 So good morning. Thanks for coming. Hopefully, you're here to learn a little bit more about job interviewing. I titled this Preparing for the Job Interview, because it's really important to not walk into a job interview thinking, well, I know I'm a good candidate and I think I'm going to do great. They called me in, so they must like me. Well, let's talk a little more about that. So I'm going to share my screen and I'm going to take us through a number of screens. And if I can find my share screen tab kind of went away, there it is. I don't know if it's the cold or what it is, but my computer is running very slowly. So hopefully, well, maybe that's good. That way you'll be able to keep up with me easily. So let me fix this one. So hopefully, you'll be able to see that just the title slide. And yes, great. So let me introduce myself to tell you why I'm here and why I have some information that might be able to help. So David Robbins and I am a job search trainer. I'm also a career advisor and a coach, and I speak at organizations. I've been a trainer in a number of different venues. I worked in government. I worked in a large multinational company. I worked at a small consulting firm and I worked in nonprofits. So I have that kind of information about different organizations and the different ways that they hire and the different ways that they that they would look for interviewing. For the last 15 or more years, I've been focused on job search skills. So that's what I want to bring to you today. This is what we're going to cover. In preparing for the job interview, we're going to talk about how to prepare to not walk into an interview cold. You shouldn't know what the hiring manager is looking for and be able to respond specifically to that. That's what the hiring manager is looking for. We'll talk a little bit about analyzing the job description and we'll get a little more depth in that. How you can, I'll give you a tool for analyzing the job description, which will help, it should help with resume writing, but it definitely helps also with interviewing. And one of the things that's great in interviewing is telling stories. So we'll talk about the star story method, sometimes called SAR, sometimes called SOAR. We call it, I call it STAR. So we'll talk about that situation or task action and results. And then you really should prepare in advance for questions that are coming up. You should already know the answers to the questions that you're pretty sure a hiring manager or a recruiter is going to be asking you. So that's what we're going to take you. A couple of things of the topics I mentioned, each one of those could be an hour and a half workshop. So what we're going to do is deliver this all as tips. You know, here are things that you should focus on for each of the different parts of preparing for a job interview. And also to let you know, if you have questions as I'm going through this, the best thing to do is to put the question in the chat. So if you open up your chat, put the question in the chat and Lori and Angela will be watching the chat. And then there are a couple of places during the presentation where I'll stop for questions. And they'll read out some of those questions at that point. Also, you'll be able to raise your mechanical hand and and unmute yourself and be able to to ask the question. Allow if that's your preference. OK, so we start off with. An overview of the generic part. Of the best practices in getting ready for a job interview. I put down also known as lowering your stress when you when you prepare in advance. Then you kind of get more comfortable with what's going to happen when you are in front of the interview. And there are some things that that are on this list that people don't think about. What are you going to wear? Whether it's going to be a Zoom call, whether it's going to be some kind of virtual, or whether you're going to walk into the office, you need to know that in advance, of course. But you also need to figure out, well, what am I going to wear that day to the interview? And the reason that I wanted to put this on the list is that some people wake up in the morning and then realize. I'm not aware and that starts taking up time. So you should have everything laid out. You should know exactly what you're going to wear for that day. And then you'll be much more comfortable and it'll save you a lot of time. Practice interviewing, whether it's video or in person, it should be good for you to practice. We'll talk a little bit about that having some kind of an accountability. Buddy, someone you can work with that you can actually practice being interviewed and answering questions. If it's going to be something that's virtual, you want to make sure that you know where is it going to happen, what the background will be. I'm using a virtual background right now. Are you going to use a virtual background? Are you going to use just a blank wall behind you? Is it good enough that you will stand out that's not a lot of distractions behind you? So you want to make sure that you secure a space. Make sure you have the right equipment if it's going to be a virtual interview. You want to research the company in knowing the job posting really well that will lead you to looking more deeply into the company. What is the company about? What do they do? What are their values? All of those things may come up in interviews. We'll talk more about the star stories in a few minutes. But another thing that you should prepare days before the interview. As you're researching the company, you should start coming up with questions that you want to ask the company. Now, some of those might be answered during the interview. But many times at the end of the interview, the interviewer will say, do you have any questions? Don't make the mistake of saying, no, thank you. You've answered all my questions. We're good. That's not the right response. What they're looking for is somebody who shows that they did their due diligence and they can actually ask really good questions that haven't been answered during the interview. And that shows that you really did research the company and there are some things you really want to know. So those are some of the things that you should be preparing days before and then the day out or during the interview. If again, if you're doing a virtual interview, make sure that you test your set up, make sure you have all your materials ready. If you're going to be showing up to a location, arrive 10 to 15 minutes early so that you're there comfortable and sitting down, doing your breathing, relaxing. Another thing that's important day of the interview is to be confident, but not be arrogant. So we'll talk a little bit about that in the next slide. Use a positive voice. Use positive body language. You want to not sit there like this. You want to be active. You want to show that you are engaging with the interviewer. Speak calmly, clearly, concisely, answer their questions. Make sure you listen attentively to the question so you're answering the question that they're asking you. Not what you think is a good answer to something. During an interview, it is OK to take notes. It's OK to bring notes. So the questions that you prepare in advance, you should have those in front of you. Even maybe a couple of your stories that you want to give, have those in front of you. And it's OK