Acing the Job Interview, Part 2: Winning the Final Interview

Get Inside Your Interviewer’s Mind

The average job opening last year attracted nearly one hundred applicants, out of which the top five or six percent will be selected for an interview.  You got your first face-to-face interview because you were enough of a match for the job that HR and the hiring manager wanted to meet you. You have succeeded in going from one of the masses that applied to one of the many (seven or eight) because you meet all (or almost all) of the basic requirements for the job.  The key unspoken question each of your interviewers must answer in that first interview is, “If I hire this candidate, what kind of employee will he or she be?”  

If you followed our guidance in Acing the Job Interview, Part 1: The SESRV Strategy, you made the list of candidates invited back for final interviews. Now you will be competing against people who are also seen as hire-worthy, with equal or greater experience to what you have, a similarly exceptional set of competencies and capabilities, with high emotional intelligence and strong interpersonal skills. Think of the final job interview as the winner takes all.

You’ll need to do something that only one or two percent of all applicants will do. To do that, you’ll need to prove how you’ll succeed in the new job if hired.

To prove you will succeed in the job, you’ll need to provide your 90-day blueprint for success.

Ingredients for Your 90-Day Blueprint for Success

In order to develop your blueprint for success in the job, you need to know:

• What are the specific goals and objectives for the job?
• What are the principal duties of the job?
• What are the known obstacles to success in the job?
• How does success in this job impact the department, its goals, and its customers (the big picture)?
• What are the employer’s key performance indicators (KPIs)?

This information will need to be developed through research gained by talking to the employer’s insiders, such as a current (or former) successful incumbent, the hiring manager, and the department manager. They probably won’t talk to you unless the employer sponsors your research and facilitates your speaking to the appropriate employees.    

Once you’ve completed your research and internal interviews, you’ll need to develop your plan and show exactly how you’ll acquire the necessary job-specific knowledge to perform your new duties. Drawing from your experience, skills, and talents, explain your plan (or process) for accomplishing the goals and objectives while navigating the known obstacles to success. Identify how success in your first 90 days will positively impact the department and organization in reaching its objectives. If possible, outline your plan in bullet point form on a single sheet of paper (two at the most).

 Career coach Peggy McKee does a great job explaining 30-60-90 day plans in this recent article. 

Set the Hook During Your First Interview

At some point during your first interview, you should have some type of internal confirmation that you want the job. Before ending the interview you’ll need to “set the hook” for you to return for a second interview by getting the interviewer to agree to sponsor your research to produce your 90-day blueprint for success.

Ask your interviewer something like, “After meeting you and others from {company}, I’m confident I could make a real difference here. Will you give me a chance to prove it? I’d like to chat with {name the functions you think could tell you about the job and what it is like} in order to learn more about the position and its specific goals and expectations. Then I’d like to come back for a follow-up interview, where I’ll present my 90-Day Blueprint for Success. How does that sound to you?” 

If your interviewer gives you permission to speak to the existing incumbent, his or her boss, and other insiders, with the implication of a follow-up interview, you are already on the inside track to winning the job.

Bottom Line

This is a very assertive way to get a commitment to the final round of interviews, and you will likely be the only candidate this employer will interview who will request this. While it will take extra effort and time to conduct the necessary research and create your plan, you greatly increase your chances of being hired. Once hired, because you took this approach, you’ll place yourself on a higher career trajectory in the minds of the decision makers who will congratulate themselves for making an excellent hire.