Why Should They Choose You? | JobSearchTV.com
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
I love speaking with good interview coaches. Alex Freund is one of them. We had a wide-ranging conversation about interviewing for jobs but, in particular, why should they choose you over the other qualified people they are speaking with.
Jeff Altman
So my guest today is Alex Freund. Alex is a career coach who specializes in interview preparation and practice. He teaches clients how to confront and survive the most challenging interview scenarios with grace and with confidence. And most of his clients are job hunters, job seekers, however you want to refer to it. But he also helps those who are considering a career position change. Alex, well done, how the heck are ya?
Alex Freund
Doing? Terrific. Thank you very much for inviting me. Now, I have experience with you. You know why? Because you already interviewed me once for your radio show. So now, this will be much, much easier.
Jeff Altman
I’ll simply say yes, it was quite a few years ago. I didn’t have here then either. And I’ll simply say you did a great job talking about negotiating. Now we’re focusing on your real specialty, which is around the interview project. So how did you become an interview coach? Like what made you decide to specialize in that area?
Alex Freund
That’s a good question. 15 years ago, so I found myself in transition. And I like helping people. Because I know when I help people, they helped me. And I, based on what my friends and people that know me, their suggestion was “Alex, you need to become a career coach.” And I was kind of taken back. “Wait a second, I’m used to getting big paychecks. What are you talking about?” And so finally I said, “Okay, if that’s my destiny, I’m happy to become a career coach.” But early on, I realized that there are lots of career coaches. But there aren’t too many people that are preparing or helping people in the interview preparation.
Alex Freund
Under the umbrella, Career Coach, there are several verticals.There are people that do resumes, LinkedIn profiles. There are people that help you define what you want the rest of your life should be. And then there is here in the corner, interview preparation coaches. So out of these three, and I’m sure there might be more, I decided to specialize in this. And Jeff, I have to tell you, the more I narrowed my scope, the more clients I got, not only that, I became better at it. You know, if you do something repetitive, repetitive, you know what to leave out, you know, what sells? You know what doors to smile on people’s face. So you know, you’re really perfect., what you want to do. So, I became an interview coach, thank God. People need interviews, I help them. There is no shortage of clients, I can tell you that.
Jeff Altman
Agreed. And I know you know that I do a lot of work around interview coaching, as well. So I’ll simply say, because I don’t think I said this thing before, if we do disagree about something, it’s okay. It’s good that the audience hears a difference of opinion.
Alex Freund
Right.
Jeff Altman
So, what’s the best way to prepare for an interview?
Alex Freund
Well, there are several ways to prepare. And I’ll tell you what is the best way to prepare. The best way to prepare is to work someone qualified, that can give you instant feedback. I always say to my clients, please don’t take a chair to the bathroom, and start talking to yourself. This will not improve your interview skills,. What you need, you need to face someone that can give you honest, straight talk feedback. And let me give you an example. A year ago, I received a phone call from somebody. “Hi, Alex. Hi, my name is so and so. I live in Chicago. I have a PhD. I am in pharma. Alex. I had six interviews. No job offer. Alex, what do you think is the problem?
Alex Freund
So of course, I don’t know the individual and I said, “Look, I don’t know you but here’s what I can tell you. You went to your first interview. Evidently, you didn’t do very well because they didn’t make you an offer. Lucky for you, you want to the second interview, it’s very likely you just perpetuated what didn’t work for the first time. Well, it didn’t work for a second. So, you went through six times. It’s possible that you did something wrong 1,2,3,4,5,6 times. The best way to prepare is what you are practicing. And somebody tells you when you’re good, and somebody shows you what are better ways to do it. And you go to the next question, the next question, next question. I’m sure you will become better with some practice.
Jeff Altman
And as you know, the skills needed to find a job are different than those needed to do a job. And most people go on their interviews, and they think that they recite a bunch of facts about their background and experience. That’s enough to get hired. And we both know it isn’t because they’re competing with other people who are as competent as they, because the employer doesn’t know how to read a resume. Very few instances where they make a mistake and invite someone to an interview who’s unqualified. So why do they choose one person versus another?