to take notes while you're being interviewed. As long as you're not looking down and writing and losing eye contact, you want to make sure that you're looking up, jot some notes, but trying to continue to make eye contact. Whether you're sitting across from someone or whether it's virtual. And then after the interview, always send a thank you or follow up email. And some of them say, well, I always send a nice home lock card. You want to send an email. Email will get to the person that you're sending it to. You never know when the card in snail mail. You never know when it's going to actually get to someone. So these are pretty much the standard things you'll get in any presentation about preparing for an interview. I want to take it deeper into a few things and spend the time doing that. So you really understand what points need to be really covered. So first thing to think about is you have to walk into an interview as if you are the best candidate, you are the right person. Important to understand that if you've been invited to an interview, that means that the hiring team already likes you. OK, so they may get 300 applicants and you're invited to the interview with maybe four or five other people. That means that you are the pick of the litter. You're the cream of the crop. You're the ones that they like, which means you're one that they already like. So you can walk in being real confident. And that's going to be important to really show that you would be a really good workmate for them, because that's what they're looking for. So if you know that you've been invited, now you have to represent yourself as a prepared professional. And that's some of the things we mentioned in that first slide. I want to make sure that you're prepared to answer questions. You're prepared to ask questions. You're prepared to show that you will bring value to this company. The other thing is not only about you yourself, you have to show your enthusiasm for the job. I really want this job. I really want to work for your company. And that's going to be real important. We'll talk about that when we're starting to figure out how to put together answer to some of the questions that they're going to pretty much we're sure that they're going to ask you. And part of that is making sure that you're not speaking only about yourself and your skills, but it's yourself and your skills in relation to the job you're applying to. You have to show the highway team you want this job and you're the perfect person for this position. I've been teaching classes like this for a long time and I have had people who when they see this comment, they say, I don't know if I'm the perfect person for this position. Maybe there's someone better than me. Now, you can understand that anyone who walks into an interview thinking there's somebody else interviewing that's better than me. You're already taking away from your confidence. You're already in the tone of your voice in your body language. You're already saying, I may not be the best choice. That's not a good signal to give. So really important in this fourth bullet, you have to show whoever is the hiring team, whether it's the recruiter at first, the hiring manager or the hiring manager's staff, that you want this job and you're the perfect person for this job. So those are the things that become really important. So let's take a look at a few tips. We'll go through, I think, three tips that will get more depth into. The first is research. You don't want to go into a job interview call. You don't want to think that, well, I've done this kind of work for years, so I know all about it. Yes, you might, but you know about this company. So you want to really get in there and do the research. So you know something about the duties and requirements for this job because you applied probably responding to a job description. So that's the first notice of you being able to read what it is the hiring manager is actually looking for. So that's what's going to be the first thing that's important. When you know that part, then you can start looking more deeply into the company. What's the company culture? What recent press have they sent out there? Who are their competitors? What are their competitors like? The more you know about the whole environment of this organization, the better you're going to do in an interview. So all of this is part of the research. So where do you find this information? You look at their website. You look at that LinkedIn page. I always recommend to people that you go to Google, click on news. When you do your Google search, put in the company name and you'll get any news about that company. Which will take you a lot deeper than just what was on the job description. And there it is. You know, again, just to repeat of that same bullet. In the research, you need to make sure that you want to want to let the hiring team know you want this job and you're a perfect person for the position. And that is the more you know about the company in relation to the job, in relation to your experience, you'll be able to make the best impression. So I want to give you a tool to help you do a little more, get a little more depth into understanding what this position is about and which of your skills you should be highlighting. And that is to analyze the job description. So on the left of the screen, you'll see a job description. This is a job description that came from University of California, the UCSF for a position as an administrative assistant too. And then it has a job interview and it has, you know, what this organization is about, about UCSF, and then they require qualifications and preferred qualifications at the bottom. So there's a lot of information here. What happens is people say, oh, I'm applying for an administrative assistant too. I've been an administrative assistant, so I know all about it. I'll apply for the job. Now, if you got through the resume portion and they accepted your resume, you probably did a lot of this already because your resume should reflect information about you identifying what this job is all about. So how do we do that? Identify the duties of the job. So in that first paragraph, which is a job overview, there are a lot of duties that are highlighted. So in looking at that, you could start analyzing what are the duties of this particular job? Not what are the duties that I've done as an administrative assistant, but what are the duties that they're asking this person to do in this job? And then you look at the requirements. Requirements down at the bottom say Spanish language proficiency, three years directly related administrative experience, but not just administrative experience. It could be a combination of education and experience and then working with PCs. So some of them are pretty straightforward. Spanish language proficiency might be something that you need to understand that they're looking for someone who's proficient for using Spanish in a business setting, not someone who could, like me, can go to a taqueria and order a burrito. But that's not what they're looking for. So that lets you know if it's an actual requirement you should have it. And that's why I added to this number, number two. When it comes to requirements, you should match probably 80 to 90 percent of the requirements if you're going to apply for this job. And then research the culture of the