are all clearly itemised on your CV, so when highlighting these during the interview you should do so by linking them to your USPs.

You’re at the interview on the strength of your application but you need to secure that job offer. To do this you must convince the interviewer that your USPs have brought real benefits to previous employers and can be applied to this organisation as well. In short, you’re presenting the interviewer with an irresistible package of benefits.

Next:Staying employable despite being made redundant				Previous:Creating a positive first impression
Section 1:	Preparing your CV	Section 2:	Interview Techniques	Section 3:	Staying Employable	Section 4:	Downshifting