Alex Freund
Well, the answer is very simple. Then again, look, I’ve been doing this interview preparation for 15 years, but prior to that, for over three decades, I was a hiring manager. Typically, my career spans major, major major employers, I always supervise many departments and big departments. So the outcome of that was that I interviewed very, very often. And now the question is, why do you select John and not Peter and not Mary and not Paul? Okay, there is a saying in this business. We select for skills, but we hire for personality. When I say personality, we are talking about soft skills. The skills are good enough, your resume tells me that bullet number 1,2,3, and five, is exactly what I need. So I say, Jeff, come to my office Tuesday afternoon at three o’clock, I want to talk with you. That is called an interview.
Alex Freund
Good for you. You have an interview. You have a chance. Bad for you is yesterday, I had Mary tomorrow I have George after that I have another person. So the question, why do I decide on you?
Alex Freund
Clearly, the first thing in an interview, I test your skills. And if there is a bullet on your resume that I like, and it’s important for me, Jeff, you and I will talk about that bullet two and three and four sentences, because I want to make sure I don’t hire somebody that doesn’t have the basic skills that I need. But beyond that, I am testing you on your soft skills.
Alex Freund
For example, are you adaptable? Look, you come from outside, you join my organization, you need to adapt. If you’re very rigid, because for 28 years, we you were with ABC company, you know we are different? Would you be a cultural fit for us? I need to test that. Do you have leadership skills? I need to hear about that? Are you creative?
Alex Freund
Do you know how to prioritize? You know, it’s a fast paced organization? You can’t have everything priority number one. Are you able to manage your time? What will your team members tell me about you? Do they like you? They don’t like you. So these are the things that I need to anticipate and have answers to and I’ll tell you why.
Alex Freund
My boss may come to me and say Alex, congratulations. I understand you have a new team member. Actually I know his name. His name is Jeff. Alex, can you please tell me why you decided to hire Jeff, and not the other four people you interviewed? I cannot tell my boss Jeff is such a nice guy. Really? That’s not a good reason to tell my boss why I decided to hire Jieff. I need to tell my boss that I hire job because A and B and C and I have to give reasons to my boss why I decided to hire you and not somebody else. And I better have reasons. If I interview I make a decision. It’s not because Jeff is a nice guy. That’s not good enough in the business world of America today.
Jeff Altman
Agreed. And it’s so funny. I have this thing about hiring for fit. And I don’t believe employers really know how to do I think they think they do. But the fact of the matteris within 18 months of coming on coming on board. Statistically 60% of hiring managers have buyer’s remorse about the person that they hire. And part of that is just a scenario of an interview. So I tend to think of this as interviews as being somewhat contrived, around fit. And they got to pretend. So, yes, competence is one thing that they look for self-confidence, character, chemistry, charismatic people will obviously do better than non charismatic, caring, you seem to care about what you do. But ultimately, it adds up to a trust you– trust you differently than they might marry Paul, George Ringo, and the rest of the Beatles that they’re talking to?
Alex Freund
Yeah, Jeff, one of the topics I discuss with my client is this. Let’s do reverse engineering. Assume I hired you, You’re on our payroll. Let’s go back and ask ourselves, what were the reasons for me to hire, and there are four. Number one– skills. I talked about skills. Number one is skills. The number two is trust, honesty, integrity.
Alex Freund
Let me remind you, Jeff, I have many other applicants, if I don’t trust you, if you’re not genuine, you are not going to be a part of my team.
Alex Freund
So certain item is the likability factor. I don’t need to fall in love with you during the interview. But I need to have enough chemistry developed in one hour, that I feel comfortable having breakfast with you, having a meeting, perhaps the CEO wants you to make a presentation on your topic. And I can say, Jeff, clear your calendar on Tuesday at 11am. Because you and I are going to see Michael. Michael is the CEO. So chemistry is number three, and the fourth ingredient that is a must. It’s I call third party validation.
