Whether the economy is up or down, looking for a job can be a long, lonely, frustrating process. That’s why it’s important you take steps to make your job-hunting efforts as effective as you can.
While there are many strategies and tactics that job-hunters use to get back into the work force, one of the least recognized and most misunderstood is to treat job-hunting like selling, and handle a job interview as you would a sales call. While they may not be appropriate for every job interview, it’s worth learning these skills, because in certain situations they can prove extraordinarily effective. Here are the basic guidelines:
Develop Promising Leads
Salespeople understand that trying to sell their product or service to people at random is unlikely to be very successful. The more promising the lead, the more likely the sales efforts are to come to fruition. In the same way, looking for work among companies that don’t need your skills or wouldn’t meet your requirements is unlikely to land you a job. The more promising the companies where you interview, the more likely your efforts are to result in a job offer you’re willing to accept.
Qualify the Prospect
Just because a company, group, or family seems to be a promising lead doesn’t mean a salesperson’s presentation will result in a sale. Salespeople understand that they need to make their presentations to the actual people who are in decision-making positions. In the same way, interviewees looking for work must “qualify” their interviewers, tactfully of course, to find out how much influence they will have on the hiring decisions. The way you conduct yourself and the goal of your interview will depend heavily on what you find out. In every case you will make a strong effort to present yourself in a favorable light. But the less influence the interviewer has, the more you will also push to meet the real decision-maker.
Make the Pitch
Once you’re in the room with the real hiring decision-maker(s), you’ll want to do more than answer questions. You’ll want to cover particular ground: your skills and abilities, your motivation and desire not just to work for this company but to take responsibility for this assignment, your experience and past success in similar situations, and perhaps even some of your ideas for addressing issues that you recognize to be looming on the horizon for anyone who takes this job.
Ask For the Sale
One of the key skills of successful salespeople is simply to ask for the sale. There are many “closing” techniques, but none of them work without this simple request. When you treat a job interview as a sales call, you try and find a way to present yourself as a prime candidate, and then you ask for the job. If the situation doesn’t permit you to ask straight out “May I have the job?”, at the least you can initiate a conversation about next steps: Where does your application go from here? What’s the time frame for the hiring decision? What other information would they like you to supply? And even something along the lines of “what do you think of my chances to be hired?”
Parry Objections
Like any good salesperson, your pitch won’t always be well received. In fact, your prospects will frequently want to end the interview without giving you the job. Here’s your opportunity to probe for objections and parry them. You can ask questions like “Do you feel I’m qualified for this position?” “Have I indicated a solid understanding of the job and its challenges?” “What additional qualifications are you looking for?” In particular situations, you may want to ask other questions along the same lines. The answers may give you opportunities to strengthen your case, reposition yourself even more powerfully, or demonstrate skills and abilities that will clinch your getting hired.
Follow Up
Since most job interviews — like most sales calls — end ambiguously, never forget to follow up: send a “Thank You” note, keep track of the passing days and re-contact the interviewer at the appropriate point in the hiring manager’s decision-cycle, which you tried to discover while asking for the job. As part of this follow-up, you may even want to offer additional information — brief plans, further research, results of your private brainstorming, or something else that demonstrates both your qualifications for the job and your strong motivation to win it.
