But let me digress a moment for you to understand the path I have walked to get to this point. I get emails constantly asking "What are the best strategies for interviewing?" and it's a completely valid question. There are 478 books listed on Amazon.com about Interviewing Skills and when you add the videos, websites, coaches, and spiritual guru's on the subject you would think that all the interview secrets have been as uncovered as Paris Hilton at an Amsterdam Nightclub. There are entire careers built on the science of how to answer questions, move your body, motivate the listener, hypnotize the hiring manager...that one must be overwhelmed with the variety and selection of strategies presented mostly by unemployed HR consultants... but that is another article for another time. (you can see where the hate mail is going to come from by now)

When I went through one of my unemployment dry spells many years ago (I was in HR - We all have unemployment spells...who do you think gets fired first?....marketing people? Ok maybe marketing first) I became very worried and yes even desperate to find a job. I did all of the stupid crazy things that everyone else is doing now to get noticed and find a job. I was a wreck but I was also interviewing like crazy.  I couldn't land a job. I read every book, spoke with every author, consultant, connection, and guru I could find and utilized every strategy available. Even jobs I was perfect for, didn't land in my lap. So for the next ten years, I perfected the perfect interviewing strategy. It works every time.

Not that it gets me a job every time, but it gets me the perfect job every time. Consider this, you want a job. You have the skills for it. You meet the hiring manager who is looking for the right person. If you are perfect for the job (or at least the "most perfect") you get the offer.  Your job is to convince the hiring manager that you are perfect for the job.

So what is the secret to do this?.... There isn't any.

Here is another example. Imagine a woman who has just concluded her third marriage. You want to be husband #4 (can't imagine why you would want to...but let's go with the flow). You have no idea what this woman is looking for in a husband and only you know what you want for a wife. She is going to assume you are a typical man (ladies fill in the blanks if you wish) and it will be her job to find out if you are what she is looking for. You can't read her mind and hopefully she can't read yours. If you pretend to be what she wants, after the marriage you will be in hell and eventually ex-husband #4. If you show her who you really are and she likes you....the ex-husband count ends at #3.

The same is for the interview. Here are common sense rules that you would normally follow in either an interview or a first date.

 

If you are qualified, and they like you, you will get the job. If you don't get the job it's because you rubbed someone the wrong way (which is not your fault - it is just how life is) or you didn't have the skills they were looking for.  Some men only date redheads....some companies only hire Type - A's. It's the same thing in work as it is in life, you cannot make a company like you and if you fool them into thinking you are something you are not (Like a Type - A personality) you are going to spend your working life in hell.

So there it is. The great interview secret. Forget the books, forget the video's, forget the secret crystal pendant that will hypnotize the company into thinking you are perfect which you happen to have bought off an unemployed HR consultant. Just be yourself, trust in your skills, tell the truth, and don't do stupid things. I guarantee that your next job will be perfect.