You never get any feedback on why your last job interview didn’t go well and you didn’t get the job. In this episode, will help you learn the most common interview mistakes, how to be more prepared, sell your brand, and get better results in your next job interview.
SHOW NOTES:
http://thecrazy1.com/episode-8-your-career-the-lost-art-of-the-job-interview-2/
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You never get any feedback on why your last job interview didn’t go well and you didn’t get the job. In this episode, will help you learn the most common interview mistakes, how to be more prepared, sell your brand, and get better results in your next job interview.
SHOW NOTES:
http://thecrazy1.com/episode-8-your-career-the-lost-art-of-the-job-interview-2/
FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook
What's going on crazy people? Welcome to the eighth episode of The Crazy One podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and a whole host of other stuff. So in this episode, we're going to keep the series going that we've been doing over the last couple shows talking about career development. And this episode is going to be dedicated to the interview process. And if I'm being honest, interviews, there's probably something that I have a pretty good love hate relationship with. I love them. Because it's a process where you get to find great new people. You get to find new blood for your team, you get to find exciting new talent to come on board. I hate them. Because probably some of the strangest surrealist weirdest stories that I have in my entire career have come out of interviews. I'll give you an example. And I wish I was making this up but I will So this was a few years back whenever I lived in Dallas, Texas, and it was working at an agency and I had been looking for quite a while to find a copywriter couldn't find a good copywriter was looking everywhere. So the headhunter called me up and said, Look, we've got the guy for you, we've got the one who you're absolutely gonna love. So I said, Great. Send them over receptionist calls. He's here. So I usually like to walk down to lobby meet the person just kind of get a general sense of what they're about. And so walk down and meet this guy, middle aged, kind of short. I'm six four. So probably To be fair, a lot of people are shorter than me, but but not a not a real tall guy. And whenever I walk up to meet him, he's wearing jeans blazer, which was a little strange for being the summer in Texas. And he had two large, almost military looking duffle bags with him. And it was long enough ago that this problem Wouldn't have seemed quite as strange as it would have had it would have happened today. But I thought, you know what, who knows? So, go down, say hi to the guy. We walk back to a conference room. Whenever we get in there, introduce myself we make the usual small talk, tell me a little bit about yourself all that sort of stuff. And then I said, Well, you know, honestly, I've been busy. I haven't really had a chance to go over your writing samples because your, your headhunter just called give some samples I can look at. He reaches down below the table, picks up one of these large duffel bags and almost kind of like slams it down because of the weight down into the middle of the table unzips it and starts to take out stacks and stacks of magazines. Well, what I quickly realized is that these are his writing samples, that these magazines each have a post it note in it and that across a very large conference room table. They could probably easily easily have held out In what 12 1620 people, he starts methodically placing these magazines opening them up to the to the spot that had marked in them to the article that he'd written all of them for very small time magazines that I hadn't heard of about topics that were really pretty obscure it and this alone would have been strange enough. So honestly, just the combination of not really seeing material that I felt was gonna go well with the work that we needed to do, as well as just this kind of insane flea market approach to his portfolio. didn't lead me to believe that this was going to be the guy and then it got interesting. So it being a hot day in Dallas, he asked if he can take his jacket off. So I said, Well, sure, make yourself comfortable, takes the jacket off, to which I see probably about three inch wide, Rainbow suspenders, to which one of them is pinned a Star Trek communicator pin and it starts a little bit more in And so then he starts to tell me about how he's starting to study to be a clown and how he's a really big Trekkie and how he writes to keep these hobbies going. Great. I, it's not my cup of tea, but that's perfectly fine. So like I said, at this point, I really decided this is not going to be the interview for me, this is not going to be my guy. And so you sort of try to do that thing of the well, this is great. Let's wrap it up. And the one thing that I forgot about was the second duffel bag. And so as I'm trying to do this, as I'm trying to wrap it up, I'm trying to come up with another meeting that I have to go to or something he says, Well wait, you know, since since you're creative, and I'm creative, I really want to share kind of my other great passion with you. At this point, I was half expecting Ashton Kutcher to pop out because I was being pumped. But you know what, you're this far into it at this point. Why not go the rest of the way? So I said, Sure. You know, what, what's this gonna be? He walks down to the to the other end of the table picks up the duffel bag. Again, big heavy plops it down to the table and unzips it, revealing a large almost Run DMC esque boombox. And he starts to tell me about his other hobby is Star Trek folk singing, that he and a few of his friends love doing folk singing about obscure characters in Star Trek. And so what do you do with that? Where do