When Selling, Always Stay Positive!

As a practicing career and life coach I often get clients and prospects calling me about their interview rejections. When they call there is always that familiar refrain: I answered all their questions, everyone liked me, and they told me that they would get back to me in a week. Then they admit that it has now been several weeks and the company is not returning their calls or responding to emails.

When I meet with them and go through the actual interview script as they remember it I often find that they have done a variety of moves to sabotage their own prospects, some subconsciously and some ignorantly. This has nothing to do with not having all the answers to the interview questionsno one does, or not getting along with a difficult interviewer, or even not being mindful of the body language signals on either side. Instead, it has more to do with some key statements the candidate made during the interview that should be the cause of concern.

What are they?

In my analysis of debriefs with hundreds of disappointed candidates it all boils down to the attitude, their conversation tone, and the actual language they use to communicate what they have on their mind during the interview process. Not being aware of such cuesunconscious incompetencecan drag down your interview score significantly, often, even resulting in an outright rejection. This is despite your finessing all the tricky questions, being on top of all the proceedings, and not messing-up the tablecloth during your lunch with the VP!

So, what are some of these cues that can scuttle your interview? Here are some tips:

1. In the early stages of the interview, with each person, there is an icebreaker period, which can be about a 2-5 minutes, during which the interviewer is trying to connect with you at a personal level (calibration) and assess if they can work with you. So, during this initial period they will ask some benign questions to put you at ease. For example, Sorry it took so long to get this interview scheduled, Jim. Most of us were busy organizing our CES showcase and we just got back last week from Las Vegas. To such a statement your only response must be: No problem, Joe, I am glad you had a dynamite show there (say something about their YouTube video or a blog you read on this). I am glad we were able schedule so soon after.Instead, some are tempted to use this opener for lodging a complaint to Joe: You know it is funny you bring this up, Joe. Since our last telephone call more than a month ago I called Sally (the recruiter) many times and even sent her emails about scheduling this interview, but she never responded to me. If you respond thusly (and some do, as I find out during their debrief) it is game over for them.
2. When it comes to the company product or market position, take some trouble to not highlight the problems it is facing in dealing with its challenge negatively. Show some constructive approach to help them with the problem. Do not say, Your sliding down to #2 spot in this important market should be a major concern to you. What are you doing about it? Instead try, “One of the reasons your competition is making so much noise these days about its products is that they have not really addressed the key issues you have about the customer needs, and yet they are getting all the press. One way to finesse that would be to xxxx. This is what Id love to work on when I join your team.
3. When an interviewer compares you to some other candidate and implies that she is better qualified than you are, do not challenge that assessment. Also, do not gossip about that candidate, or to say something negative to elevate yourself. Although it is rare that an interviewer will make a direct candidate comparison, it has happened in a few cases, where there was an internal candidate that my client knew and the hiring manager brought that up during the discussion. My client went to great lengths to negate the managers assessment of her and lost the opportunity. Instead focus on what you bring to the party independently and try winning their mind.

Interviewing for a job is selling yourself. The same applies if you are making any sale to a customer. You may even have a great product, but if the customer is not sold on you they are not going to buy your product.

Good luck!

About Author

Dilip has distinguished himself as LinkedIn’s #1 career coach from among a global pool of over 1,000 peers ever since LinkedIn started ranking them professionally (LinkedIn selected 23 categories of professionals for this ranking and published this ranking from 2006 until 2012). Having worked with over 6,000 clients from all walks of professions and having worked with nearly the entire spectrum of age groups—from high-school graduates about to enter college to those in their 70s, not knowing what to do with their retirement—Dilip has developed a unique approach to bringing meaning to their professional and personal lives. Dilip’s professional success lies in his ability to codify what he has learned in his own varied life (he has changed careers four times and is currently in his fifth) and from those of his clients, and to apply the essence of that learning to each coaching situation. After getting his B.Tech. (Honors) from IIT-Bombay and Master’s in electrical engineering(MSEE) from Stanford University, Dilip worked at various organizations, starting as an individual contributor and then progressing to head an engineering organization of a division of a high-tech company, with $2B in sales, in California’s Silicon Valley. His current interest in coaching resulted from his career experiences spanning nearly four decades, at four very diverse organizations–and industries, including a major conglomerate in India, and from what it takes to re-invent oneself time and again, especially after a lay-off and with constraints that are beyond your control. During the 45-plus years since his graduation, Dilip has reinvented himself time and again to explore new career horizons. When he left the corporate world, as head of engineering of a technology company, he started his own technology consulting business, helping high-tech and biotech companies streamline their product development processes. Dilip’s third career was working as a marketing consultant helping Fortune-500 companies dramatically improve their sales, based on a novel concept. It is during this work that Dilip realized that the greatest challenge most corporations face is available leadership resources and effectiveness; too many followers looking up to rudderless leadership. Dilip then decided to work with corporations helping them understand the leadership process and how to increase leadership effectiveness at every level. Soon afterwards, when the job-market tanked in Silicon Valley in 2001, Dilip changed his career track yet again and decided to work initially with many high-tech refugees, who wanted expert guidance in their reinvention and reemployment. Quickly, Dilip expanded his practice to help professionals from all walks of life. Now in his fifth career, Dilip works with professionals in the Silicon Valley and around the world helping with reinvention to get their dream jobs or vocations. As a career counselor and life coach, Dilip’s focus has been career transitions for professionals at all levels and engaging them in a purposeful pursuit. Working with them, he has developed many groundbreaking approaches to career transition that are now published in five books, his weekly blogs, and hundreds of articles. He has worked with those looking for a change in their careers–re-invention–and jobs at levels ranging from CEOs to hospital orderlies. He has developed numerous seminars and workshops to complement his individual coaching for helping others with making career and life transitions. Dilip’s central theme in his practice is to help clients discover their latent genius and then build a value proposition around it to articulate a strong verbal brand. Throughout this journey, Dilip has come up with many groundbreaking practices such as an Inductive Résumé and the Genius Extraction Tool. Dilip owns two patents, has two publications in the Harvard Business Review and has led a CEO roundtable for Chief Executive on Customer Loyalty. Both Amazon and B&N list numerous reviews on his five books. Dilip is also listed in Who’s Who, has appeared several times on CNN Headline News/Comcast Local Edition, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle in its career columns. Dilip is a contributing writer to several publications. Dilip is a sought-after speaker at public and private forums on jobs, careers, leadership challenges, and how to be an effective leader.

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