2 Simple Steps I Teach to Never Miss Interview Opportunities Again

Every Conversation Is An Interview

 Welcome to 2022!

We're going to open up the blog in 2022 by teaching how never to miss an opportunity again. There are two things you need to absorb here and it's going to be short and sweet and when you adopt these two concepts, you are never going to miss an interview again. 

The two things that you need to know/do in order to get those interviews are:

1) Make interviewing your priority in 2022

2) Realize that every conversation is an interview

Make Interviews Your Priority

If trying to get a job, it's most likely the case that you are trying to send applications out and you are hoping that some sort of conversation ensues.

In 2022, instead, look beyond the application step and get into conversation and develop relationships with the people to whom you are sending the applications.

There are ways to do that and that's the details and implementation is going to be beyond the scope of this short post.

So, change your mind about what you’re trying to accomplish in the job hunt: it's not about sending the applications, it's about getting into a conversation. Because after all, at the end of the day, that is your goal: you want to be hired and have new colleagues and leaders in your life. 

All that is about being in conversation. Focus on generating conversation, not just applying. 

I agree: hovering inside of your comfort zone is more comfortable than reaching out. Decide to make a change: after making an application, follow up on your application through messages and through networking. That's what's going to move the needle. Anything short of that will not. That’s a conservative approach that allows for a wide margin of error so that you get hired with 100% certainty. 

Every Conversation Is An Interview

This is really critical. The second thing to achieve unlimited invitations to an interview is to realize that every conversation is an interview.

Every conversation is going to follow three parts:

PART 1 - GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER

PART 2 - ASSESSING THE CHEMISTRY

PART 3 - MAKING AN EVALUATION / YOU ASKING FOR SUPPORT

Just like now, you're reading this blog post and you're making an evaluation. Your mind is turning. 

“Hey, do I keep reading this, or do I go do this other thing that's on my mind or beeping on my screen?”

Reading this or watching my video: that's your mind basically interviewing me and this content, right? Your mind is engaged in critical thinking whether you see it that way or not.

That's the first part of the interview - getting to know and/or like the person.

The next part of any meeting is to get you more familiar with one another. I'll give an example: 

Now that you've gotten to know and like my blog, as a next step, I want your help to like my Youtube videos and subscribe to my channel. Please like this video and subscribe to it. 

That's an example of this natural process: getting to know, to like, and then advancing to the support or ask. Once you've made a commitment to generating relationships, then you see that this is the process to follow for each professional networking meeting or interview. 

This next piece is important: every conversation is an interview. Every relationship-building conversation is an interview with the get-to-know, get-to-like, and ask for next-step pieces.

Put those two together, you will never miss the opportunity to interview again. You prioritize interviews. Then you see that every conversation is an interview. 

Conclusion

You've applied for a job. Rather than waiting, reach out to follow up on your application - the same hour or day you apply. Make it a point to speak with people within the firm to get on a call with them, not just apply.

You can start at the junior level when you reach out. With my students in The Career Accelerator (12-week intensive) we then want to upgrade our socialization. Professional relationship building cannot just always be limited to the juniors just because our confidence level allows for it. We upgrade our professional socialization to include executives because that is with whom we hope to end up speaking and working. 

At the end of the day, those executives are the people that are going to hire us to work or not. So, prepare and upgrade your networking. Every conversation is an interview, every conversation is following these three steps - getting to know each other, assessing chemistry, and making an evaluation.

Once you've applied, follow up with HR, that's a start. Also, follow up with the “doers of the business” and get them on calls. Those calls are interviews you generate on-demand. 

You might've had three calls this week already, and didn't recognize them for what they were: they were interviews, no matter how they went. 

Now that you have that connection, you can go out and on-demand, generate as many interviews as you want. You can use that this month, next month, this quarter, this spring to accomplish that. 

By committing to interviews and appreciating how every conversation is one, we can generate interviews on demand whenever we want to, as many as we want to.

Stay in touch, comment below on what you liked and in what areas I can be helpful to you.