you go? And I wish that this was the only story that I had like this about these crazy characters, these crazy incidents, this thing where the interview that starts out with so much promise with so much life with something that you're so hopeful for, just veers so wildly off the tracks. And so, I'm not gonna say that it's always those two extremes. It's not always the person you hire or the person that is going to be the story you're going to hold on to for years and years and tell people about because they're really just not going to quite believe believe that it's true. But what I am going to say is that I really think that interviewing is a lost art. I see a lot of people who come and talk to me, who do it really, really badly for some pretty basic reasons. And so this show is going to be dedicated to that. It's going to be dedicated to the feedback that you never got. It's going to be dedicated to the basics to help restore this Lost Art of the interview. And so I think that the first thing that we need to recognize is that interviewing in so many ways, is just a broken process. The whole job hunt process is broken. But it's really been funny because over the course of my career, including very, very recently, at some very big, very notable companies, I've gone through their HR process, seen a job that I was really interested in, submitted my resume heard nothing The funding part was then either through my network or at an event or something like that, I would run into somebody from that company. In a few cases, the person who had the job that had been listed that I was interested in, and we had a short conversation at the end of it, they would say, you know what, I've got this job opening that I think you'd be absolutely perfect four, Would you ever consider applying for it? And I would kind of chuckle, not really quite knowing what to say. And would just kind of look at them and say, No, I actually know about the job. And I agree, which is exactly why I applied for it three months ago. So just to get to the interview, you have to negotiate a broken process. And we talked a little bit about that. With the personal branding. We talked a little bit that with your resume. But whenever you get into the interview, that's that last mile. That's the part where you need to figure out how do you close the deal? How do you give a good interview, how do you get in there and get what you need out of the interview and make sure that the person that is interviewing you gets what they need. So in this show, we're going to talk about seven ways the seven things that I see people fall down on, trip up on, not do whenever they come in to do an interview the thing that's making this into a law start. So the first thing that I'll tell you is that you need to understand that an interview is a lot like a first date. And what I mean by that is that one of the reasons why like with the interesting Star Trek folk singing writer, why I go down to the lobby to meet people, is the fact that everything in an interview is being evaluated very much like a first date, but also very much like a first date. It's putting this entire process into what is honestly an unfairly short timeframe, that all of a sudden you're going to be evaluated in 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, hour and a half, maybe at most, to see if you're somebody that we want to work with or not not dissimilar from a first date. And so these very short interactions are incredibly meaningful. But the thing that you need to realize is from the very first moment that you meet with somebody who's giving you the interview, everything you do is being evaluated. The way that you dress, the way that you present yourself the way that you present your work, your attitude, the way you sit in a chair, the way you answer to a question. Everything is communicating. And I think that this is one of those things that I think some people don't necessarily appreciate that it is this microcosm, whenever you're talking, I'm trying to understand and trying to get an insight about if you're somebody that I could put in front of a client. Whenever I ask a question, I need to see if you're actually listening, are you somebody that's just going to recite the canned rehearse line that you have in your head, even if it has nothing to do with it? I asked. But I think that this is one of those things where, and I think that this is one of those things that everybody does. And hardly anybody will tell you about. Because the reality is, is that we see everything that you do, we're assigning meaning to everything that you do. The reality is that we're just not commenting on about 95% of it, because we're using it to try to get this sense for all these really important things. And it's like I said, it's not fair to take that short amount of time to try to get a sense of somebody. But I think it's one of those things, though, that you have to be aware of it and you have to go in with that mindset that you've thought through everything that you think through, what do you wear, because it shows how much do you care or how much do you not that you think through your personal branding? You think through your story, you put some time and some effort into this? Because the reality is, is that your resume and your profession polio, if you have one for whatever it is that you do, are just going to get you into that chair, they are not going to get you the job, they're going to get you the opportunity to come in and sell yourself. And I think that's the second thing that's so important is the fact that you aren't presenting. Because I think so many people come in, they have a canned script. They have whatever the backstory is about them. They have the little talk about their last job. They have the two pieces of work or some example that they want to cite. And they come in and they present it. And this is the second