Whether or not you are in a revenue producing role as an executive, to land an offer in today’s economy, you have to demonstrate how your function contributes to the top/bottom line either directly or indirectly.
Addressing these 6 points in your interview better than other fellow job seekers will significantly increase your ability to land the offer and beat your competition.
Be sure you have examples from your prior employers where you demonstrate how you:
Made Money
Show your prospective employer how you made or contributed to decisions that led to new clients coming on board, to retaining existing clients or to increasing margins.
Saved Money
Demonstrate how you affected sound cost cutting measures, optimized services received for the same/less money, or improved resource utilization.
Mitigated Risk
Communicate where you had the foresight to share insight that resulted in prime product/company positioning or avoided problems – anytime risk can be averted while balancing opportunity capitalization. Employers want to know you have that ability.
Streamlined Processes
Have you reduced the aging from 27 days to 19 days? Did you automate processes that enable clients to sign 6 weeks faster? If you have made your prior organizations leaner and more effective simultaneously, be sure to have examples ready to discuss.
Contribute to Culture
Spearheading safety initiatives, promote-from-within programs and inter-corporate mentoring circles are examples of forming and contributing to culture. Companies desire these traits since they cannot be taught. Have scenarios ready to present that demonstrate you have this innate skill.
Influenced Others
Do people want to work for you? Do you find co-workers want to be in committees you’re leading? Are you brought in to close the deal since people tend to follow what you say?
If you are likable, easy to work with and people want to follow you, that will score you major points in an interview. Collect your stories of where you made a difference to inch out your job-seeking competitors.
Some job seekers react with “I oversee (IT, Marketing, Sales) so (#1, #2 or #6, respectively) doesn’t apply to me. As long as I maintain the systems/get leads/close business, that’s all that matters.”
Or, if the job seeker is not an executive, the job seeker mistakenly thinks they can’t make a difference in any of these areas.
