I’m noticing a trend in interview rooms that I’d like to nip in the bud.

Many business leaders are scratching the surface when it comes to responding to behavioral questions.

Most leave too much to the imagination and as a result are not landing the best roles.

Let me explain and offer one tweak to help you fix this the next time you are trying to convince a hiring manager that you understand your potential impact.

Explanation:

My clients are being put through the wringer. Why? They are senior leaders who are vying for roles in Fortune 100 firms that have the luxury of cherry-picking the best talent.

As a result, a candidates’ ability to answer a behavioral question is simply the beginning. You should all be able to do that if you have 15-plus years of experience.  It really comes down to having someone jog your memory and help you unpack the magnitude of your experiences. Your generous partner and/or friends can help you with that.

However, the extra bit that is not included during the type of interview preparation that happens with volunteers is the following: you are not being pushed to connect the dots between prior experiences and your prospective employers’ existing business challenges.

It’s fair because your friends may not feel comfortable stretching you in that way.

It’s okay because your partner may not be exposed to the new set of job interview expectations that are at play these days.

However, as a top executive, you should have grounded insights into your prospective employers’ challenges and you should also know how to effectively connect these dots (the ones between prior experiences and your prospective employers’ existing business challenges) real-time during your next interview even without being directly asked.

Tweak:

Let’s say you are interviewing for a product management role with Compass.com – a data-driven yet user-friendly online real estate platform for aspiring or current denizens of NY. You can say that you’ve built a reservoir of learnings having worked as a PM for Realtor.com and you can lay-out your top three most relevant learnings. However, take it a step further than your peers and explain how each learning would inform your perspective as a product management leader for Compass.com and if you really want to stand out clearly explain how your perspective would shape your strategy, keep going to name some supporting tactics, and make sure you mention your anticipated tangible results.

Ultimately, as an interviewee, you must explain how what you’ve done in the past is relevant to a prospective employers’ current needs – it is your job to come prepared into any interview with this information already prepared, vetted, and rehearsed.

Take Action:

The best time to engage me is when you have a job interview scheduled. I’ll make you work – you can tell by my testimonials – however my goal is that you are well prepared to prove that you can and are the best positioned candidate to solve your prospective employers’ real business challenges – p.s. that’s was being asked for nowadays during the toughest job interviews.

Schedule a brief chat when you are ready to deep dive into your work history, career objectives, and showcase your worth, I can scale up your interviewing skills within 36 hours.