Speed Up My Job Search

April 28th – Advanced Interviewing

In this meeting we recapped the previous meeting to learn how everyone did, and then we dug into advanced interview strategies.

Sometimes the storms we are given are not for OUR benefit, they are meant to inspire those who follow us; to show them they CAN succeed despite the storms, just like we did.

The intention was to keep the meeting focused on video based interviews, however, as the conversation and questions popped up we discussed advanced strategies for answering common question for all types of settings.

We talked about how to answer questions such as:

Why should I hire you?

What’s your greatest weakness?

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

If you could be an apple or an orange, which would you choose and why?

Describe an adversity and how you successfully overcame it.

We even covered LinkedIn and a few other interview questions which weren’t on the agenda. It was a great discussion. Thank you to everyone who participated.

During the conversation Paul shared his Job Offer Selection Tool with everyone and someone asked if the tool would be made available to the group. This is one of many tools included in all PHASE Membership levels, however, rather than holding this one back for 'members only', you can just use the link below to download it. It is an excel doc, so you must have the ability to use MS Excel to use this particular tool.

Job Offer Selection Tool

We also talked about unusual interview questions such as, "if you could be an apple or an orange, which would you choose and why?" as well as, "How many cigars were sold in the United States last year?" Back in 2007 Paul Cameron published an audio training program called, "Turning Interviews into Offers through Advanced Selling Techniques". One of the tracks from that program was called, "Unusual Interview Questions". Below is a link to listen to that track right here on this page. Enjoy!

Unusual Interview Questions - audio track


Then we talked about the Discussion Guide (or rebuttal book) in SpeedUpMyJobSearch.com, which is a common tool in sales organizations to help their representatives respond consistently and effectively when selling over the phone. Paul has been using similar discussion guides for all the recruiters he has trained over the last 20 years, and now he adapted it for job seekers. Our PHASE members of have access to an electronic version within the website: click here to see an example. However, you can make one for yourself fairly easily.

You just need a 3-ring binder, and with divider pages that have tabs on the end which you can label. If you get stumped by an interview question, write it down, then come up with at least 3 better answers (but try for 10 to force yourself to be creative and stumble into even better answers). Print them out on a page one on top of the other, and label the tab so you can quickly reference it during your next phone interview. 

If you have questions about this tool, or any of the tools within this website, please reach out to me (there are checklists, debrief forms, template documents of about every kind, and more). If you would be interested in working with me personally to help you with your job search, please call or email me directly. Thank you for watching and checking out these materials!