organization. Now, some of that comes in the part of a job description, which has a description of what the company's proud of, what the company does. In almost every job description when they put a job posting out, they also talk about their organization because they're trying to sell their organization to you. Not only do they have a job opening and they want you to sell yourself to them, they want you to pick them as the company that you would like to work for. So they're going to put some of that in here. But you can also take that further and start looking at, as we mentioned in the last slide, look at their website, look at their LinkedIn page, learn more about the culture, the value set of this organization. And then you have a nice picture of what this is all about. You start thinking about is there anything that it didn't highlight in the job description, but I think it would be good for them to know about my experience. And that's what we call the special sauce. How do you make yourself a unicorn? Now, I use this actually and helping people put together their resume. But we take that same information and we use it past the resume. And we review all this again to get ready for the actual interview. So as we're going through it, we can come up with what are some of the duties? Initial point of contact for member of the public, answering all incoming telephone calls, directing calls as appropriate. I should have some stories ready to explain my experience. So this might have been on my resume, got me to the interview. But now I have to have those stories read. Now, this is a tool that I call the quadrants. You can start listing as you analyze the job description and you look at, here's the job overview, here are the duties I have to have. Jot those duties down. Don't start thinking about how you're going to answer yet. Just analyze it by jotting the duties down and then you can do the same thing when you start looking at the requirements, which I call deal breakers. If you don't meet the requirements, it's a deal breaker for the hiring manager. They just say, okay, we need this. You may have your own deal breakers and that's by looking at this saying, do I really want to do these duties? So that's your deal breaker is different than the hiring manager's deal breaker. And then at the bottom of these quadrants are the things I talk about, culture and the value, understanding more about the organization. And then is there anything that would help you stand out? And that becomes your special sauce. So this is the quadrant method of taking this job description, breaking it down, as we said here, identifying the duties, identifying the requirements, researching the culture, know your special sauce, and then not only will that helpfully improve your resume, but reviewing all of this again will get you ready for the interview. So I want to just stop to see if there are any questions about, in part of preparing for your job interview, any questions about the research part? Or any ideas, anything that you've done that's research that I haven't mentioned? We don't see any questions in the chat, but if, oh, there's one. Question about how would you describe the difference between the duties and requirements, first and second quadrants? Okay, good question. I would really probably take that from the job description. So when they tell me, here's the job overview. These are the duties that I would need to perform if I am chosen for this position. The requirements are usually in an area called require, or requirements. That's the easiest way to see it. But the difference is, what is that you're going to do, and what do you need on behalf of the company? What is it they're telling you they need you to have in order to be a candidate? And that's what the requirements are. So you notice there's also preferred qualifications. All of these might be considered requirements. Previous UCSF work experience. So they're not making that a hard requirement, but they're saying that's something that we're really interested in. Now, I had someone who actually sent in a resume response to this, and what they put on the resume that they're familiar with UCSF policies and procedures. So they didn't have actual previous UCSF work experience, which is a preferred requirement, a preferred qualification. But they said that I'm familiar with it. So again, these are things that say I'm meeting the needs of the hiring manager and the organization. And then I'm going to match my experience against what it is that this candidate is going to do when they get hired. So that's the difference between the left side and the right side of the top of the quadrants. Did that answer the question? That's the main thing. Let's go on. There might be more questions as we come up. Tip two, you know that they're asking you for certain things that are going to be important in your job duties. So you have to prepare your accomplishments. You have to let them know not just that I did this, I did this, and I did this, but they want to know what you accomplished. They want to hear not just that you tell them that you can do the job, but you actually show them that you could do the job by explaining you've done something similar to this in the past. So first thing, when you look at the needs of the company and they tell you what the job description is, you have to prioritize that, figure out, OK, what's the most important? What is it that I think is most important to this company? And then I have to prepare my responses in advance. I have to think about how am I going to tell them about my skill set. So we're going to go through the star story method. Star stands for situation or task, actions and results. And it shows your experience and it relates to the needs of the position. Now, I actually have a booklet of my own star stories, but I won't just deliver a star story. I want to pick the star stories that show my experience that relates directly to a position I'm applying to. So it's important that you look at the needs of the position to choose what star stories I'm going to be able to deliver to them. And when I say deliver, I actually mean speaking it in an interview. So they should relate to the accomplishment statements you've used on your resume. So that's why I say that if we use that same analysis, the quadrants to build your resume, the pilots on your resume would actually have a story behind it. Now, why is that important? Sounds a little complicated, David. But when you think about it, when I'm interviewing somebody, I have questions that I'm going to ask them from the job description. So tell me, have you done this and tell me more about this and tell me more about that. And also going to look at your resume and take a look at one of the bullets. And I'm going to say, can you tell me a little more about this bullet? So I'm going to use the resume as a menu to get more depth from you. And you should have for most of those bullets, you should have a story behind it. You know, what was it? What was it that you did? Why did you do it? And what was the result? What was the value you provided? So the story should relate to the accomplishment statements that you used in your resume. And that would bring those two things together. Remember, they invited you to an interview because they saw your resume. So once again, you have to show the high routine that you want this