fundamental problem. Because I believe, if I have a spreadsheet, a series of numbers, something that is really plain, something that's very straightforward. I can present that. Whenever I'm coming in for a job I'm selling. I need to sell you on me. I need to understand that there are other things People who are coming in to sit in this chair to have this interview to try to get this job. And so I need to figure out some way to set myself apart. This goes back to why the personal branding is the foundation behind all of this, because that's the story that I need to sell. But you need to understand that this is selling, not presenting. And there's a huge difference between the two of those. If you haven't had a chance, go back to episodes, go back to episode six where it talks about personal branding. Because if you aren't square on that, if you don't have your personal brand straight, your interview is not going to go well because you're not going to have anything to sell. But whenever you sell something, you also have to be realistic about what it is you're selling. Because you don't want to turn into the used car sales. You don't want to turn into the siding salesman. You don't want to turn into the guy that's just going to go in and do the sell, sell, sell and do this high pressure sort of pitch. You need to be smart about it. You need to be strategic about It need to be thoughtful about it. You need to do things whenever you go into sell yourself, like call out any pink elephants, or any problems, or something that you think is going to be uncomfortable for people to talk about. This could be a job you're only at for six or eight months, it could be the fact that you've been with a different company every year for the past five years. It could be a gap in your employment, there could be a whole number of different reasons why these things could happen. But these are going to be it's one of those things where the people that I admire the most are the ones who show the confidence, to be able to call out what that pink elephant is to be able to talk about it to have the self awareness to say, I know if you spent any time looking at my resume, you saw that there is this big gap in my employment and you know what, I really would like to explain that to you. Because it shows insight, it shows awareness, it shows that you're willing to go through and to be able to understand what this process is. And I think that's incredibly important. The other thing that I'll tell you to do whenever you're going into sell yourself is that this is a trick that I've picked up over the years is that sometimes whenever you go in to interview for a job, you'll end up with these marathon sessions, where you may be talking to four or five, six, maybe eight people in a day. And they can be these rapid fire 15 minute half hour, 45 minute sessions back to back to back. Well, the problem with that is, is it by the third, the fourth, the fifth one, you find yourself selling the same thing over and over again, you're starting to become that door to door salesman who's doing the same pitch over and over again. And the problem is, with each one of those pitches, you're getting a little less convincing. You're just simply repeating back what you said the time before you're thinking about it. A little bit less, the passion is a little bit less. The detail is a little bit less. It's just it's a natural human characteristic to do. It's not anything that you should be ashamed of, it's not a problem you need to work on. It's just the fact that whenever you do something over and over again, your energy starts to get a little bit low. One of the things that I'll do, whenever I get the schedule from a recruiter is that I'll actually go through and if I see this happening, I'm going to tell them, You know what, probably right in about the middle of this, I have this conference call that I need to take. It could be another for another recruiter, it could be for my job, it could be something for my wife, just something. But I'm going to need probably about a half an hour where I can be in a room to take this call. Well, the reality is, there is no call. There's no conference call that I need to make. What I'm doing is I'm recognizing the fact that if I have to go through and I have to sell myself that many times over and over again, I need a break. I need some time to recharge the battery. I need to sit in a quiet room. I need to just be able to sit there have a glass of water, get my head back together and get my energy back up. So you know what, I won't always advocate lying to recruiters or lying to new potential employers, but I will advocate, understanding how to put your best foot forward, understand how to sell your best product. And if that means that you need to ask for a break, then I think that you need to be able to do that. And I think that the last thing that I'll tell you is to know when to stop selling. Because this is one of the other things that I see all the time. That is a pretty big mistake. And this could be whenever you're presenting your work, it could be in an interview, but pay attention to the person that you're talking to. If they start asking what I would describe as buying questions, these are questions like, what was your salary at your last job? When would you be able to start? Things like that are questions that I'm not going to ask everybody because I don't want to get their hopes up. These are questions that I'm just going to ask people that I'm genuinely interested in hiring. So whenever you start to hear questions like that, wherever you start to hear those sort of buying questions, whenever you feel like there's a good connection between the two of you, and that stuff starts to come, stop selling so hard. Take the wind for what it is, because I've seen plenty of people who couldn't take that cue, who kept selling, who kept wanting to