Alex Freund
Because if I say, Jeff, by the way, I live in New Jersey, I’m the best interview coach in the entire state of New Jersey, you are saying, Alex, you’re full of yourself, I don’t believe you. But if I say, Jeff, as you know, I live in the state of New Jersey, I have something very good to share with you. In the last 11 days, three of my clients happily told me that they got an offer. All of a sudden, now you change your opinion about me. If 11 days this guy prepared three people to get an offer, well, there are good chances that he’s good at what he’s doing. But when I said, Jeff, I’m wonderful. I’m fantastic. You just don’t believe me. So these are the four ingredients that you must have in order to be hired.
Jeff Altman
So what would you say? The major obstacles that people run into when they interview?
Alex Freund
That that’s a big? That’s a big question. First of all, let’s step back a little bit. I think that the biggest issue that job seekers are facing is the fact that they fell into this abyss called in transition. Normally, it’s a surprise, sometimes they kind of can read the future. But look, when it is happening, when all of a sudden, your boss or your HR person says to you, we love you, Jeff, you’re wonderful, but guess what, starting January 2 next year, unfortunately, you will know it and you will no longer be a part of this organization. You know, that is a shock. So the first step is how do people react to the shock. And some people get over it rather easily. And some people will never get over. I want to give an example of the first case when people get over very easily.
Alex Freund
I will not forget my client. His name is Mike. On a Monday morning at 10am my phone rings. “Hi, Alex. Listen, my name is Mike. I was fired Friday. Alex how soon can I can I meet with you? And this was a good 10 years ago. I always say he is my smartest client ever because he knew one thing. He was fired on Friday and Monday he already seek for help. Other people, they take the weekend, they agonize over what happens. Then they said, “Oh, I worked so hard for so many years, I need to take a vacation.” And then two, three months later, they start thinking about coming back to work. And then they don’t know what they want to do. And so you understand where I’m going with this. Time goes on and after six months, they said, “Well, it’s time for me to look for a job.”They’re totally spaced out, because they don’t understand the business world anymore. And it’s very difficult for them, it’s very difficult for them to get in.
Alex Freund
Please remind me, I want a little time to remind me of the question, the question.
Jeff Altman
What was one major obstacle people run into when they’re interviewing?
Alex Freund
Yeah. So the major is overcoming that shock. You’re driving on a sideroad and somebody hits you. That’s a shock! You didn’t expect that to happen. How do you deal with the aftermath. So, the smart people, they said, “You know what? I am an marketing director, I am not a career coach. But that’s what I need. I need somebody to put me back on track and make sure that I don’t fall off the track. The best thing you can do, go and hire somebody you trust. Trust is very important.
Alex Freund
Jeff, I suspect, you did not select your medical doctor or family doctor, that you opened the telephone directory where you said, “Okay, this is my doctor. You didn’t select it at random. You probably went to people in your local area that could recommend one or two or three people and you investigated that eventually. You select it. Don’t work with someone you don’t trust, it will never end up very well. So find somebody you trust. Evaluate the person, ask the difficult questions, and talk to several people, not only one. Talk to several people. See which one fits you. Because I may be the best interview coach for you. But when it comes to your cousin, I may not be a good person for that. So you know, you need to establish the chemistry and the trust. Once you trust it, work with someone. And yet, Jeff, yes, it costs money. But just think about Yeah, just think about it. What does it cost or sitting at home? And kind of looking at the sky and just praying that tomorrow somebody will make an offer, it will not happen?