job and you're the perfect candidate. So it still comes back to, you're always looking at how it relates to my experience as it relates to this position. So what are star stories? As I said, situation, task, action, results. It doesn't just tell someone, and that's what I see actually on many resumes and even when people are at interviews. Yes, I was an administrative assistant and I took care of all of the scheduling and I took care of everybody's calendars. How many people? What was that all about? How did it help the organization? You want to get more detail into that. So you don't want to just tell them, you want to show them about your experience and that's the advantage of a star story. You want to have stories that talk about the skills that you have, the goals that you've achieved, something you were recognized for, somebody where they gave you kudos, something that you're particularly proud of, and make sure that they're relevant to the job you're applying to. It is helpful. Again, and this is where it's helpful to practice, but when I worked for JVS and we would prepare for job interviews, we'd have mock interviews and we'd have corporate volunteers come in and they would go through an interview with somebody for a particular position that they were applying to. So they look at the job description, so they know what kind of questions to ask. They look at the person's resume, so they know what kind of questions to ask and they would take them through the process. One thing that happened at the end, we would bring everybody together because they were one-on-ones and then we'd bring everybody together. And we heard time and time again from the interviewers, people should be using star stories. When they're answering the question, they should answer in the format of a star story. So it's not just something that I made up or something that the industry made up. Interviewers are actually looking for those things. Now, you don't have to say, here's a star story. When you're delivering it, they know what a star story is. When you're putting it into a particular format. So here's the format of what makes a good star story. You're getting middle and end, but you'll notice that actions is bold. Because that's where you're identifying your skill set. Without listing your skills, you can actually just talk about what you did. They hear, oh, well, if you did that, you must have this skill, this skill, and this skill. So the story actually identifies the skills for you. Concise, compelling and clear. So again, it's very brief. You're not delivering an entire tone to them. You want to use action verbs. You want to talk about something you did. So there are activities. And what you don't want to leave out is that last part, the R in star. Results. The results hopefully are quantified. Is there a number, right? You improve the process 20%. You increased customer satisfaction by 30%. If there's a number to it, if there's something you can quantify, it lets the interviewer know, oh, you provided value to a former employer. So the results are really important. And again, there's a tip inside this tip. Make sure that you're preparing stories that relate to the challenges and pain points. So that's why you did the research to know more about this organization, so that you can choose the stories that will identify, hey, here are things that I could do for you. Mr. Ramiz. So here are the components of a star. The situation or task is simply to set context. It sets up the actions that you're going to take, but it takes it out of actions in a vacuum to actions in the situation. Right, so it might be that I noticed when working with the file system that the file system was taking too long for people to find things. So I wanted to improve the file system, and then I can get right into my actions. Describe in detail the actions you took to complete the accomplishment. What happened step by step I did this I did this I did this. You could talk about timeframe you can talk about systems that you use software used as particularly if it's systems and software that you know this company uses. So now you're identifying the fact that I'm proficient in this software because I've already done it before. Teams you've worked with cross functional teams you've worked with. So you're going to get a lot of information out in a very short story that story is going to be less than two minutes. And then the results will be accomplished. If you can do it in metrics, it's great. Or just an impact, something improved something was a lesson learned. Whatever the impact is whatever the result is important to do that. So here's a tool that I've used with a number of clients actually build a little table. And first we look at situation or task one to two sentences. They don't want to hear everything about the old company. They don't care about your only setting context with the situation or task. So it's a situation you discovered or a task you were assigned very brief. And then you come up with your active verbs. I did this I did this I did this is a step one step two step three step four step by all the steps. And again, take the most important things that you did. And then you have the results. So you have your ST your a your actions and result. And that and resulted in I brought in $10,000 more that quarter. The the new tool was. Was delivered to our client base. And it brought in an additional million dollars in sales. You know, it could be a big number. It could be a small number. It just says something happened at the end that provided value. So a couple of examples. And we said we want to have your star story match what their job requirements are or what the job duties are. So this was a position as in the example for a web developer to. And they were required technical skills. And this person chose one of those skills extensive knowledge of SharePoint 2016. And what they're doing is they're assuming there's going to be a question there. Tell me about a time you've used SharePoint 2016. So they're going to prepare a star story in advance. Assuming that they might get that question. So I'm going to take a moment to read this out to you. So this is the way they would deliver the star story if they're asked that question. Tell me of a time that you used SharePoint 2016. Now, I might not have been in a SharePoint shop. Okay, so I have to have a story that says, but I have experience with SharePoint. How could that be? So when I worked for data center incorporated, I was asked to organize our company's online project file system, which should become very large and hard to use causing inaccuracies. Lots of staff frustration. So I gathered workflow from the users. I analyzed the file system. I proposed a new structure to arrange the information logically. And then to help, I taught myself SharePoint in the evenings and I trained my colleagues in SharePoint. So using SharePoint, we reorganize the files over two weekends to minimize disruption and create seamless transition. The result was that our staff work more efficiently. We saved time. We were able to serve our customers better in one project we estimated to support staff with 20% more efficient using the new system. So situation or task. One long sentence. Actions and you notice I actually was counting them out of my fingers, right? I gathered workflow data. I analyzed. So you're actually showing