convince me who kept what needs all these things, and just kept going on and on. And on to the point where I started to become a little bit less in love with them, I started to become a little bit less than hammered with them, because they couldn't seem to take the cue of where this was going. They couldn't seem to understand that it was okay for them to calm down and to, to just be normal and to stop trying so damn hard. So that's one of those things that is so important in life, and not just in interviews, no one to shut up and listen, and to be able to just stop selling. So the third thing, and this is another one that I see a lot and this one really irritates me. Is that you have to do some research. Because the reality is if you walk into my office and sit down, and I've had this happen very recently, and people do these things that I think they think are cute, or it's cool or dismissive or something where you can tell that they've done a little bit of research. I had somebody recently once walked into my office, sat down for an interview. Nice enough guy. But at some point, he said, Oh, yeah, like, you know, I remember you did that thing with what was that thing you did with like, you know, the iPhone watch or something like that. So let's be clear. Ignorance is not attractive. Ignorance is not going to get you the job, not understanding who I am not understanding the work that I've done not understanding my company, let alone simply demonstrating the fact that you don't know the name of one of the biggest form factors that has come out recently in a field You're about to go work in is not endearing that you tried to do a little bit of research. But the reality is, is all you showed me is that you didn't care enough to get it right. And that there are two things that come out of that. One is that I look at that as well, if this is going to be the most impressive this person is going to be if this is going to be the best and the hardest that they're trying, and they couldn't even do basic research, and they couldn't even get a basic the name of a product, right? What chance is the work that matters whenever they do here gonna have and the other thing that I'm thinking is that this is a person that just wants a paycheck. I have no interest in having people like that on my team. I want people who care. I want people who are going to invest and that yes, a line that is that small. A joke that is that flippin can make the difference between whether you get the job or not. Maybe You think it's overly harsh? Maybe you think it's overly egotistical that I want people to be able to spend some time but I want them to be able to spend some time not just with me and theirs to understand who I am, but everybody they're going to talk to because it shows that they give a damn. Because that's what I'm really want is I want people who give a damn and aren't just here to get a paycheck. So research who you're going to talk to research the company that you're going to go talk with, read recent press articles, or try to find out what's going on there. And if you don't, if you don't have a list of names of who you're going to talk to ask the HR person for it, I bet you they'll give it to you. Because this is the thing is that you need to very much like a Boy Scout be prepared. Because walking in blind, not knowing anything about our company not knowing anything about our group not knowing anything about the people that you're talking to. is not impressive. It is not cool. It is a fantastic way to have really short interview and have your name be one that I forget before the day is over. So this is one of those things that I would highly encourage you to do is to show that you care about the opportunity show that this is something that matters to you that this is more than a paycheck and that you really want this job. Because if you don't, someone else is going to come into that seat Not long after you who will and I will hire them. So the fourth thing, again, none of this stuff should be rocket science. But somehow it finds a way of being that way is to show you can think and everybody starts with a script, right? Even whenever I go in for an interview, I have the script. I have the whole I'm a second generation creative director learn typography on a cast iron letterpress, yada, yada, yada, right? Like that's the shtick. But the thing is, is that I need to try to figure out how to quickly get off of that script. Because I think that Both sides. The interviewer and the interviewee often fall down here, because the reality is, is that most of the people that I talk to whenever they interview somebody, somehow seem to make it into something just short of a personality test. They go in, they interview them. Whenever they come out, I'll say, Well, what do you think about that person? Like, Oh, you know what, they were really nice. I don't care about nice. I don't need more friends. I need people that can think I need people who can contribute to the team. One of the reasons why the apples and the Googles and the Facebook's and all these big companies that do so well get the best people is because I can tell you that they have the toughest interview process, and the A's will prevent me from telling you about any of those. But take my word for it that this is not the come in, tell me about yourself. What's your dog's name? Where'd you go to school, sort of an interview? And so I think that you have to be able to find a way to be able to show you Your value show some passion show a point of view. And I think that whenever you do this, there's a bunch of just really common mistakes. And sometimes who are the if it's somebody who is interviewing you, who knows what they're doing, they will ask you questions that will let you show that you can think. But if they don't understand that there may be a few common traps that you don't want to fall into. One