Dubin & Lee Blog

How to Sell the REAL You in a Job Interview

  

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Have you ever been advised to "sell" yourself as something different than the “real” you in a job interview?  Before I founded Dubin & Lee, one of the “headhunter” habits that I used to see all the time in the large firm was the endless persuading the job seekers to sell themselvs as something they were not when interviewing with the company. This practice annoyed me to no end!

This tends to happen quite frequently in the Accounting & Finance interview process because “selling yourself” (as is necessary in a job interview) has traditionally been thought to be something that did not come natural to an Accounting or Finance professional.  This assumption has led these professionals to take some bad advice.

Here is the problem.  When you try and fit a square peg in a round hole, it does not usually work out in the long run.   The differences come out sooner or later and pretty soon you are looking for a job that is a better fit and most likely, you will not be leaving with a stellar reference.  Your time in a career search will be best spent selling yourself correctly to the jobs and companies that fit your skills, personality and career goals.

What happens when you are presented with a potentially great job opportunity?

Yes, as headhunters, we do have access to the inside scoop (or Hot Buttons), such as…

• Exactly what the company is looking for (skill sets, personality, etc.)
• Hiring Manager’s pet peeves
• Why the last interviewee did not fare so well (or why he/she did)

But, what do you do with that information?

It’s actually very simple.  Put those company “Hot Buttons” in one circle, your “Hot Buttons” (skill sets, personality, etc) in another circle and create a Venn diagram.

• If you spend your time talking about what they want that you are not, the interviewer will just see through it if you try to fake it.
• You may have 168 things you want to tell them about yourself that you are so proud of but if it is not of use to them then 3 things happen:

1. The company thinks that you might not be happy if you don’t get to use your talents.
2. It ends up being noise that distracts them from what they want to hear.
3. You are wasting the very limited to you have to really sell yourself.

Spend 100% of your interview on preparation and focus on the common ground only. It is always beneficial to share outstanding real life scenarios with the interviewer regarding your experiences and most importantly to always be sincere.

The most effective way to get better at interviewing is practice.  I facilitate workshops around the country on Interview Preparation where we learn technique as well as practice.

Get the workshop alert to find out when there is a workshop near you.