A single job interview has the potential to drastically alter the trajectory of your career. The job interview is simultaneously the most-dreaded and most powerful aspect of the job hunt. Most people get anxious just thinking about going on a job interview, as so much is on the line during a relatively short amount of time.
The good news, though, is that I’ve figured out how to hack the job interview. While my advice will never guarantee success, it’ll give you unusually good chances (unless your competitors are also reading this blog!).
In this post, we’ll specifically focus on what is called the “behavioral interview” – that is, the interview in which you meet with hiring managers who want to learn about your job history and past experience, and who you are as a person generally.
As we’ve stated numerous times, the key to all job hacks is to understand the employer’s perspective. If you can get a firm grasp as to what the employer is looking for, you can ask all the right questions and give all the right answers.
I’m going to start by presenting my cheat sheet for the behavioral interview, and then explain each step individually in depth. Here’s the cheat sheet:
- Research the company really, really, really well.
- Know EXACTLY what the company does.
- Read EVERYTHING on their website – every single page. Every blog post, their about, page, their contact us page, etc.
- Look up company on LinkedIn.
- Know who owns the company.
- Google the company:
- Look for press releases.
- Look for interviews with their CEO.
- Look for anything else that seems relevant!
- Google the CEO.
- Look up the company on Glassdoor.com.
- Bring a notebook to the interview! Take notes as they’re talking.
- Find a reason why you want to work for them that is good for THEM
- Ideal: You are passionate about their special sauce.
- Find a way to get that in the conversation!
- Develop a list of 5 questions. (Write these down in your notebook!) Each question should prove that you’ve done your research. Only ask questions that a person who had done their research could’ve asked.
- Look up the company’s interview questions on Glassdoor.
- Use LinkedIn to research all the people you’re meeting with.
Now, let’s dive into each of the above steps.
The first step is to research the company thoroughly. I’m not referring to five minutes of Googling; instead, this is a full-fledged research project. If it takes you less than an hour, you haven’t done it right.
Think about this from the employer’s perspective. If interviewees don’t know much about my company, Actualize, when I’m interviewing them, I take it to mean that the interviewee just wants any job and doesn’t really care about my company. But employers want to hire someone who is dedicated to the company’s mission and will be fully engaged and a team player, not a human simply looking to collect a paycheck. The more you know about the company, the more it signals to the hiring manager that you’re eager to be a part of the company’s mission and team.
There are three types of people in this regard:
- People who have not done research.
- People who have done some research.
- People who have done extensive research.
People who have not done any research turn off hiring managers. People who have done some research may not turn off employers, but they won’t impress them either. But if you can make this interview prep a veritable research project, you’ll impress their socks off. (Yes, I just invented that phrase.)
All the bullet points under this step in the cheat sheet make for a great place to start your research. The more you can dig up, the better.
Now, let’s move on to Step #2 of the cheat sheet: Bring a notebook to the interview! Take notes as the interviewer is speaking.
Again, look at this from the employer’s perspective. If I’m interviewing a job candidate, and they’re taking notes on our conversation, that signals to me that this candidate is taking this interview and role very seriously. The more someone is eager to work for me, the more eager I am to hire them.
I’ve had Actualize students I work with tell me that they’ve been on interviews where they’ve done this (based on my advice), and the interviewers explicitly stated to the them how impressed they were that the interviewee brought along a notebook.
Brining along a notebook will also be helpful for Step #4 of the cheat sheet, which we’ll get to in a moment. In the meantime, let’s move on to Step #3:
Find a reason why you want to work for the company that is good for the company. Let me explain.
One of the most common questions asked in a behavioral interview is, “Why do you want to work here?”
Most interviewees make the common mistake of not looking at the employer’s perspective and proceed to list in detail all the benefits the interviewee would get by landing this job. In fact, I’ve made the same mistake.
Back when I was a software developer (and knew as much about job hunting as the next person), I once included a cover letter while applying to a remote software engineering job. I waxed poetic about how amazing it would be for me to work for them, as it was a remote position, so I could work from home, spend more time with my family, and not have a commute, and so on.
The employer could not care less about how you benefit from the role.
But wasn’t that the question they asked? They asked, “Why do you want to work here?” – right?
When viewed from the employer’s perspective, the question “Why do you want to work here?” really means, “Why do you want to be part of our mission?” The employer wants to hear that you want to work at this organization for the same reason that the employer does. If the candidate is of the same mind as the employer, the employer will be excited to hire the candidate.