Jeff Altman
Or if it does, it happens by accident. I know from experience as you . . . as you well know that. You know, most people interview like amateurs, and it shows and if you get hired, it’s by accident, rather than because they intentionally created their interview persona, presented it in a world-class way, fostered that trust in the course of the interview. And thus the employer settles. You know, and you know, they’ve been interviewing for three months, you happen to walk in the door, you’re a good enough hire. And one of the signals of that, is that the offer wasn’t really a strong offer. So tif she takes it, great and if she doesn’t take it, fine. If not, we’ll go to the number two candidate, because it doesn’t matter to them, because you didn’t make them see the difference to a real degree between you and the other 24 people they’ve spoken with. And trust me, they’re looking at 24 They’ve got . . . Even during these times, where we’re all being told there’s a shortage of labor, trust me, not for what you do. Most of this labor shortages is in a different state or place in the market, and it’s not affecting the most white collar workers.
Jeff Altman
Jeff, I want to tell you something and I don’t know what your experience has been. but again, I have been a candidate many times many times in my career I changed jobs a fair amount of time. My conclusion is that people that interview in America . . . interviewer, not candidates. The interviewers eight out of 10 have no clue. They are very poor at this interview. One out of 10 is good. And one is exceptionally good. Because I’ve seen it all and I want to tell you, based on statistics, if eight out of 10 are not good at interviewing, it is your problem. Because they may they may be asking the question, you may be giving them a good answer. They don’t know how to interpret properly. You answer, and that’s working against you. So chances are the interviewer is not good at it. How to overcome it, I don’t know, just you need to be super good at communicating your vision.
Jeff Altman
And when we talk about communication, there is a lot of body language communication.
Alex Freund
There is a lot of body language. Uh, Jeff, , please ask me, Alex, why are you interested in this position?
Jeff Altman
Alex, Why are you interested in this position?
Alex Freund
I am interested in this position, because this position is very close to my home. And I understand. Now, would you hire a guy that answered this way? Of course, I said the right things. But my body language says “This guy doesn’t want this job.” Again, we communicate a lot with our body language. And this is one of the things that I’m helping my clients provide the right body language communication. And I want to tell you, Jeff, this is so difficult. I have had so far again, I’ve been doing this for the last 15 years with 1200 people. So I have a lot of stories.
Alex Freund
Some people are not able to smile. Can you believe that? No, if I’m sitting like this, by body language is you know, clearly communicating, Jeff, I don’t want to be here. Okay, you have no appetite to hire me. However, if I come closer to you, they’re smart, and they talk to you. And you know, I lean forward, you know, my body language has to communicate, and has to be in content in context with what I’m saying.
Alex Freund
And you have to smile. If I say I really would like to work for your company, You have to show your facial expression has to tell me that don’t tell me, you want to work for us. Show it to me, I want to see your body language.
Jeff Altman
It’s funny, you reminded me of a young woman I helped many, many years ago, who was number one in her class at Wharton. And she had been on a boatload of interviews, no one had offered her a job. So a friend of mine asked me to sit down and talk with her. And I saw not by just saying Tell me about yourself and what you’ve been doing professionally. Pretty standard question. And she gave me a robotic answer. And I went on a little bit further. And she gave me more answers that are right out of the recent grad playbook. And after a second, I said, Did someone tell you you’re supposed to act professionally in an interview? Because it’s not working?
Unknown Speaker
You’re not giving people an emotional hook to connect with you. You’re presenting a lot of facts. And the facts are great. But other people are doing the same thing. So why should they choose you? Because you were number one for class at Wharton? Good reason. But how about the guy from the University of Chicago? Or Stanford, or this school or that school? You know, why should they pick you? And you’ve got a lot going for you. So you’re reminding me as you are with everyone who’s watching and listening, that it’s important to connect with people as people. tThe smile, the twinkle in the eyes, that shows that you delight in answering the question. When I was listing my reasons for why firms hire I mentioned care. You care about what you do, and it comes across and for those of you who are introverted, you express care in a different way than we extroverts do. But the right firm is going to recognize that and give you that shot. Yes, Alex,
Alex Freund
I wanted to tell you something. And I put this up front when I start with a new client.I want to make them clearly different and better than their competition. This is not the case that you want to blend into the crowd. You want to be different and better. And you need to become and memorable and I have plenty of experience in hiring. After, let’s say I If I interview five, six people, easily it can take a month easily. So at the end of the month, I have on my desk five or six resumes. If I take your resume in my hand, and I said, “Jeff Altman? Who is Jeff Altman. That means I don’t remember anything about you. You were not memorable. At the end, at the end of the process, they don’t the hiring manager, the decision maker doesn’t have an Excel sheet in his head.
