Job Search
How to Tell if You Nailed Your Job Interview
- by Holly Burton
Have you ever walked out of a job interview anxiously wondering how it went? Were you charming enough? Did you show off your technical chops sufficiently? Did you display enough “executive presence”? And most importantly, will they fall madly in love with you and offer you your dream job and a 40 bazillion dollar per year salary?
I get it. The time between the job interview and the next email or call from a potential employer is stressful! While you wait to find out whether you’re moving forward in the interview process, your brain has ample time to run around and around in circles trying to predict the future.
What if I told you I had one simple question that could help put your hyperactive brain all hopped up on post-interview adrenaline to rest?
Yep! This article now sounds like an old-school scammy internet ad, but there is legitimately one weird trick to figuring out if you did everything you were supposed to do in your interview. Ready for it?
My One-Question Test to See if You Nailed Your Job Interview
If I phoned up the person who just interviewed you and I asked them “If you hire [person X], what are you buying?”, would they:
- a) Have an answer, and
- b) Would it be the answer you want them to have?
Easy, right?
This is my favourite question to use when I debrief my job search consulting clients after an interview because it tells me whether you did your job effectively in the interview or not.
That’s it.
It’s easy to complicate our role in the interview process and think we need to do more than that, but the truth is, if we’re giving the interviewers an accurate (and positive!) look into what we can deliver for them, we’ve held up our end of the bargain.
If you show them exactly what you can do for them and they don’t hire you, then that’s on them. There are lots of things that are totally out of your control that might mean you’re not the right fit for them. Maybe they want someone who can program Python and you don’t. Maybe they’re looking for someone who wants to travel more than you do. Maybe they’re looking for a complimentary skill fit with the rest of the team that isn’t quite you. Nothing you do in the interview is going to turn you into a Python-programming, travel-obsessed, perfectly-fitting puzzle piece, right? So it’s actually great if they decide to go in another direction.
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What you don’t want is for them to choose not to hire you because they think you don’t offer something that you actually do! If you are a Python-programming world traveler, then this would’ve been your dream job, if only you had managed to let them know what they’re buying when they hire you. I want to make sure that, in an interview, you put all your cards on the table and don’t hide any of your I’m an amazing hire for you aces up your sleeve.
So, when you prepare for your next job interview, do it with that one question in mind: “If they buy me, what are they buying?”.
Make sure that the things they’re buying from you – your excellent project management skills, your track record of hitting budgets, your uncommon ability to relate to geologists and mine operations guys (even though you’re a mining engineer) – are crystal clear in all of your interview answers and stories you tell them.
If you can do that effectively, you’ll avoid jobs that are an awkward fit for your skills and get offers for jobs that are a perfect fit for what you bring to the table. And not only that, you’ll avoid the week of anxious thoughts between finishing the interview and hearing back about how it went. Win, win, win!
Have fun nailing your interviews, WIMDIs!
