Your résumé and recommendations may be enough to land you an interview — but they won’t get you the job, it’s up to you to really sell yourself to the employer. To successfully sell yourself in a job interview, you’ll need to do these five things:
First you really need to “know your brand”. Think of Coca Cola, Dove, or Chipotle. The most successful brands know themselves: their purpose, mission and values. Likewise, employers are looking for people who know and live their ‘brand purpose,’ because with clarity comes passion.
Just as it is for brands, storytelling is crucial in an interview. Think of an interview as an opportunity to tell your personal brand story. Job seekers should present their attributes articulately, in a way that makes the most powerful statement. Be animated. Be enthusiastic. Above all, be authentic.
Know the company, the industry, and the person who’s interviewing you. Know their style and their culture. Know their most recent news, figure out their brand and how you fit into it. How you help them?
Use examples to illustrate the story you’re sharing. For example, it’s important to have a collaborative work style. But if you just say you’re collaborative, it sounds empty, like you’re dropping a buzzword to cover your bases. But if you say you were captain of your basketball team, or you were integral to the completion of a huge project, it says much more than the words ‘I’m collaborative’ on their own.
Knowing your personal brand is important when evaluating a position or company. Ask yourself: Does the job align with who I am on both an emotional and rational level? Do the role and the company sync with my strengths and beliefs? In a perfect world this is where you might keep looking if those values don’t match up. But if you need a job, you need a job. Take the offers you get and do the best you can, the luxury of finding a dream job and a perfect fit is not afforded to everyone.
This advice can be a challenge to follow for someone who grew up in the Community. Being humble was so strongly valued that it may be difficult to even recognize your strengths. It may take some deep digging to come up with examples of collaboration and leadership as a Bruderhof high schooler and then telling them in a way that others can understand without understanding the hof. Turns out you can state facts humbly!! While being a constant organizer and leader may not have happened a lot, being a good collaborator and team player is all we did!! If you have examples of how you spun your story please share them below.