Here is my advice talking about cross training on to a new product

https://youtu.be/Q0apkKPjq80 sorry about the weird focus thing and Luke in the background.

2ND INTERVIEWS

https://youtu.be/TxdfPuICwfQ

You are going for a second interview, well done. Generally, you will be meeting someone more senior, so it might be a chance to ask some more strategic questions. Here are a few suggestions:

• Company direction, strategy, and goals.
• Plans for next year.
• Why are you excited about the next year at work?

I had a senior salesman going for a 2nd interview with the CEO, and he didn’t ask anything about the company plans. They said no to him because of that.

2nd interviews are often with a senior person who will decide whether to hire you or not. You need to be 100% focused on winning the job. Look smart – first impression is key – use positive body language, and tell them why you want to work there.

Try to avoid talking about minor details like sick pay, maternity policy, paternity policy, and life assurance. 

COFFEE OR TEA AT INTERVIEW?

Are you there to get a job or to have a drink?

Things that can go wrong with drinks include spills, bumps, knocks, and tipping them over someone’s desk.  Plus, you can’t take notes with a coffee in your hand.  You are there to get a job, not to “wake up and smell the coffee”.  Plus, company kitchens are always grotty.

The advantage of having a drink is the small talk.  My advice, make the small talk and concentrate on the meeting.

If asked this, please don’t insult your current boss or your current employer; find something else to say. No matter how moronic your current boss is, talking about it at an interview will brand you as a moaner, a troublemaker and difficult to manage.

https://youtu.be/MVO6ujHUu-w

SHOWING ENTHUSIASM AND INTEREST

Demonstrating that you have enthusiasm for the role and a genuine interest in working for the company is vital for the successful outcome of the interview.

Body language is important, smile, lean forward a little, keep eye contact and nod gently when someone is talking.

Asking questions about the role, team, the people, their backgrounds, the company, clients, and projects shows that you are interested.  If you turn them into “involvement questions,” then they are more powerful:

• Tell me about the team I will be working with? (smile)
• What can you say about the type of projects I will be working on?
• Where will I sit?
• Who will I work with?
• Who would you say would be the best mentor I could have from the current team?

Lean forward when the other person is talking (Just past upright)

Ask questions about the job which involves you (How will I…)

Ask questions about the team that involve you (Who will I…)

Ask questions about the interviewer’s career (When did you…)

Ask questions about your first few days/ weeks in the job (What will I…)

Look the interviewer in the eye.

If you want to connect with the interviewer, make a connection between their background and your background that relates to when they first joined.  For example, “When you first started, you hadn’t done any training, like me, how did you get past that?”

3-minute video on enthusiasm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCt35VsgCM4&feature=youtu.be

ANY QUESTIONS?

At the end of the interview, you will probably be asked if you have any questions.  Please ask something, as saying “No!” is a disaster.

It is difficult to prepare a question beforehand because it could be that the interview has covered some of the questions you were thinking of asking.  Some subjects that you might consider:

• Prospects
• Company history
• Interviewer’s history at the company
• Interviewer’s background
• What happened to the person doing the job previously?
• Why do their customers choose them?
• The project
• The team/people, or potential colleagues
• The timescale
• The functionality
• The technology.

Here is a link to a really good article about questions:

http://axa.newscred.com/interviewees-101-five-questions-you-shouldnt-be-afraid-to-ask-in-an-interview/?xtor=AD-400071-2477[Sponsored-Updated-18-Interviewees-101-Direct]-0[]-[0x0]-[LinkedIn]

The five questions are:

1. How do you celebrate success?
2. Who will be my direct manager/supervisor?
3. How will my performance be assessed?
4. Are there opportunities for professional development?
5. How is the company planning to handle ‘x’?

PROJECTS

You need to demonstrate your competence for the job you are going for. 

The simplest way is to talk about a project, using it as an example to highlight your experience.

• Start by talking about the size and scope of the project
• consulting days or project length, or project value or team size

Then talk about the project:

• What type of company was it for (shows off your experience in verticals)
• What was it, implementation, upgrade, whatever?

Then talk about what you did:

• I did this part of the project, and this part and this part. Be specific; this is your chance to shine.

Then tell them what software you used.

Finish it off with a tie-up… What the client said, what the users said or something that makes it look like you did a good job.

Here is a little video explaining how to do it  https://youtu.be/ZcrAuCQjBzc

TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS

YouTube advice on telephone interviews:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLb-fPcOsA4&feature=youtu.be

Quite often, the process starts with a telephone interview.  This is much harder than a face-to-face because so much of normal communication is visual.  To make a good impression, you need to make sure that you treat a telephone interview with as much importance as a face-to-face interview.

First impressions:

• Answer your phone professionally and smile
• Make sure your answering phone or voicemail has a decent greeting
• Make sure you can hear and you can speak clearly
• Sit up straight and speak as if you were in an interview; it will make a real difference.