of the most common ones that I am, again, constantly astounded by is that people don't listen. And I'll ask them a question very specifically about something could be in their resume could be in their portfolio. And the thing is, is that they give me an answer that has nothing to do with what it is that I asked them. They may be trying to show off that they've done some research, it may be a canned answer that you can tell that they like to go to but the problem is It doesn't have anything to do with what I asked actually asked you about. And that thinking starts with listening. One of my mentors always told me you don't learn anything with your mouth open. And that's the truth is that you have to be able to start by listening and showing me that you can think on your feet, showing me that you can take the question processor and answer it back. The other part of thinking, is thinking ahead. And that this comes down to, again, like the Boy Scouts being prepared. I am constantly amazed at the number of people who don't or can't think ahead, they show up with no resume. They show up with no portfolio, or they do show up with a computer but have not even begun to think about the possibility of what if there is no Wi Fi whenever you get there. So we end up with this interesting and awkward sort of interaction. On the one hand, I think they seem to feel like I had been waiting with bated breath for every moment since I read their resume until the moment whenever they arrived in front of me. And then I remember every single small detail about them. Here again, folks, we're going to be honest, I looked at your resume, I looked at your portfolio, and there was something in there that made me want to talk to you. You are one of 6080 100 other resumes. And while I'm sure that I will remember some of it, don't think that I remember it word for word and be able to have the arrogance to think that you should show up without a resume. Don't be dumb enough to think that we should show for a design interview with no portfolio or no backup plan for what to do if there's no Wi Fi because in my particular instance right now, I work in a regulated, highly secure industry. Getting Guest Access Wi Fi is about a week long process and if I had to do it for every time somebody came in for an interview, that would be a full time job. But I think that this is the thing Is that in its simplest form, thinking means that you're anticipating problems that you're demonstrating even in just unspoken ways that you can think. Now, obviously, you also want to demonstrate by talking about the challenges you've had in your career by talking about the ways that you've overcome them to talk about, again, that personal brand, the personal story, the things that you've done different and the things that make you unique. That also shows off your thinking. But you have to approach this as chess, not checkers. It's more complicated, because again, this is a first date, in an unfair timeframe, where everything is being evaluated. And these dumb little things, these little mistakes can add up. Because so much of what you're doing is trying to sell yourself to sell confidence that somebody else should have in you. One of the other things that I've learned is that if I feel like I'm not really selling them, or if I feel like what I'm selling them may only be 70 or 80%, of what they want. One of the things that I've done, actually pretty successfully is all asked for homework. Because I know that there is no substitute for me being able to show in whatever timeframe they'd like to give me that I can think. So I'll say, look, you know, I'm getting the sense that, you know, it feels like we've got a good connection, I can tell you like some of the work, but you know what, there's this one part of my skill set that I know you're looking for that I'll just I'll just admit isn't my strongest. But that's just because of the fact that I haven't had the opportunity. So if you want, I'm perfectly open to the fact that give me a homework assignment. Give me something to work on in 24 hours, 48 hours, whatever the timeframe is that you feel comfortable with. I'm going to come back and present it to you, to show you that I can do it, to show you and to sell you on the fact that I have those skills. And it's a technique as an interviewer I use a lot as well, but it's one of those things where I find it to be even more impressive. Whenever the person Has the self awareness to try to ask for that and to try to engage with it. Because that just really again shows that they're thinking. The fifth thing, and this is a theme that keeps coming up, and I really wish it wouldn't, but it still does. Is it whatever you're in there, just like on your resume, tell the truth. Say what you did on a project, say why you were let go, say how much money you really made. These are all things where the industry is too small. And things like that just aren't worth it. And because just for the sheer fact, if for no other reason, tell the truth so that you're sure that you get the job that you can be successful at, let it be the job that you want. Because of I think I'm hiring one particular person and a different skill set shows up. That's going to be a big problem. So again, I'm constantly amazed at whether through its exaggeration, or just flat out Lies, how many times people will do this? Well, like I said, I beat this, this horse to death and a lot of other episodes. So we're going to move on. The sixth one is to ask questions, because asking questions demonstrates thinking, it demonstrates research. And it demonstrates insight. And I think it also gives you the ability to make a make a personal connection, because in some way, here, again, dating, I'm trying to find some way to make a personal connection, find some way to be memorable to try to get something past that regular script that we all go through and