here are the verbs that they know gathered workflow state workflow data from the users. I'm telling you what's going on, right? I could do research. I could do analysis. I analyzed the file system. I proposed a new structure, right? So I'm innovative. I'm creative. I taught myself SharePoint. So once again, I take on certain responsibilities. So a lot of skills come out of just identifying what the actions were. So here's another example and maybe a little simpler. This is a marketing assistant. The job duties include working with other departments for brand identity, assisting creating new product promotion campaigns, collecting and sourcing market data, analyzing report performance of marketing campaigns. All of those things are listed in pretty much the left side of the quadrants, right? And I say, well, I want to have a story about this second bullet assist in creating new product promotion campaigns. Assuming they might ask me that question. Tell me the time you've worked on promotion campaigns. So again, I come up with a star story method. And my answer goes like this. In my last job, I worked as an assistant for a small restaurant that was having difficulty drawing in new customers. I made it my goal to create new marketing strategies to create an increased awareness of the restaurant attract new clientele. So first I conducted a competitive analysis. Then I designed a new flyer and Photoshop and went around to all the local businesses to share it in person and talk to people directly about the restaurant. I also developed a social media strategy to promote the brand and alert people of my daily specials. By reaching more people through these initiatives, we were able to increase new customers by 15% within the first two months. That took probably a minute for me to read that to you. The context was real brief and the actions show a whole bunch of skills, conducting competitive analysis. I was able to use Photoshop, so now you know I can use Photoshop. I actually went around to the businesses. So I researched where the businesses were and actually went and talked to them. So customer service, communications, the good part of marketing right there, and then social media strategy. So all of these things show my skill set in the actions that I've delivered and then reaching more people, we were able to increase customers by 15%. There's the result. There's the value that I provide. So that's the way we unpack a star story. Now, some of you might have experienced with star stories, so I will stop for a moment and see if there are any questions about star stories or the idea of delivering information about yourself as it relates to the position at an interview. So since I don't hear from Lori or Angela, I imagine nothing was in the chat. But there's only a few people here, anything that came up in the star stories. Is there anybody here use star stories in the past? Let's move on. The third tip, it's really important that you prepare answers in advance of the interview. You can start assuming questions. You can go Google interview questions, comment interview questions, and you can Google, you'll get a list of 20 common interview questions that are going to come up. So if you then pretty much know what the questions are, you should know the answers. You say, well, I don't know the answers. Well, then you better look it up and know what the answer is. At an interview, what's going to happen is they're going to ask you some common questions. They're going to ask you some specific questions that relate to the job description. And they're going to ask you questions specific to your to your resume. You should be able to speak to any of those. Those are the people that are called for the second round, third round interviews. They're the people who have confidence in answering the questions. The way you get confidence in answering the questions is not to just be an extrovert. It's being somebody who's prepared. So know your answers. What does that mean? If you prepare your answers in advance, you're going to be more confident in the interview. If you're more confident in the interview, you show up as a strong candidate. There's there's no button. There's no secret button to passing an interview. It takes the pre-work. It takes knowing what you what you knowing what they're looking for. Not just know what you think they're looking for, but knowing what they're looking for by doing that research. And then preparing how you're going to talk about your experience in relation to that. And then putting that together to know how to answer their questions. And if you are preparing those answers, you will be more confident. So review the standard interview questions to get you started and preparing answers. I'm not going to give you a list of standard questions here. Just do a Google search on common interview questions. You could even get more specific with AI. Bing has an AI function and now you could actually say common interview questions for administrative assistance in such and such. You can come up with an industry. And it'll come up with here the common questions. So in reviewing the standard questions, it gets you started in preparing answers. As you prepare those answers, think of the star stories. Because it's one thing to say. I have this skill and this skill and this skill and this skill. They don't really care about a list of skills they want to take care about how did you use those skills. That's what the star story is telling them. It's telling the actions that you use to deliver the skills to meet their need. So practicing your star stories will help you answer the behavioral interview questions. Now, just to get beyond a confusion sometimes, behavioral interview questions. That does not mean they're testing my psychological background. That's not what it is. A behavioral question just means what are the behaviors that you've used in the past, which means the actions. So they usually are starting with tell me of a time when. Can you show me your experience with right where they're asking you not. What would you do if that's pretty much a standard HR question. A behavioral question would be tell me of a time you had this experience. What did you do? So if you're going to have that kind of question, the star story is a perfect answer to this. It's talking about your actual experience of this bullet keeps coming back up. You have to show the hiring team you want this job and you're the perfect person for this position. Why does this keep coming up? Because that's what they're looking for. So let's, we're going to take some time now and let's go through some questions and answers. Okay, that'll help us get a little more specific. A question that's usually asked. At the beginning of the interview. Is. Tell me about yourself. Tell me about yourself then. Right. It sounds like they just want to get to know you. And I spoke to a hiring manager. He said he had a young person came in and he said, tell me about yourself. And this person started talking about, well, I ended up in the San Francisco Bay area. Back in the 90s. And my first job was such and such and I did this. And then I'm living up on Bernal Heights. And it's really nice because I have a dog and I can walk up Bernal Hill. And it's, it's beautiful. You could see all through the city. So tell me about yourself. Doesn't mean. Tell me about yourself. As it relates