I was trying to think of a topic to write about this week when I noticed my son sitting at the breakfast bar in our kitchen.
He’s almost 13 and knows I help companies find people to hire but has no idea of what I go through to do that other than read resumes.
“I’m trying to think about something to write about. What do you think I should write about?”
“I dunno.”
He’s interviewed people for projects in school so I decided to ask him about that.
“When you interviewed people for your PIPS (personal interest project), did you ever wish that the people you were interviewing just gave you the information you needed without having to ask them lots of follow up questions to draw it out of them?”
“Well, yeah (he turned, “yeah” into several syllables thhat made the question and me, by extension, seem stupid).
And that is my topic.
Make it easy for the interviewer to know what your experience is that relates to what matters to them.
Once you have defined your responsibilities, make sure you use the 4 magic words of interviewing.
Earned
Saved
Increased
Decreased
How much money you helped your employer earn
How much money you helped your employer save by what you did.
How you helped them increase productivity or decrease waste.
If you work for a small company, make sure that as you answer, “Tell me about yourself,” you take a sentance to decribe your current employer and what it does, its size and approximate revenue in order to contextualize your experience.
Make it easy on the interviewer to get interested and excited about you.
© Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, Inc, Asheville, NC 2013