Alex Freund
Question number four candidate number two answer this way. However, question number seven, candidate five. And so this way. They don’t have an Excel sheet in their head. I’ll tell you what they remember– how you look like, how you smiled. How you make made me feel. your body language, I will remember also your backgrounds. I, but how you answered 12 days ago, question number six, I have no way to remember that, no way. So you want to do things that makes you memorable, in a positive way.
Jeff Altman
True, absolutely true, I want to go on to a different topic, because I know this is one that you’re one of the few people I’ve been looking at really cover. And that’s the idea of the classic he synchronous video interview. And thus, number one, could you define what that is for the audience? And number two, how someone should be presenting for it? Yeah, okay, so AVI or a synchronous interview, a video interview is, let’s say you apply to some companies. And by the way, more and more and more companies are signing up for this. You apply for a company and within a few seconds, you’ll receive an automatic answer saying, “Dear Jeff. Thank you very much for applying with ABC Company. Here is a process, attached is a link. When you are ready to interview, click that link, you have two and a half minutes to prepare and three minutes to answer. We will have probably 10 to 12 questions to ask you. When you are done, hit enter, then the recording will come to us. We have an entire team that is going to review and make a decision about what is the next step. So you interview with a robot, you interview with your computer.
Alex Freund
Jeff it is awful. I tested it. I did it. I have a whole presentation on this. So I wanted to know what I’m talking about. I tested it. Jeff, I’ve been doing interview prep for 15 years. But let me tell you, when I’m sitting here, this side of the desk and I am interviewing with a robot, it is a very, very different and allow me to extend that. It’s awful. Because there is no introduction there is no How are you? How was your tip it? Would you care for a cup of coffee. There is nothing like that. You know, you push the button and two seconds later, there is a man or a woman that said, “Tell me about yourself.” And you have two and a half minutes to prepare. And they allow you three minutes to answer. After three minutes. You’re cut off. Hopefully you’re done.
Alex Freund
And then the next question, please tell me about your strength. And the same thing goes on. And this goes on for half an hour, whatever. You push a button and it goes if you have no control over it, there’s nobody to call. There is no warm up here. It’s not a two way relationship. And what is happening the other end companies are applying AI to this there is a lot of comparison. They compare you to their database. And they are evaluating you on smile. The use of filler words, content. They’re evaluating you on a variety of variety of things. For example, they evaluate your tone of voice. Are you happy? Are you angry? AI has the capability to do that.
Alex Freund
It’s something new for us to learn. That’s a future in America. And trust me, more and more companies will use it. I read during my preparation for this presentation that Walmart is doing 15,000 . . . 15,000 everyday.
Jeff Altman
And they’re also looking at micro expressions, not just simply the smile, but the little things on your face that shift as you answer. And all of this is compared with not just the database, but the database of people who’ve been successful in the client organization. And thus, it’s really tough to prepare. And if you if you think of preparing as being, shall we say, fake it for the camera, you got no shot. If anything, what you should be doing is the best version of you. And let the chips fall where they may. I remember this years ago, before I even interviewed you for the other show. I interviewed one of the founders of HireVue.
Alex Freund
Hirevue is the leader.
Jeff Altman
Yeah, he explained how the system was working. It was amazing. And it’s gotten even better. And I put that in quotes.
