The Special Sauce of the Interview
Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.
These ingredients make up a very famous hamburger. There’s nothing really special about the patties, the lettuce, the cheese, the pickles, the onions, or that sesame seed bun. The real secret is the special sauce.
In the interview process, the special sauce is understanding the foundational reasons behind the questions, as well as your persuasive responses to them.
The basis of any interview is that the hiring manager/interviewer is looking for specific talent. When you boil everything down there are four main areas from which all questions arise and all answers should be based.
The Interview Coaching Solutions 4 Critical Pillars of Interviewing Success are: Intellectual Ability, Responsibility and Maturity, Assertiveness and Enthusiasm, and Interpersonal Skills. Today we will explore the first of the 4 Critical Pillars of Interview Success, a.k.a. the interview special sauce: Intellectual Ability.
Every hiring manager/interviewer is trying to determine if the candidate has the intellectual ability to fulfill the duties of the open position, as well as future roles within a company. They cannot make a candidate smart and will not hire someone who is intellectually incapable of doing the job. The responsibility of any organization is to hire candidates with intellectual ability, then help them build on that intellect.
A medical research team hiring a bench researcher will have set minimum intellectual standards. These might be academic performance, demonstrated intellect from previous projects, published papers, etc. They will use a variety of measures to determine if a candidate meets minimum standard and beyond. Another example would be a company hiring a brand manager for a multi-million-dollar brand. They will have set expectations in their hiring process to ensure the candidates they interview have the gray matter required to run a large brand.
We could give countless other examples and the moral of the story will be the same: interviewers cannot make someone smart, and they will not hire someone who is not intellectually bright enough to meet and/or exceed the expectations of the job.
Every candidate should be honest with themselves when they are considering roles for which they apply. The candidate should find opportunities where their intellect is a match. Nothing is wrong with stretching oneself, but if a candidate is not rocket-scientist smart, then it would make no sense to apply for that rocket scientist position.
Once a candidate has identified the positions for which they should apply, they must then begin to think of stories that will demonstrate their intellectual abilities. So, what will the interview questions sound like?
Some examples would be:
•Describe a time when you had to determine the root cause of a process gap and what alternatives did you consider as improvements? What was the final solution and results?
•Explain a situation where you faced a difficulty. What decisions did you discard and which one(s) did you take? Why did you discard and why did you decide on the one(s) you made?
You should answer the questions specifically! Don’t leave anything to chance. Methodically, persuasively demonstrate your critical, strategic, and tactical thinking. You are there to sell yourself, so remember to sell the best product you have: you!
There is no way you can magically become more intelligent just because you have an upcoming interview. But what you can do is think through your experiences and highlight your intellectual ability in your stories.
Bottom line is the company that hires you has nothing to do with the intellect you possess prior to joining them, and it is up to you to persuasively articulate the intellectual ability you possess. Doing so will add to your “secret sauce” and differentiate you from the competition!