the interview and the interviewees both have them, but somehow be able to get through and make that connection to ask those questions. Here again, some people will take this a little bit too far, and there's some kind of again, common mistakes to avoid. One of the ones especially if it's in the first probably interview, maybe even One first or second interview, is don't interview me. I have had plenty of people who want to come in and show how impressive they are and how smart they are. And you know how they don't care how they're too cool for the room or whatever it is, by the entire conversation with them grilling me? Well, the reality is, is that they're not hiring me. It's the other way around. And that if you're just going to come in and do that for the entire time, it makes it very, very hard for me to find out something about you, outside of the fact that you kind of are lacking some amount of self awareness to understand the dynamic that's going on here. And that there's some amount of arrogance in you that thinks that this should be all about you. And I think that that also then will extend to don't ask stupid questions. This should be a rule for life, but in particular, in this case, stay away from I'm asking about things like vacation time, whether the company has summer hours, how long have a lunch break? Are you able to have? What time? Do people normally leave work? Or how early can you get away with leaving for work? In the first meeting, these things are all important. But there is a time and a place to ask about that stuff. And it's called the offer letter. Because whenever you do that, that's the place where the selling has stopped. Each side understands that they like each other. And that then you can ask about vacation time or summer hours, or time offered or any of this other stuff. Because I think that again, if that's the first thing that you're looking for, and the first thing that question that I get is how much time off do you get? Not really showing me that level of passion, that level of commitment that I'm looking for? starting to feel again, like somebody who's looking a bit more for a paycheck. This next one, and you know, I'd be curious to hear from from other people who interview people how they feel about this. I have this weird thing where I actually hate people that suck up to me. I will say that you know what, look, I'm a very public person. I'm on social media, I write my blog, I have my portfolio site, I'm now doing a podcast. my opinions are very well known. There are people who gravitate to those and who like them, which is the point of all of this. But what I don't want to hire is a fanboy or a fan girl. Because what I want is I want somebody that's done their research. I want somebody who's aware of me who is aware of my team who's aware of what we're trying to build, but I don't want somebody who's going to suck up. And the reason why is because for me, it always just seems like you're pointlessly showing off that you did your research. But the reality is that it also shows me that you're probably not going to be somebody who's really going to push back at me. You're not somebody If I come in and have an opinion, is going to disagree with me, you're not somebody who's going to come back to me and say, You know what? That was a great idea in your head, but it looks like total crap on the screen. That's not what we need to do. I need people that have opinions. And if you become that fanboy that fan girl if you're coming in, and you know you're wide eyed and things like that, I never in my entire career have hired one of those people. This may be an incredible first world problem. This may may make me sound like an insane egomaniac. But it's just one of those things where I want somebody that has their own opinion. The last thing that I would tell you, and this is a fine line to walk. But I think that it's important somehow to be memorable. Because we talked about this before that I'm never going to interview just one person. I'm going to interview a lot of different people. So how are you going to stand out? It could be that you're going to come in it could be that you could ask for a home work. It could be the insightful questions that you asked. It could be a style, it could be any number of things. But the people who have turned out to be the best hires that I've had, whenever I look back are the people that were the most memorable that they demonstrated something about them that really showed their creativity that showed their insight that showed that they were more thoughtful that they were bigger than just that meeting. I had a writer one time who I interviewed who honestly is one of the funniest women I've ever worked with, who afterwards sent me it was a really funny comment card, along the lines of what you would get at a restaurant after you had dinner, asking me to rate her level of banter and you know, to rate her insight, it was this kind of funny multiple choice sort of card and then a comment section. Well, again, just the insight that it demonstrated into the process, that the follow up to that the being memorable to that the the inside of the research at went into that I hired her and to this day, still think she's just an absolutely brilliant writer. I had a different writer who came in and gave me a whole selection of her writing. And it was everything from almost an annual report to kind of the more expected advertising copy to a poem. And that's a gamble. But the reason why I liked it was because it showed range, it showed a fearlessness, it showed a sense of confidence, even in the face of the fact that over the course of that interview was obvious that confidence was something that she probably honestly needed to work on. But it was just the fact that she was willing to be that vulnerable, to do something that different to walk into a bank and delete the creative