Alex Freund
All I can tell you is practice makes perfect. If you practice and you are aware of what are they looking for, you can start thinking “yes, I need to smile more. Yes, I need to look at the camera. Yes, I need to stop using “Um, yes. okay. Uh huh.” You know, all these are filler words. You will need to improve. And the only way you can improve is by practicing
Jeff Altman
these days, we’re all on camera. Zoom allows you a free version of the product. So you can interview for 40 minutes with a friend of yours, have them observe your manner on camera. It may not be specific to that firm. But the idea is to get comfortable on camera so that in this way, like I said, you’re presenting your best version of yourself so that if this firm decides “ehhhh, it’s fine, nice guy. Looks pretty good, seems to know his stuff, but just doesn’t measure up on some attribute, method, methodology, you presented your best version of yourself. That’s all that matters.
Jeff Altman
So, we’ve been talking for a while now about a bunch of things and I want to make sure that we haven’t missed anything that you consider important that your audience should know about interview. So what haven’t I asked you about as of yet? And we don’t have to deal with any script. Just whatever you think is important that we haven’t covered yet.
Alex Freund
You know, we never talked about when you are in position, allow yourself to be vulnerable. Remember, you are an actor on stage on Broadway. It’s a performance. And you know, we are so self conscious. God forbid to smile, God forbid. But you know, the more you loosen up, the more natural you become. You know, I work with clients, I told you that high level IT high level, diploma, PhD, whatever, great. But they don’t smile. And I say “Look, I want toask you a question. You know, I don’t know you very well, I worked for you for a while. So I got to know you. But tell me this. Is this the behavior you exhibit when you’re with your cousin, with your children, with your spouse? ‘
Alex Freund
Oh, no! I’m funny! Then why aren’t you funny on my screen? Why aren’t you the center of attention on my screen?” While it is an interview, you allow yourself to be natural, allow yourself to be vulnerable. And then you become better. But we all have this constraint. We don’t want the interviewer to saying anything bad about me. So they’re very rigid. And that works against you
Jeff Altman
That you don’t want them to thoink anything bad about you. But they wind up thinking bad about you, because you didn’t give them a hook to connect with them. So, it’s a huge miss that so many people make.
Jeff Altman
Alex, this has been fabulous. I know we could go on for hours. And neither of us has hours. How can people find out more about you in the work that you do?
Alex Freund
Oh, I’m not here to promote myself. I have a website, www landingexpert.com. I have a lot of information there. I talk about the process. I even help people. What are the questions you need to interview, hopefully the coach that you will be working with. I have a set of 10-15 questions. Ask these questions. Evaluate. What other the things? My LinkedIn profile talks a lot about what other people think about me. I’ve given a very large number of recommendations and other people have given me recommendations. I publish on LinkedIn. I’m very, very active on LinkedIn. Actually. I don’t know Jeff, do you know how many how many connections you can have only what is the maximum first level connections?
Jeff Altman
Visibly, it’s 30,000. Now, these days with creator mode, you can have followers on top of that, but it’s 30,00 1st level connections. So I reached already. So 30,00 1st level connection, then I have over 33000 or 35000 followers and so forth. So yes, I’m very active. I’m here because I want to help others. And I think people understand that people get it, people connect with me. I don’t, thank God, I don’t need anything from them. But I want to be helpful to them.
Jeff Altman
Thanks. This has been wonderful. Thank you. And folks, we’ll be back soon with even more. I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I hope you enjoyed today’s interview. If you did and you’re watching on YouTube, click the like button, share it, do something that lets people know it was worthwhile.
Jeff Altman
Also, visit my site TheBigGameHunter.us. I’ve got a ton there that you can watch, listen to or read that will help you in a variety of different ways. I also have information about my courses. And if this isn’t the right time for you to do that, just put the address in your phone and my name Jeff Altman, so you can come back to it at a later date. Lastly, connect with me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/TheBigGameHunter. Hope you have a terrific day and most importantly, be great. Take care!
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