In my experience, telephone interviews with bad reception never go well. If you cannot get to an area with good reception, you are not going to be able to communicate effectively.  If possible, use a landline.  Remember, spending 2 minutes calling back from a different phone or location might make the 30-minute interview worthwhile.

If you are sitting waiting for the call, but you can’t call anyone because it will block the line…text me on 07833 785 255 and I can chase up the interviewer and find out what is going on.

An example of a dire result on a telephone interview is this beauty:

Email from candidate: “The interview went reasonably ok, I think.  I had bad reception at times, but it seemed fine overall. Unfortunately, it was very noisy because I was on site.”

The feedback from the client was “Not for us, thanks, Jake”

If they could have spoken to each other properly, would the outcome of the telephone interview have been different?  

Telephone interviews are an integral part of the recruitment process.  The temptation to stand by the bus stop and have a quick chat is quite real.  But in reality, you need to be able to hear and concentrate.  If you have poor reception on your mobile, it will be a bad interview and you will fail, it is that simple.

But to get the most out of a telephone interview, why not put on a suit?  That was what Richard did when he was unemployed at home; he landed a £50,000 job.   Also, you should be in front of a PC, with the company website open, and you should have a copy of your CV handy.  If it is a technical test, have the software open in front of you.  I had a candidate who failed a technical telephone interview and then realised that if he had opened SQL Server on his laptop, he could have answered all the questions.

This is from a recent survey:

Common mistakes will lead to immediate rejection by some recruiters. Clearly doing something else while on the phone will cause candidates to be rejected by 40% of recruiters, not preparing properly by 33% and having a poor telephone manner by 19%.

While background noise interference (26%) and the phone cutting out when being interviewed (11%) are career-limiting mistakes frowned upon by the industry.

Good luck with telephone interviews; they are a very tough part of the recruitment process.

APPEARANCE

You only get one chance to make a first impression, so look sharp!

A suit and tie always creates the best first impression for a man.  My Dad always reckoned that you could get away with a cheap suit if you had a good shirt and a nicely knotted tie.  I would avoid wearing a brown suit for an interview, because I have had people rejected for it!

What shirt? Watch the YouTube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C4vtg5CYSs&feature=youtu.be

And let’s not forget the “Three N’s”:

• Nasal hair
• Nails
• Nice shoes

If you make the effort, it will never go against you.

Clean your shoes before the interview, get some shoe polish and make them shine, one client is convinced that if someone doesn’t shine their shoes for an interview, they are rejected on the spot!

Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important.

One example of feedback:

“We chose the other candidate because the hem had fallen on their trousers in the first interview and again in the second interview. ( A stitch in time…)“

SALES INTERVIEWS

If you are going for an interview for a sales role, then your interviewer is interested in:

• What product you sold
• Who you sold to
• What your target was
• What you achieved
• What your commission was and how much you earned

If you struggle to answer any of those questions, you are going to crash and burn.  So get ready for them.

Be honest about what you did, and if you underachieved, make sure to take the blame yourself.  If you blame your manager, your product, the economy or anything else, you will be missing the chance to explain how you learnt from the experience and how you would do things differently.

I had an email from a client:

Jake

Before “Fred” arrives for his interview, can you get him to list the deals that made up the £480K he has done in the last year?  I don’t need the client names, but I want to talk about the deals and process that he went through to win those sales.

Mike

You are going to get hired on your track record of sales, so you need to justify it.

Finally, in a sales interview, you must close at the end. If you don’t close for the job, you are as good as saying you don’t want the job. Here are a few options:

“So am I starting on Monday?”

“This has been a great meeting; let’s finish it by you offering me the job”

“Where do we go from here?”

“I want to work here; will you offer me the job, please?”

“Great software, great company, great people, this is fantastic, when can I start?”

I cannot stress enough how vital it is to ask for the job at the end of a sales interview.  If you don’t ask for the job, you will not get it; you might as well wear a T-shirt with a big V sign on it.

Clients interviewing for a sales staff are terrified of hiring a lemon; if you don’t ask for the job, they will think you are a lemon.

Watch me talking about this on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWi1-nU6t2I&list=UU8Spf1uFvrXihwGZFkhhWLw&index=8&feature=plcp

And get a good shirt and tie!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C4vtg5CYSs&list=UU8Spf1uFvrXihwGZFkhhWLw&index=3&feature=plcp

Update, I spoke to the MD of a software company who told me this:

“When I interview sales people, I note down how often we talk about money, the more times the better.”

Finally:

You need to be really compelling about what you can sell for them.

Also very open to what you don’t know that they can teach you.

Also, I think working in a vendor lead license selling role where SAP or Sage get to set the license fees and scrape off a slug of every deal…my clients often bleat on about how different that is to selling your own IP.

So I think you need to:

• Demonstrate your track record
• Talk about the markets and sectors you understand
• Talk about modules you are happy to sell (Finance, manufacturing, ecommerce, CRM and distribution).
• Talk about what motivates you and what management style works best for you.

If you do all that, then you are giving yourself the best chance of a good offer.