Strategy #29: Take Control Of The Job Interview

The sharp end of a work search arrives when you attend a final job interview. You get just one shot at convincing a hiring manager to offer you an employment contract so you need an action plan that’s sure to deliver the maximum chance of success. The one I’ve designed reflects the behaviours of the most exceptional interviewees, the sort of top-flight job candidates who make an immediate and compelling impression at interview and shoot straight to the head of any employer’s want list.

Over the next tranche of articles in this strategy series I’m going to tell you what they do to succeed, and how you can join this small group of elite job searchers if you follow the interview template I give you. I’ll begin by explaining why taking control of crunch meetings is such an effective strategy, and the reason this lays the groundwork for the rest of your pitch.

This is the first of eight work-search strategies that look at different aspects of the job interview. Articles #29 through #32 concentrate on the format and substance of any hiring meeting. Then, in articles #33 to #36, I look at the way you deliver your message and handle any problems that might crop up. Of all the various components of my work-search system, controlling the interview is the most essential one to master which is why I’m delving deep into what you need to know and what you need to do.

As a prelude, let’s think about some context and consider why you need to shake things up when it comes to this particular aspect of a job hunt. The hard truth is that the overwhelming majority of standard-format interviews are totally unreliable if an employer wants to find the best person for the job they need to have done. Nearly half of all new recruits flunk within 18 months of signing a new employment contract which bears testament to a fundamental weakness of conventional job interviews. Look back at strategy #2 if you want more information or a refresher on this.

Not only do dysfunctional interview protocols cost employers huge amounts of wasted time and money but their very nature heavily mitigates against success for you, the job applicant, and for a whole range of reasons that I’ve explored previously. That’s the bad news. But here’s the good news. My revised version of the interview, or the hiring meeting as I prefer to call it, counters every one of the negatives you get with a conventional job interview. It transfers power and control from the interviewer and towards you. It allows you to shine in a way that’s virtually impossible to achieve if you go down the normal route.

If you want to get employed to do a great job with a high-quality employer, this is the way to do it. The hiring meeting allows you to demonstrate your value to an employer in the most compelling and persuasive way. It eliminates all of the inherent problems you get with a normal job interview and replaces them with a set of genuinely effective solutions, and particularly ones that are proven to address the most crucial concerns of almost every kind of employer. You set the scene by taking control of the meeting, showing why you’re different and demonstrating your authenticity. You use these concepts to fuel your pitch which demonstrates how you’ll do the job, once you’ve been hired.

Control, differentiation and authenticity are the three driving principles that encapsulate my approach. This triumvirate reflects the actions of the best, most convincing job candidates I’ve personally interviewed. They’re the defining attributes of almost every outstanding interviewee I’ve observed as part of my consultancy service for organisations who employ me to advise them on high-level candidate performance. 

Asserting control is central to my way of job hunting, and it features in each key stage of the work-search process. It begins when you take control of deciding which employer you want to work for. It continues with agency over the specific job you want to do, then decisions about the people you choose to speak with as part of a carefully-managed research campaign. But where the control factor truly comes into its own is during a hiring meeting with someone who has the authority to offer you a work contract then and there.

You rarely enjoy much control during traditional job interviews. It’s usually the interviewer who’s in control throughout, guiding the schedule, agenda and every other aspect of the encounter. Look back at articles #13 and #14 for an explanation of why this happens and the reasons that getting embroiled in a standard job interview is seriously detrimental to your chances of making a great impression. As a quick reminder, it’s really difficult to prove your value if you lack control, can’t differentiate yourself or show genuine authenticity, and these are the foundations of interview success.  

Let me emphasise that you must be quite clear about how you're different to anyone else. Are you an apple or an orange? Let the contrast be dramatic, so don't allow yourself to be perceived as just a piece of non-specific fruit! I'm sure you get the point. Thankfully, the principles of differentiation and authenticity are relatively easy to put into effect once you’ve cracked the control issue. That’s why seizing control is of such vital importance, and it easily justifies first place in my list of essential attributes of a truly effective hiring meeting.    

