1) Making Yourself Stick: Intro
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Envision that you were able to successfully get an interview with the company of your dreams. How will you prepare yourself so that you can achieve the offer?
The traditional way of recruiting is to hop online and look up the most commonly asked interview questions. Once you have those questions, you create answers for them that you practice in your head. You’ll also head off to one or two info sessions as well as career fairs where you’ll learn about the company and what they do. You might even approach a recruiter and ask her the go-to question that all students ask: “So what is a typical work day like?” You won’t mention your interview to any of your friends because you don’t want to be embarrassed if you don’t get the offer and you don’t want to give them an edge by knowing that you are recruiting with the same firm; after all, they’re your competitors now - not your friends.
That is not the approach that Gabriel Mizrahi, Consultant at Deloitte Consulting, took. He told every single one of his friends about the companies that he was interviewing with; he practiced with his friends 40 hours a week for two weeks straight to prepare himself for the case interview. Recruitment was not a solo mission for him; it was a chance for him to reach out to his friends and peers so that he could practice his interviewing and perfect the case. Most importantly, he mastered the intangibles.
75% of what you say is not the content of your words
Not only did he just practice interviewing day and night, but he went to ALL of the info sessions and career fairs so that he could make a good impression and build a relationship with everyone in the company. He befriended not just the recruiters, but all of the other UCLA undergraduates who were his “competitors.” Together, they set up recruitment team sessions where they practiced together and gave each other positive feedback.
So if 25% of the interview is the content of your words, what is the other 75% made up of?
Making Yourself Stick
The 75% is made up of the intangibles that make you stick positively in the minds of company representatives. People make decisions based on their emotional feel and attachment to the decision being made. Think about the last big purchase that you made. You made that purchase because you wanted that product emotionally, and you could not be satisfied until you held it in your hand and knew that it now belongs to you. Now, you may have justified your purchase logically with “Well, I did just get a raise at work. I can afford it”, but ultimately you are just justifying a purchase made by the irrational side of your brain.
Emotion > Logic
Recruiters and company representatives make recruitment decisions in the exact same way that we all make purchasing decisions - they make a decision based on how they felt during the interview. They will not remember most of your interview answers, but they will remember if they felt that you were confident, if they made a connection with you, and if they liked you enough to work alongside you. You need to demonstrate not only how you can bring value to the company, but how you can perfectly fit within the company culture.
Making Yourself Stick will not only help you in a recruiting situation but in all the networking and socializing situations of your life. Throughout the following pages, we will teach you the secrets to taking control of the interview, to demonstrating that you are confident even when you are not, and to captivating people with what you say.
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