The best approach for answering this question is to first discover (what I call) the organization’s special sauce. Every company feels that they’re doing something special. This special sauce can be one of several possible items, such as their mission, or their unique place in the industry, or the unique way that they accomplish their mission, or possibly something else. You need to look out for the company’s special sauce as you do your research during Step #1.
Let’s take Actualize, for example. There are many coding bootcamps out there, yet we believe that we have a special sauce. If you research our company, you’ll find that our special sauce is three-fold:
- We’re “educators first, developers second.” Most coding bootcamps simply hire software developers as their teachers. Actualize’s Lead Instructors, on the other hand, are all individuals who have professional experience in both education in addition to software engineering.
- We believe that we’re the foremost innovator in developing the best techniques in the coding bootcamp industry.
- We’re experts in Job Hacking, which is the key to having our grads land software engineering jobs!
Many coding bootcamps share our mission of helping people become software developers, but our special sauce is the way we go about accomplishing that mission.
Some companies make their special sauce obvious through marketing on their website. For others companies, however, it’s not always so obvious. However, every company has a special sauce, and if you specifically look for it, you’ll find it.
Once you’ve found the special sauce, you need to get yourself excited about it. While this can be easier for mission-driven companies, you should be able to get yourself excited about any company you’re applying for once you can hone in on its special sauce.
Then, when asked in the interview, “Why do you want to work here?” – you should be ready to clearly articulate A) the company’s special sauce and B) why you’re excited to be a part of the company’s special sauce.
For example, if a someone was applying to be a teacher at Actualize, I would get really excited to hire them if their stated reason for working for me is:
“I want to be a Lead Instructor at Actualize because I believe that the best way to teach people to code is not just through sharing knowledge, but through developing and constantly improving the educational and pedagogical approach. I want to be part of the mission to help Actualize improve that approach, as educational pedagogy is something that I have experience with and is also near and dear to my heart.”
And if someone was applying to be a job-placement consultant with us, I’d start salivating if they said:
“I believe that the ultimate way to help your graduates land jobs is to continuously develop and train them in the job hacking skills you’ve been blogging about. I think that you guys are unique in the coding bootcamp industry in this regard, and I want to be part of the being the best bootcamp at helping their grads find jobs and changing their lives.”
You want to practice this statement numerous times in front of a mirror. If there’s one statement you make in the interview that you don’t want to hesitate on, it’s this one. You’ll want to look the interviewer in the eye and explain to them with complete confidence the reason why you want this job.
Additionally, as I note in the cheat sheet, you must say this statement to the interviewer even if they don’t explicitly ask, “Why do you want this job?” Find some way to sneak it in to the conversation if you must, but do not leave the interview without saying it.
Let’s talk about Step #4. You must develop a list of approximately five questions to ask the interviewer that will prove you’ve done extensive research. To accomplish this, you must ask questions that you could not have asked had you not done your research.
Let’s take an Actualize example: “It appears that you guys started in 2014, which was still in the earlier years of coding bootcamps. What was the coding bootcamp landscape like back then compared to how it is now?”
Note that the interviewee was able to glean two facts not easily found on our company’s website: 1) Actualize was founded in 2014 2) Coding bootcamps emerged only a couple of years before that time. I would immediately be impressed that the candidate took the time to take us seriously and do such thorough research.
You can ask other questions as well, of course, but definitely ask about five that are predicated upon extensive research.
Take advantage of your notebook, and write down all of your questions in advance. There’s no need to memorize them! Again, the employer will take these questions very seriously if you’re reading them from a notebook. If you made sure to write them down, it means that you must be serious about them, because you clearly did not want to forget to ask a single one!
Step #5 is to look up the company’s interview questions on Glassdoor. Glassdoor has a special section in which you can look up a company, and find actual interview questions other candidates had been asked by that company. You’ll be all the more prepared if you can be ready for specific questions you’re likely to be asked.
Step #6 is to use LinkedIn to look up the people you’ll be interviewing with. Having the context of each person’s background can come in handy and make for easier conversation when you know a little about each interviewer in advance. If the person setting up your interview didn’t tell you who you’ll be meeting with, just ask! They may not tell you in every case, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
Look out for future posts where we may go even deeper into any one of these topics, but I’ve found that this overall strategy has been extremely effective. Go impress their socks off!