Random Thoughts from Judd

How To Do A Great Job Interview,
In The Form Of A Tale

It was January, 2002. I was a brand new dad. My son, Sam, was a mere two weeks old. It was a breathtaking, exhausting, vast new horizon I was looking out on as a parent, a role I had never been able to see myself well in, but here I was anyway. And even with all of that, I never knew that I could love someone so deeply as I loved my baby.

And then it happened. It was, I dunno, late morning I guess when the call came. It was Jeff, the CEO of the Internet start-up I had been associated with for a couple of years, first as a happy and determined freelancer and finally, after much wooing back into the corporate fold, as a full-time telecommuting employee. I greeted Jeff warmly on the phone and asked how he was doing. Not so well, he said. It was a tough day today. The company had been suffering financially for some time now, for lack of sales, and it was his unfortunate duty to call me and tell me that today was my last day with the company.

I was floored. Speechless.

You know how authors describe the blood rushing from one's body in a moment of stark terror? I finally understood what that felt like. Your heart suddenly stops, there's this rush of heat and adrenaline, followed by a drenching chill, and then your body goes numb. This all happens in about a second. Your breath stops. And then your brain stops. You can't even muster a single coherent thought. It's an instant...hot...freeze. My mind was chanting over and over, "This can't be happening," as if to make it real by sheer repetition. The room down-shifted into slow motion, like you see it do in the Matrix, and my peripheral vision started to go fuzzy. Yes, surely, this was a dream...I could hear a dull roar in my ears.

Jeff bought me time as he kept talking, and the room speeded up. I stammered silently, then forced myself to think. I couldn't let this happen. I was a minted family man now, and there was no way I could afford to lose my job. My son was just two weeks old! And I had just blown a week of my vacation time on paternity leave. Of all times...No, there were options. We had to discuss them.

I tried to negotiate with Jeff. I asked him about going part-time, about reverting to contractor status, even job-sharing with somebody...anything to keep some money flowing until I could sort this mess out. He was sorry. He just didn't have any money left to give me. Before we clicked off, I think I asked him if he would write me a letter of reference (and he kindly did). He thanked me for my graciousness and professionalism, and that was it. As I hung up the phone, my network access had already been revoked. There I was, standing at the edge of the abyss of oblivion, and I could feel my body falling helplessly forward.

Scary times.

Fast-forward five months. The adrenaline rush is over, we've been plugging along. Unemployment insurance and my small savings have helped me stagger through the drought. But another moment of stark terror is looming, because the unemployment insurance is about to run out, and my savings are gone. I'm about to fall headlong once more into the abyss. Fortunately, after five months of searching, I have two job interviews lined up, one with a non-profit, another with the government. (There aren't a lot of commercial IT shops in my area, and I have pretty much exhausted those.)

And once again I stand at the crossroads of a critical decision (we all have those every once in a while). One of those decisions that you know will make or break you. Guess wrong, and you're finished. Do I focus all my effort on making these the two best interviews I've ever done in my life (they're going to have to be), or do I keep shopping around for more, and trust that I'll be able to wing it?

For better or worse (I believe better), I decided to bet the whole house on those two interviews. I took a deep breath, pushed my stack of chips across the table, and watched the roulette wheel take its fateful spin.

I began preparing in earnest. I was going to blow these people away. It was clear to me from the beginning that in order to do that, I had to take the issue head on, go straight for the jugular. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was sit there, my feet swinging in the air like Pinocchio, while I answered a bunch of inane questions and begged my pesky nose to stay in place. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Ugh. What skills do you think you bring to our organization? Please. And then the worst one of all: So, tell me about yourself. Just thinking about answering those kinds of questions made me want to vomit.

The problem with that kind of interview is that it didn't give me a way to distinguish myself from every other Pinocchio swinging his legs. That kind of interview would really be a test of how quick I was on my feet, and I didn't want to be tested on my deftness of wit under questioning. And especially not on my poise under pressure! I wanted it to be a genuine showcase of my talents, which was what I was selling. I wanted to assertively demonstrate the value I brought to the table. And that meant that I had to be the one asking the questions. It meant I had to turn the interview from an evaluation into a conversation. Or even better, a consultation. With me as the consultant.

I knew I could do that, because as a freelancer, I had experience in going into organizations, evaluating their systems, and proposing ideas and solutions. That was the kind of interview I wanted to have as a supplicating interviewee, a family man at the end of his financial rope and truly desperate for a job.

So I researched my interviewers' computer platforms and tools, and got conversant with their capabilities. I studied their organizational goals, and brainstormed ideas for them. Most importantly, I prepared a demonstration package of my own work, an IT professional's portfolio if you will, of database schemas, code examples, and screenshots. When the interviews came, I was ready. I was a super-consultant ready to help another good, law-abiding organization.

The first interview, with the non-profit, went very, very well. I literally interviewed in front of a group of about ten people, in addition to the department of three I would have been managing. The last time I interviewed in front of a group, I had been 22 years old and scared out of my wits. That unpleasantness happened in the high-flying, take-no-prisoners atmosphere of Washington, DC, and, quite honestly, they ate me for lunch. This one, however, was at a retreat center in sunny California, so it was a little more relaxed (and I was a few years older). I was able to keep breathing this time and actually maintain sincere eye contact. I ended up as a finalist with only one other person, which was impressive given that I had no recent experience in their computer environment, nor any management experience at all, which was what the job was all about. In the end, they gave it to the person with the management experience, and looking back on it, I thank them. The job wasn't truly right for me, and I wouldn't have enjoyed it. (And the pay was awful.)

The second interview was, in my humble view, smashing. When I met my host, Beth, I liked her instantly. She gave me an introduction to the project in question, showing me what they already had and where they wanted to go in the future. Their business was foreign to me, with a lot of words and acronyms I didn't understand, but I tracked what I could and stayed with my expertise, which was web application development. I know a usable interface when I see one, and I was able to suggest some cool things I had done in the past that could be applied here. She seemed to like this proactive approach.

And before we could ever get to any absurd questions about my strengths and weaknesses, or what part of a toaster I would consider myself to be, I pulled out my portfolio and gave her a personal, guided tour of my recent professional experience. I showed her a vast database schema which I had contributed to, and discussed the kinds of applications I had built. I showed her screenshots and explained what the applications did, and what kind of problems I had solved in building them.

She asked me numerous questions about the programs I was showing her, and then, more importantly, we discussed how those tools applied to her environment. She got to have a problem-solving session with me, a free consultation if you will, rather than an applicant interview session. And I never had to answer any of those damn Pinocchio questions.

She called me some days later to offer me the job. Cue John Williams finale. Cue Sunshine. What can I say? It was a very happy, gratifying day. I got to keep a decent roof over my family's head, and watch my son grow into a vigorous, healthy three year-old!

Can you say, "And they lived happily ever after..."?

The moral of the story is this. If you want to do a killer interview, don't wait for stupid questions and hope that somehow your skills will be revealed as a result. Don't subject your own future to an interviewer's whims, inexperience, or plain ignorance.

Give your interviewer a free consultation with you. Find out what problems they're trying to solve, and show them how you can solve them. Don't talk about your work. Show them your work, in the context of how it brings instant solutions to their table. Every interviewer is praying for someone like this.

Please note that this approach does not guarantee you'll be hired. I have used this approach before and been washed out. But it does guarantee that your interviewer will get a front-row seat to what you're really selling, which is your talents and experience, not your poise under bright lights as an interrogation subject.

Well that's my tale. Hope you enjoyed the moral.

Happy Job Hunting!

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