How to Sell Employers in Your Next Interview
By Kevin Donlin | August 12th, 2008
I’ve written many times since 1996 that every job search is really a sales campaign.
In sales, you identify, qualify, contact and convince people to buy your product or service.
In a job hunt, you identify, qualify, contact and convince employers to buy you, i.e., hire you.
So, the more familiar and comfortable you are with sales, the faster you’ll find work … in any city, country, or economy.
That’s why I subscribe to about 20 different sales ezines and magazines — the more I can learn about sales, the faster I can help my clients get hired.
Sales expert and author Jeffrey Gitomer offers some excellent ideas in his latest Sales Caffeine ezine, issue 353, to be exact.
I’ve included excerpts below, with my comments in italics. Which of these ideas could you apply to your next job interview?
Here’s what you need to arm yourself with to be ready for the sale (job interview):
1. Print their website information that you can impact. The pages that frame your ideas for how your product or service are best used by the prospective customer.
(Look at the employer’s website and your resume. Where do their needs/opportunities and your experience/skills intersect? Be sure to bring up these points in your next job interview.)
2. Print their website information that has leadership information. Who the real decision makers are. And by the way, if the person you’re meeting with is not among the leaders of the company, you may not be talking to the person who will make the final decision.
3. Print their website information that you don’t understand. This will give you an opportunity to create meaningful dialogue with the prospect. This will give you conversation ideas and questions that relate to the prospect.
(Every interviewer will ask, “Do you have any questions about us?” Bringing printed pages from their website to the interview as the basis for questions you ask is a great way to impress interviewers, who may not have read all the pages on their own website!)
4. Have three killer questions you are CERTAIN your competition is not asking. This will create buyer engagement and respect.
5. Have two ideas that the prospective customer (employer) will benefit from. If you bring an idea, it shows you’ve prepared, and it shows you have genuine interest in helping.
NOTE WELL: No prospect (employer) wants to see your literature (resume). Every prospect expects you to be prepared, totally prepared, for the sales call (job interview).
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