The First Interview: The Candidate Perspective

Welcome to Headhunters Secrets, where I share perspectives from 40 years in the search business. Yes, 40 years, and still enjoying what I do.

The First Interview: The Candidate Perspective
How to become a good salesperson

You may be thinking, “Oh, gosh! I’m not a natural salesperson. I don’t want to be a salesperson. I don’t like salespeople.”

If that’s what you’re thinking, then you’re likely over-thinking. 

Every job interview is basically a sales call, but the first interview is almost exclusively a sales call, where you must make your most compelling pitch. You are the product and the salesperson. The person interviewing you, the employer, is the customer. Your job is to get the customer to want to “buy you,” to hire you. So how do you make it happen?

There are two main principles of making a sales pitch you must cover in a first interview:

First, find common ground. Second, exceed expectations.

Common Ground

Finding common ground helps form a bond, a relationship with the person you’re meeting.

The best time to find common ground is before you go into the interview. Sometimes common ground—like a shared contact or trade association—landed you the interview. Even still, find more.

Prior to the first interview, check the interviewer’s LinkedIn (or all profiles, if you’re meeting more than one person) and do additional research online. Who do you know in common? What shared experiences—professional or otherwise—or interests can you find? Latch onto anything, big or small, you have in common.

Then send the person a LinkedIn request with a note along the lines of “Looking forward to meeting you soon” and mention the common ground you’ve found. Connecting on LinkedIn also makes it possible for the interviewer to see who you know in common.

If you can’t find common ground before the meeting, don’t panic. Still send the LinkedIn request in advance. And then go into the interview in search of common ground in the first moments of it. If you meet in the office, notice the surroundings. Are there any photos or banners, branded coffee mugs, or anything that overlaps with your life? If so, mention it at the start of the interview.

The more you know about the people you’re meeting, the easier it is to have a productive conversation with them. This will not only forge a bond, but it will also allow you to walk into the interview confident that you can break the ice and start the interview from a place of connection.

Bonus? Mentioning common ground shows you’ve done your homework. And this will exceed the interviewer’s expectations from the outset.

Exceed Expectations

But don’t stop there. Keep exceeding them. The more you exceed expectations, the more people will want to engage with you.

Prior to the meeting, research the company and its competitors and any recent news relevant to the business and the industry in which they operate. Look for organic opportunities to weave what you learn into the interview.

If you’ve been given a job description in advance, review it. Log all the aspects of the job that align with your experience and inspire you.

If you find common ground and exceed expectations in the interview, you increase your chances for getting a second interview. As you progress through the interview process, your strategy will shift somewhat. You will pitch yourself incrementally less and increase how much you are trying to learn about the company, the people and the role.

In the earlier interviews, you will lean more toward salesperson mode. In later interviews, the scales tip toward an equal balance of pitching yourself and inviting the people interviewing you to pitch the role and company to you.

Over 40 years of search, and I am still often surprised by how few people approach interviews with a seller’s mindset. Meaning, they don’t think about finding common ground or do substantive research in advance of interviews. To me, this signals a lack of interest, and such people usually don’t make it to the next round.

Find common ground. Exceed expectations. And you’ll make the kind of impression that lands you more interviews.

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Hope these insights are helpful. 

We at Leyendecker have been doing search work for 40 years. We’ve completed over 100 C-level searches, most for CFOs. Most have been for PE portfolio companies, but we’ve also helped owner/managed and publicly-held companies. Our placements have helped their employers go through almost 50 successful liquidity events.  

Keep us in mind when you seek talent that will get you over the goal line! Hope you have a great year!

Doug