Interview Strategies - The requirements analysis

Sales pro's call it "spilling your candy in the lobby". You are sitting in front of the interviewer. After a quick review of your resume, she says the dreaded question.... "Tell me a little about yourself". Your pulse increases, sweat glands are on high alert and your synapses begin firing like it's the 4th of July. 20 minutes later, your interviewer's mouth is agape, her eyes glassy and that 10% of our brain we are purported to use has dropped to about 3%. You just shotgunned your entire history and committed interview Hari Kari.

You both could have been saved if you had known this technique - The requirements analysis. Generic, open ended questions like this are common in interviews. They are a jumping off point for meaningful discussion, not an invitation to data dump. The best way to handle something like this is to turn the question back to the interviewer. For example "Well there is so much to tell (smile). So I don't spend time on unnecessary detail, may I ask you a few questions first?"

At this point, you should be asking about job and challenge specifics. Your overall objective here should be to find specifically what your customer (potential employer) is looking to buy (hire to solve their problem). You should focus on things like:

• Job description - Because you likely already have a general idea, it is good to restate what you know and ask if there are any other components that you have missed. Any answer gives you further detail on what your prospect is "buying".
• Tools - again further clarify buying criteria using the technique above.
• Pain - I love this one. Any open position causes pain for the employer. Lowered productivity, further stressing of already stretched resources, etc. Ask what the impact to the company of this position remaining open has been.

Once you have a DETAILED idea of what the customer is looking to "buy" (experience, tools, unique challenges) then you have the detail necessary to give them specific examples of how you have been successful in similar situations in the past. You are selling what they are interested in buying. Your requirements analysis has given you the road map to solving your customer's problems and you have become the "aspirin" to their pain.