to yourself. What it means is. Tell me about yourself. That makes you a good candidate for this position. So if we can, if we can use another little tool here. I have a Venn diagram that might help you preparing the answer to the question. Tell me about yourself. You want to talk about yourself. But you want to talk about yourself. As it relates to this position. Maybe experience that you've had in another organization that was similar. To the position you're applying to. Okay. So you have here the dark blue where these two circles overlap. This is where you could talk about yourself. And you'll talk a little bit about yourself. Right. I could say I'm from Brooklyn. I always tell people that. Right. I'm from Brooklyn, New York. And, and, but then I'll get into. And my first jobs or my second job, my third job, my most recent job. I was doing such and such. And I would prior relate myself. And my experience to this position. I would also speak about the company. And I, I really found interest in ABC company. Because in the experience I've had before, it looks like you're taking that a step further. And I think I can learn a lot more. And I think I could provide a lot more value from my prior experience. So you're relating yourself. To the position and to the company. And that's the answer to tell me about yourself. That might be the most. Beneficial to you. Moving toward being a perfect candidate. You want to then take that turn it into a story. Right. So, in answering that question. You could format it as a story. People used to be once upon a time. Right. So many people are used to the story being in the past. And here's the present. And here's the future. And here's the consequences they're saying. And again, the story is very brief. It's two minutes. I try to encourage people to give all of their answers. Within a two minute timeframe. And people say, well, I, I can't cover everything. Well, that's okay. If you cover enough that they're interested, they'll say, Oh, tell me more about that. And then you could talk more about it. But if you just talk on and on and on and you're more than two minutes. They stop listening. And they're starting to think of the next question. They're going to ask. So in order to keep their attention focused on you. Try to keep it real short to three minutes tops. So when you're coming up with interview responses. A good way to tell that story is in past present future. If you organize your answer in that predictable narrative. They, they're comfortable following along. So here's an example. This person who's applying for HR benefits manager at kids first foundation. And they might ask the question. So David, tell me about yourself. My interest in human resources started about five years ago. When I was working at year up. I partnered with our HR team on recruitment and designing custom training programs. Develop the strong passion for the work. I recently took a sabbatical from work to care for an aging family member. But I've kept up my project management skills. And what I did is some part time HR consulting. And Linda dot com certification training. So I'm excited to explore this role because it seems to be a great fit for my skills and interests. I have a degree in human resource management. A lot of experience negotiating, which would be helpful when working with your providers. I've also worked with health health insurance companies. So I have a solid understanding of policy underwriting and cost saving strategies. And a project management training I just completed will help me manage your project resources schedules and tasks. Kids versus an amazing company. You have a great reputation as an innovative and inclusive leader in the youth development community. I'm excited to further the discussion and learn more about the work. So if you notice, it wasn't just about me and my background. You'll notice also that this person actually right up front identified a gap that might be on their resume, but shows what they did in that gap. Right. I took time from work called the sabbatical aging to take care of an aging family member. But I kept up the project management skills part time HR consulting and certifications. And project management certification mentioned again. All of this talking about myself in relation to this position. And then what we call the big three. Right. One of the three things that they're really looking for. Degree in HR management, right. Human resource management, maybe a shrimp certification. Experience working with insurance companies, which is what HR might have been in the list of job duties. And project manager. So all of these are mentioned here very briefly. If they want more information about your project management, they'll then say tell me more about your project management skills. But here you're just mentioning it. And again, this is the first question. So you're just getting started, but you're relating. Your experience. The who you are to this organization. And then you check up the company, right. This is your great organization. That's the reason that I'm coming here. So you're taking advantage here of telling about yourself. In relation to the position. And in relation to the organization and basically telling why you're applying to this company. Many times that might be the second question. So why are you applying to this company? Again, you have that same answer. So I said I wasn't going to give you common questions. So I did throw this slide in recently. Tell me about yourself, why did you leave your last job, greatest strength, greatest weakness, where do you see yourself. Standard questions. What they're looking for and asking these questions they want in your answer for you to identify skills, traits, abilities, success stories that each question is referring to. Star stories. If possible, star stories is the best way to do that. And I get the question of how many stars should I prepare. As many as you can, as many as you can. And you don't throw them away. If you don't get that job, you still have the star story, because the next job you apply to one of the star stories might be appropriate. So now you already have it written and you're comfortable with it. You actually keep a whole list of all of your star stories to help you answer common questions. And then when you get into more detail questions, you may have to write new star stories. I said, I would, you know, talk about some standard questions and answers. This is one of the questions that comes up. Why are you leaving your current job. You have to be careful here. You might have had a terrible manager. The company might have been a really bad company to work for. Don't mention that. The tip I'm going to give you in preparing, I'm not going to give you an answer because my answer is going to be different than your answer. Whatever your feelings about your current employer might be or your most recent employer might be. You never want to speak poorly of the company or a particular manager you work for. Because when you do that. The company feels that if you're speaking badly about that company, then you're going to end up speaking badly about my company. So what's a better answer. We were no longer a good fit. It was great when I was there at the beginning. Or there was no growth potential. Or I want to make a pit. So there are lots of different ways to get around it, but don't