In partnership with
Marcus has 20 years of experience. He couldn't answer the first question.
What do you do when you can’t answer the question?
I’m sitting in a coaching session last week with Marcus. Marcus has over 20 years of experience working, has lead practices, delivered to fortune 100 clients, and built an amazing career from the outside.
But when it’s time to sell his story? Or even answer… “tell me about yourself?”
The fear creeps in. Nothing comes out his mouth.
Why answer the question if it’s going to go the same as every other single interview process? Applied until I get a screen, screen until the 3rd round, and then get rejected because I don’t how to sell myself.
AND… I don’t blame Marcus. I’ve never seen companies be so dramatic about their interview processes right now.
5-6 rounds. 8-12 interviews. Spans 3 months only to get rejected.
It sucks and isn’t fun at all.
So, what do we do? We change the tone and we start from scratch.
I can’t be in the interview room for Marcus. I can’t read out the perfect answer and he can’t come with a script because we truly don’t know what they may ask.
Tell me about yourself?
Why are you interested in this role?
Why are you interested in this company?
Tell me about a challenging time with a coworker?
Tell me about a time you ran into a project the team wasn’t ready for?
And it’s not combining through these answers once, it’s 5x in a row being asked “tell me about yourself?” on a mock interview until you get it right.
What also helped here? Breaking out the answer. “Hey - I want to hit these 3 bullet points around tell me about yourself and then close my answer”… because that’ll prevent you from rambling and you can pretty easily remember those 3 points.
There is no substitute for putting in this work. It takes time to get these answers right and for them to come out of your mouth with confidence.
This person will move into 2 interviews over the next two weeks. By the 3rd time I had asked them to answer, “tell me about yourself?” it had already gotten better.
But there’s always room for improvement. Here’s to practice ✌🏼
One question for your career this week:
Who would advocate for me when I’m not in the room?
Before you leave…
This is the new format. One real story from the coaching room, every week. No filler, no recycled advice just what I'm actually seeing work for people in the middle of hard job searches.
17 weeks in, I'm finally writing the newsletter I should have been writing from the start.
If this hit home, reply and tell me. If you know someone who needs to hear the Marcus story, forward it to them. That's how this grows.
Outside of this newsletter, we put $625k+ in combined compensation in people's pockets in Q1 alone. This is built off 6 people working incredibly hard on their careers. If you need 1:1 support, shoot me a message.
Have a day
Dominic
Ps…. Don’t get left behind on the AI wave, get your basic prompting up with HubSpot
Want to get the most out of ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a superpower if you know how to use it correctly.
Discover how HubSpot's guide to AI can elevate both your productivity and creativity to get more things done.
Learn to automate tasks, enhance decision-making, and foster innovation with the power of AI.
Need more career insights? Sarah puts out a more in-depth publication around careers pretty often, always a refreshing read!