So, let’s think about the mechanics of asserting control during hiring meetings. This is a big topic to cover, maybe one of the biggest that I address in my entire Vocation Master programme, so I want to be clear that this is only the very briefest of introductions to this crucial area. I hope what I speak about here is enough to give you a flavour of what’s involved. I’ll be expanding on these ideas in upcoming articles so don’t worry if you feel short-changed or if you think I’m dangling a teaser with no substance behind it.

The concept of asserting control applies to almost any encounter you have with anyone who might help you move forward with your job search. This includes meetings with people when you’re doing research and gathering information, when you speak with contacts in order to seek introductions and so on. But where this manner of asserting control comes into its own is during a final hiring meeting when an employment decision is at stake. That’s what I’m concentrating on here.

In fact, I’m going to be even more specific because I’ll only talk about what happens during the first couple of minutes of the meeting. First impressions are created within a matter of seconds, although you’ll need a bit longer than this to set out your stall. I reckon on two minutes. That’s plenty of time to make a positive and immediate impact, to create an equal level of status to your counterpart and to seize firm control over the meeting format. If you can crush the first two minutes, the rest follows on easily and naturally.           

Attitude is a key factor with any hiring meeting. You’ve got to have the courage to be assertive with someone in a position of authority who probably won’t be expecting you to dictate the format of the meeting, nor guide its agenda and content. You need to prepare well, and that includes having the discipline to stick with the various stages of a hiring meeting. In my complete Job Search Masterclass, and during my in-person training seminars and coaching programmes, I explain how each of these stages function in plenty of detail. I also give you scripts, phrases and wording to help you do all of this with confidence.  

Although I’m referring to an interview or hiring meeting in this strategy series, it's worth mentioning that you’ll have scheduled this time with the decision maker under the guise of a discussion of a business problem and its corresponding solution, not as a job interview. This is a really important part of your pre-meeting activity. In article #32 I talk about the stages of the hiring meeting, including the things you must do beforehand, including the way you frame this meeting, so I won’t pre-empt what’s coming along then.

And so, the meeting begins. Let’s set the timer for two minutes. As soon as you sit down with the decision maker, after a short greeting and introduction, you get straight down to business. You say that you have a business proposition which will take you about thirty minutes to present, maybe longer if it’s a second meeting or you think your presentation justifies a fair amount of detail. This is the easiest way of controlling what subsequently unfolds.

If it hasn’t done so already in the hiring manager’s mind, the penny should drop that this is probably leading towards the conclusion you want. If he or she is ahead of you and asks straight out if you’re looking for a job, you head them off by saying the following; “I don’t yet have sufficient information to know if this is my preferred outcome, but I don’t rule it out as a possibility.” This phrasing is worth memorising by heart because it’s quite likely that you’ll have to use it at some point.

Any question concerning your motives, about whether or not you’re after a job of some kind, is a great one to get because it tees you up to give this response. It’s one of the key phrases you have at your disposal in order to establish control, so practice it well. The reason it’s so punchy is that it addresses the employment question head on, but it diverts it at this early stage of the meeting. You don’t want to reveal your hand too early, yet it’s crucial that you allow the possibility to lurk in the foreground, as you’ll be making a return to this subject later on. Much more on this coming up.

You seek their agreement to you making your pitch in the way you ask. It’s exceedingly rare that you’ll be rebuffed, provided that you do what I explain soon. You’re now two minutes in. You immediately launch into the guts of your prepared presentation, something I cover in the next few articles. This includes the way you structure your content, use your voice, body language and other non-verbal cues to maintain control throughout. There’s much more that I could say about this here, but I simply don’t have the time or space. I hope you get a small idea of what happens as you assert control in the first two minutes of a hiring meeting.

I devote a whole day to everything connected with a hiring meeting in my face-to-face seminars, and sometimes more. In my full Job Search Masterclass, I spend more time on hiring meetings than on any other topic. This is why I’ll be using the next 7 strategies to unpack more of the details of what happens in these crucial meetings, so look out for those.     

Neil Grant, Vocation Master, London, November 2022

If you have any comments, suggestions or questions about the issues I raise here, I invite you to contact me personally. Please get in touch via LinkedIn;

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