talk about the actual negative things if there were if there was anything negative. If you got laid off. You know, why are you living in your current company. It was, it was a layoff. I worked for Hewlett Packard for 16 years. And then they did a major restructure and 15,000 of us got let go. So it was easy enough for me to say. There was a restructure and I was let go. My position was eliminated. Without talking about good or bad managers that I had in the past. Sometimes you have to go into a bit of detail. But make the detail about your long term goals. Right. So. Now that I got laid off. I looked to your company. So what was that company we were talking about? Oh, I forgot it already. You know, you could then talk about the company you're applying to and talk about the reason that you're applying is because you think they're a great company, a great place for you to continue to grow. So during this part of the interview, strike a balance between offering some detail and rambling on the worst you could do is throw your current employer under the bus. So make it a no fault conversation. Okay. Why are you leaving current job? I got laid off. And I see working at your company to be an actual boom. And I think I'd be able to provide some of my experience to provide value here. I love value value is one of my favorite in job in job search. This question is always hard for me. Where do you see yourself in five years? These days, things change so quickly. So many people have like a two to three year tenure at a company and then move on. So you don't want to talk about that. You don't want to say, well, everybody else leaves in two years. So I don't know where I'm going to be, but I won't be here. That's not a good way to go. One of the cardinal rules of an interview is to remember you're interviewing for a specific job, not for when you want in the future. So if they ask about your goals and aspirations, that's fine, but tie it back to the position you're interviewing for. So good answer is to say you want to grow within this organization using the position you're interviewing for as a basis to learn. Make sure you keep it within the same industry. If you're interviewing position HR, don't say your five year goal is to work in finance. So you're applying for this job, even though you intend to pivot. Get your five year plan in your head and out of your mouth as it relates to this position. So employers like to see, to know that you see their company as a stepping stone to more senior roles within their company, not moving into a different industry. So the reason I don't like the question is nobody knows where they're going to be in five years anyway, but picture it from the highly managed point of view. Right. What do you think that it is that they want to hear? Because they may not be there in five years either. And then this is one that gives people lots of problems. But your biggest weakness. Now, I know some people come up with a weakness that's not a weakness. Well, my biggest weakness is I'm a perfectionist. Now, if I were interviewing you and you said that to me, I wouldn't let it stop there. I would then say, oh, why do you consider a perfectionist to be a weakness? And then you might be stuck because it's not really a weakness, right? Companies like people who are perfectionists. So then you would have to say something more like, well, when I'm working with other people, my perfectionism makes people uncomfortable. So I'm now trying to tone that down. The key is in answering this question, whatever your weaknesses, what are you doing to overcome the weakness? That shows growth potential. That shows somebody who wants to move forward. So the interviews will look for most honesty, avoid the standard I work too hard answer. If you remember to bring it back to how you'd like to learn more, you'll have the interviewers' respect. So if you are saying, one of my biggest weaknesses is report writing. I really have trouble sitting down and actually writing the report. I do all the research, but writing the report's been difficult. So I actually signed up for two classes, one in composition and one in getting beyond the writing block. Now that you know that, you're honest in your answer and you're overcoming your answer. So that shows somebody who's going to problem solve for themselves and self-improve. So what's your biggest weakness? They really want to hear about how are you improving yourself? Can you explain the gap in your employment history? Now, this is where people again are very frightened thinking, well, if there's a gap, they won't even invite them to the interview. They do invite you to the interview, but you better have an answer for the gap. So if the gap is in the years 2020 and 2021, they know why you have a gap. Right? That was COVID. Many people were laid off. So that's not an issue. What you want to do for whatever the reason, and you heard, excuse me, one of the stories where the person said, I took a sabbatical to take care of aging family member. What they want to know is what did you do during that time? What did you do in that gap? So if they say, can you explain the gap in your employment history? You could say, well, I had to take time off for some personal issues that had to be taken care of in my family. But what I did in that time is I signed up for some night classes and I continued toward getting my degree, or I took specific courses to improve the skills, or I got certified in UX design. Whatever it is you want to talk about, what did you do? Not so much the reason that you had to take time off. It could be that you got laid off and you were in job search, but you didn't find anything for a long time, which could happen. But you want to talk about what did you do in that time, other than just applying for jobs? So taking classes, there are lots of free courses. It's always good to do that. Employers want to see an effort to learn more skills. Why are you the right person for this job? And this is the time to sell yourself, and this is where people get shy, right? There's a great book called How to Toot Your Own Horn Without Blowing. Basically, How to Brand. Great book to look up. How to Toot Your Own Horn Without Blowing. You have to boast about yourself. Why are you the right person for this job? Because you know how to do this. You can provide value. You have experience. You're a self-starter. You are a hard worker, right? So what I've heard from you is that this position requires XYZ. My prior experience doing ABC has prepared me to do that very well. If you're not sure of your qualifications that you're needed, that are needed to do a particular job, you should be asking those questions. It's nothing wrong when a question is asked of you to actually ask for a clarification, right? But this question allows you to put your best foot forward, make your case for the job, take advantage of it. Yes, boast. Without saying, I believe I can solve the problems of your company. Now, I've actually had clients who did that in mock interviews. And I said, why are you telling the person that you think that their company is having problems? I mean, they're hiring you because they're filling a position. They may not have any problems. Why are you telling them that you can solve their problems? Who do you think you are? So that's being boastful. That's being obnoxious. What you want to talk about