director with a poem that was incredibly memorable. And she's one of those people that because of that I bet on and that's the thing is because these are the people that show you something more that they show that they care, and that they're willing to take a risk. Those are the people if you are the person interviewing them. Those are the people you want to hire. Because if they're willing to do it there, that means that they have it in them. But if you're somebody who is trying to get that job if it's the one that you really want, and honestly, it's ranged, it hasn't just been writers. I know I gave two writers examples, but I've had tons of other people. And it's ranged from something as goofy as a guy showing up with doughnuts on a Friday morning. Just because, you know, he really appreciated the team's time and just wanted to say thank you, too much more elaborate kind of bigger and kind of very elaborately behinds. But the reality is, is that it shows that you care, and it makes you memorable, and it makes you stand out. Because if you just go in and do the same things as everybody else, you just get remembered like everybody else. Because if you go that extra mile, then all of a sudden you stand out and we just have such a different way of thinking about you. So those are the seven basics. Those are the seven problem areas. But there are a few more things that I think is going to be important to talk about. And I think that one of those things is, whenever you're going to do an interview, it's something that would probably be a really good idea to practice. And how the hell do you practice in interview? And the thing that I've always done is that it isn't necessarily always about how do you answer the question, how do you sit in the chair? How do you because again, I think, you know, yes, those things are going to be evaluated. But the two most important things with this one is going to be taking the time to get your personal brand straight. And to is the way that you deliver that story. And I think that this is something that's very interesting. And in a few episodes, we're going to start a new series about presenting and about public speaking, which is something that I've spent my entire life working on, because I'm somebody that came to realize that whenever I left college I was terrified to speak in front of more than probably two or three people. And that to become a public speaker to become somebody who was good at telling a story was something that I've had to learn. It has been an act of will, it does not come come natural to come naturally to me at all. The stutter on that sentence alone should prove my point. But here's the thing is that a lot of people don't understand. When they stutter. They don't necessarily even understand how they come across whenever they present. So here's the thing that I would tell you to do. Have a friend, a co worker, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, interview you, ask you just a few basic questions, try to take it as seriously as you can. But the key to this is to record it and to record the way that you act record the way that you answer these questions. And as soon as you're done, stop the video. play it back. We all have an iPhone. And this doesn't have to be some big Fellini masterpiece, it just needs to be a video recording. But as soon as you're done watch it. And a really funny things gonna happen. You're gonna have a whole bunch of stuff that you do that you had no idea that you did. I always liken it to, if you ever, for some reason, call into your own voicemail, and you hear your voice. I do this all the time, because in our voicemail system, whenever I dial the extension, it says my name and my voice. And every time I hear that, I think to myself, I've heard my voice in my head 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for my entire life. I cannot sound like that big of a tool. Well, the funny thing is, watching yourself in an interview, watching yourself present is very much like listening to that voicemail, that there may be a lot of things that you do that you're completely unaware of. That you may have a problem with. eye contact, you might look down all the time, you might be one of those people that has a very common nervous tic, where you have a hard time with silence, where as you're thinking about the next thing you want to say, you can't sit there and just let the room be silent. So you'll say things like, um, or right, or, you know, or a, and you're not aware that you're doing this. And the reason why you're not aware that you're doing this, is because your mouth and your brain are in two separate places. Just like whenever I'm doing this talk right now, my mouth is very worried about the sentence that is coming out of my mouth right now. To be a good storyteller to be convincing to sound authoritative. My brain is one sentence ahead. It's mapping the road out, it's trying to figure out where am I going to go with this? What's the connector that I'm going to use, and the disconnect between those will allow these little ticks to surface and you may not be at all aware of it. So this is why I will tell people to practice Be aware. And it's true. If you do public speaking, it's true if you do presentations, it's true if the only time you ever are in a situation like that is interviewing, but it's one of those things where it's so incredibly important to do that. And the last thing that we want to talk about, is to understand how to actually close the deal. The interview is great. You went in, you had your personal brand straight, you really sold a convincing story. You showed insight, there was a great personal connection. They loved you, they loved everything about you, dammit, they want to be you for Halloween. Well, now comes the interesting part of closing the deal. And this last mile, I see so many people screw it up, get taken