is how you can provide value, how you can do the job that you read about in the job description, and that you've done further research about knowing more about the company. Okay. So, last question slide. Any questions about what we've talked about this morning? Don't see questions in the chat, but feel free to unmute yourself if you have a question. You have a question or comment. There are only a few of us here. So if you think that you know that this would work, tell us why. If you think this wouldn't work, tell me why and we can have a discussion about it. This is an opportunity to practice interviewing skills. Talk to a stranger. Okay. Don't want to make you uncomfortable. So let's take it to just a quick summary. I've been working in job search skills for 15 years. Let me tell you what I started teaching and what I'm teaching these days very soon. Okay. Yeah, we could talk about AI. That's a whole different discussion. We could talk about the fact that we do things over Zoom. When I first started teaching this, everything was face-to-face. When I got into this, I got laid off from HP after 16 years, and they sent me to Leigh-Hattarison to learn how to look for my next job. And while I was there and I was watching what the people were teaching me, I went to see the vice president and said, no, I can teach this. I have enough experience already. I think I can teach this. And they actually hired me. So now I was teaching job search skills. And then I became a career advisor and was actually working one-on-one with clients. And eventually I moved from that to a nonprofit and continued doing that for another 14 years. I just want to let you know that there's a lot of different people out there telling you the same thing I'm telling you now. The key is to believe it and know that there's work that needs to be done to prepare for an interview. So one thing I always did when I was working with a cohort, was tell people, make friends with other people here in the cohort. Try to find an accountability buddy so that when the training portion is over, it might be a two-week training, you want to continue working with somebody, somebody who understands the situation, somebody who's in a similar situation. That person can keep you accountable. That person can make sure that you're analyzing resumes before you're sending out, you're analyzing job descriptions before you're sending out resumes. That you're preparing answers to questions before an interview. They can do a mock interview with you. So really important, it may not be important to everybody, but very helpful to practice interviewing with an accountability buddy or a mentor or a career advisor that you're working with, at least once before an interview. A good way to do this also is to record yourself answering a question that's really difficult for you. So ask the question of yourself and record the answer, and then listen back or get yourself a free Zoom account and do it right to the screen, answer the question. Some interviewing is actually done now without a live interviewer. They actually put a question up and they will record you providing the answer. You can do that yourself and then listen back to your answer and watch your body language, hear your answer. Think, oh, I should say it a different way, make some notes and practice, practice, practice. Nathan, we have a question. If you had a gap in employment but didn't do anything productive during that time, is there a way to verbalize debt in a positive way? Just getting myself motivated to look for employment and prove myself career-wise was a challenge that I couldn't get past. Is debt just took care of family households during that time instead? You know, it's really hard because you don't want to lie. But if you think about what you were doing when you were taking care of family household, what skills were you using? In that break, maybe I got laid off and I took that break and I used that time to get the family finances in order. And that took a while. And I was working with some finance professionals. They're hearing that you are actually doing something that might be a transferable skill. You're managing a project. If you're taking care of the household, what were you doing? And then out of that comes transferable skills. So you can actually take a look more about what you actually were doing during that break. Now, if you all you were doing was watching TV, which is my downfall, then you may have to make something up and talk about classes you've taken online. But it would be really good to think about what did you actually do during that time? Maybe you took advantage of that time to paint the house. Well, talk about where did it take to paint the house? You didn't just grab a paint can. You had to figure out, you know, how am I going to paint the house? I need to get my materials ready. I needed, you know, it was a big job for me to do this. I hadn't done it before. So I had to ask for some expert advice in how to do this. So you can always look at things that you've done that identify transferable skills. And again, you don't want to have an answer that's going to go on for 30 minutes. You want a two minute answer, right? So what did you do? I noticed a gap. What do you do during that gap? Two minutes maximum, but try to talk about what you did to grow. And maybe it is that you took classes with the Edd that you learned how to use LinkedIn. Because LinkedIn is going to be used by many companies when you do get hired. So try to figure out, look more deeply into what you did. It's not just, I didn't do anything. You did something. Nobody sits around for two years doing nothing. And then looking for a job. Like you say, you prepare for looking for a job. How did you prepare? That's a way that you can come up with transferable skills. And that's, again, the advantage of talking with an accountability buddy or talking with a mentor or a career advisor. And they may talk to you and pull out of you. It may take more time for them to help you uncover the skills that you used during that time. Life coach could do that too. Thank you, David. Okay. My last bullet, research, prepare, practice. That's what's going to get you ready for a job interview. Here's my contact information. I know some people will send me an invitation to LinkedIn, but they just say, here's my LinkedIn, I want to connect to you. And I tell everybody the same thing. If you'd like to connect with me on LinkedIn, add a note. So when you go to send the invitation, there's an opportunity to add a note and add a note. Why do you want to connect with me? And you might say, I saw you at a library presentation, but I pretty much ignore people I don't know unless they tell me why it is that they want to connect with me. So more than willing and more than happy to connect with you. And here's my email address. And thanks for coming. And I hope this was helpful. Thank you so much, David. I see a lot of thank you in the chat. We really appreciate you taking the time to share with us how to prepare for job interviews. I also want to thank everyone for joining the program. I hope you all find the presentation helpful to you. We'll send out an evaluation survey together with David's slide deck and a link to today's recording. Later this afternoon, please give us a feedback. Again, thank you everyone have a wonderful rest of your day. Bye bye now.