advantage of or to really just not understand what it is that they're doing here. And if you listened a few episodes back from the listener questions show, one of the things that I talked about was how important it is for creative people to start to understand business. There may be no better moment that that comes true than here. Because one of the big reasons why I've been successful is because of the fact that I understand and have taken a lot of time to study business. I've hung out with venture capitalists and sports agents, I've hung out with people who talk and do business for a living. I've studied all kinds of different things. The Harvard Business Review is his regular reading for me every month, which may sound a little strange for creative director, but it is because of the fact that there are certain parts of business that I need to understand. And you need to understand how to close a deal. You need to understand that it's a dance and you want to get the best deal you can. But at the same time, the company that you're negotiating with the HR team that you're negotiating with, quite honestly probably wants the cheapest deal they can. But it's this dance that makes all the difference. And there's a few common mistakes that I'll tell you to stay away from. The first one is to not bluff on something That isn't real. Don't tell me that you have an offer from another company unless you have it in writing. Having a phone call with somebody where they told you how much the position would pay if you got it is not an offer an offer sheet with an actual amount on it is an offer. If you've been a freelancer understand that the hourly rate that you've been making, if you take that, multiply it by 40 hours a week, and then by 50 to 50 weeks a year, we'll say minus two weeks for vacation does not equal your salary. Because whenever you're going from freelance to full time, there are benefits and bonuses and a whole bunch of overhead or that number doesn't translate. And if you come in in that last mile and trip and suddenly ask for some insanely disproportionate number from what you've been making, these are all things where you're gonna fall down, you have to understand how to negotiate you have to understand how to be realistic. You have to understand how to leverage your strengths, leverage the fact that they like you leverage the fact that you have a unique skill set, leverage timing, leverage any number of things that are going to be the strengths, and learn how to minimize your weaknesses, how to put those off to the side, how to structure a deal in different ways. So you can get the signing bonus that you want, understand how to be able to do these different things. So the things that could be seen as weak for the fact that maybe you're unemployed, maybe they you know, they're gonna try and take advantage of that and drag the deal out, understand how to deal with those sort of things. That part of it is one of the biggest reasons why I've been able to be successful as we've been able to be a survivor of somebody who survived being laid off for two of my last three jobs is because I cut the right deal going in. I understood what it was that I needed to do whenever I went in to try to be proactive about the business to that I was going to cut so that whenever the inevitable happened, the thing that you never thought was gonna happen on that day when you're negotiating for this shiny new job happened. I was gonna come out of it. Okay. So these are just the basics. These are some of the things that I think are the things that you need to think about to be able to give a better interview to, to not make this a lost art anymore. So next time, we're going to go in and talk about some of the the biggest challenges if you're somebody that has to present a design portfolio. And I know I know, whenever I've been talking through all these episodes, I keep saying that these episodes are for anybody that's creative. It's not just for designers and for creative professionals. Well, for this one show, guess what you get the week off, because this is just going to be about anybody if you have to present your portfolio, whether it's designs, whether it's writing, whether it's anything, these are going to be some of the things that we're going to talk about is the fact that just as many resumes as I've seen just as many interviews as I've had, or just as many portfolios that I've seen, and portfolios, interestingly, are way more of a crystal ball than you would ever possibly expect. So Tune in next week and we're going to talk about that. As always, if you enjoy the show, I really appreciate it because it's the only payment that I asked for. If you head over to iTunes head over to Google Play, leave a review, let other people know that this is a show that you like because obviously this is a lot of work for somebody who does not have a lot of free time. But it's because I really want to try to make a difference in the industry really want to spread this knowledge and so please leave a review. It certainly always helps. If you want to find out more about the podcast if you want to find out look at the show notes anything like that. You can always head over to podcast dot Stephen Gates calm it's Steven St. EP he n gates comm if there's something you want to ask about something you want me to talk more about something you liked, something you hated. Send me an email, you can send it to ask at Stephen Gates calm and as always the boys down the legal want me to remind you that everything I talked about here does not represent any of my current or former employers. These thoughts are all my own. Last but not least, and as always, thanks for the time. I know that time is truly one of the only luxuries that we have. And I'm always incredibly grateful and humbled that you want to give me some of yours. So, until we talk next time, as always, stay crazy