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March 31, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
36:53
1626 Interviewing for Entry-Level Jobs
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Time Text
Oh, hey, it's Steph.
Oh, hey, Steph. So you've got this interview tomorrow at 11 a.m., is that right?
Yep, that's right.
And what sort of job is it?
It's a sales job, entry level.
Right. And it's a job that you want, right?
Yes, I think so.
I would like to get into sales.
It seems pretty exciting.
Right. And you said you had an interview that didn't work out too well today, right?
Right, right.
And what do you think went wrong?
She was asking me questions that was hard for me to explain to her.
What sort of questions? Like, describe your typical day of working for the company.
I didn't know how to describe it.
Working for which company?
Ross. It's his clothing store.
Right, right. Okay.
A clothing store?
Yeah. They sell clothes.
And what was tough about explaining that?
I'm sorry.
What was tough about explaining that?
Um, I don't know.
I just felt that I had to explain every detail and I, um, I couldn't not explain how a typical day would go without explaining.
Um, every detail and I didn't want to do that.
So, it kind of feels weird.
So, I restrained myself from doing that.
Um, I just, I have a hard time conceptualizing what's up.
I'm not sure.
I wasn't that nervous so I don't think it has to do with being nervous.
Okay, if this is not a good...
I mean, sorry, I wasn't sure I cut the end of that.
Did you just repeat that? Cut the end of it?
Yeah, you just repeat that last sentence.
Oh, I don't remember what it was.
I have a hard time conceptualizing how to describe it.
I don't know how to describe it without explaining every little detail about the day.
Right, right.
And what is it that you would like to do differently in the interview tomorrow?
I would like to be able to answer the questions more intellectually and with more confidence.
Thank you.
When giving eye contact, I don't like it when I have to try to think of the answer and looking down.
Or, you know, looking at other directions other than at the interviewer's face.
So I want to do that.
All right.
And now, I mean, I would ask just looking at your resume, I would ask or say that you you haven't really stayed in a job longer than a year and some have been even shorter.
Why do you think that you have...
I guess moved around so much in your career?
I actually should fix something on my resume because I've been with the first company for three years, almost three years.
I was a supervisor for one year.
Oh, I see. Okay, yeah.
But for the last couple of years, it's been fairly...
You've been moving a lot and that's not the end of the world.
I would ask about that.
Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.
I had a hard time...
I just had a hard time finding my...
finding where I fit and...
finding, like, what field I fit in.
Like, uh, just, uh, I would, I would sort of, um, get, uh, dissatisfied easily in my previous jobs.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't think that's the best answer in the world because you're basically saying I'm easily bored and I move on and I, you know, because then the person is going to say, well, why wouldn't that be the case with this job, right?
Yeah, that makes sense.
I mean, the key thing with preparing, and this is just all my opinion and so on, but the key thing for me In preparing for an interview is to practice.
You know, it's like preparing for a play.
You practice.
You learn your lines.
You learn how to answer things.
And you practice the response like 50 times so that you don't try and think completely on your feet.
I mean, there'll be some of that, right?
But you don't think completely on your feet in the interview because I think that's just too stressful, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, that makes sense. So, an answer that you could give, and obviously you need to be honest, an answer that you could give is that you're looking for a job which has some growth potential.
Okay. I mean, that's sort of true, right?
I mean, you don't want to be bagging groceries in 10 years time, right?
No. So you could say I took jobs and I enjoyed the jobs and I learned a lot, but I knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted to find a job where I could enjoy the job in the moment, but also look forward to some growth.
Some ability to grow and take on new challenges, and that wasn't going to happen as a truck driver, and that wasn't going to happen demonstrating cutlery or being a construction laborer.
There really wasn't a lot of room to grow in those jobs, so I'm really looking for a job where I can grow.
Does that sort of make sense? Yeah, that sounds good.
Well, and it's true, right?
I mean, that is sort of what you're looking for because you're too smart to do dumb stuff for the rest of your life, right?
Right, right.
Okay, so you try saying that, because there's not much point me saying it, because I'm not the one being interviewed, right?
Yes. Okay, so somebody says, you know, you've moved around quite a bit in your career.
Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Why you've left these jobs?
Can you help me understand what the pause is?
What, the cause? No, the pause is.
You just pause there for like 10 seconds.
I feel a little anxious.
Well, and that's good to know, but that's why you need to prepare, right?
Yeah.
Now, what are you anxious about?
I'm not, I'm not, I'm going to give a dumb, a dumb response.
Right, right. Okay, well, I'll give you, what I'll do is I'll, you know, we'll keep this relatively brief.
I'll give you the recording, and like I'll ship it to you tonight, you can listen to the recording and just, you just practice these answers.
There's no, I mean, you don't need to fire them back at me now.
You just need to kind of almost memorize them, and it doesn't mean that you, um, Because here's the funny thing, right?
Like you're afraid of not giving a smart response, but if you pause for 10 seconds after a question, it doesn't make you look too bright, right?
No, that's for sure. And I'm not, I mean, I know you are, right?
But in your anxiety to avoid a dumb looking answer, you end up like, I can't process your question or I'm sort of interested in my shoelaces or something like that.
It's not going to come across like very smart, right?
Right, right, right. Okay, so we won't worry about, you know, putting it back to me.
We'll just focus on some answers that you can memorize and rehearse and literally just say them over and over and over again until, you know, write the question down, read the question and just repeat the answer until it comes off in a sort of fluid way and you get the question and you just go into the answer.
That would be my suggestion.
what was the they said describe your typical day in the retail supervising job is that right?
Yeah they she told me to describe my typical day in the job that I was applying for and Sorry, what?
She said what was the job you were applying for?
What was the job I was planning for?
It wasn't a supervisor job, it was an entry-level solar job, cashier and a helper, stock person.
Alright, so she said to describe your typical day in the job you were going to try to get?
Yeah. But that's insane!
How are you supposed to describe a job you haven't gotten yet?
Am I missing something? I mean, I wouldn't even know.
I mean, I've never heard of a question like that.
It's probably good you didn't end up getting a job with these people because that sounds pretty nutty to me.
Don't you think? Yeah, I mean, I kind of like...
I'm not sure...
I should have said I'm not sure what to...
how to describe it because I've never worked there before, so...
Yeah, no, that's the reason we say I'm not sure what the typical day would be like in a job I haven't had yet.
But I can tell you that when I worked in this environment before, this would be my typical day and blah, blah, blah.
Like I would, I would come in, I would look to see what was what needed to be done.
I'd sort of plan my day, I'd respond to customer things, I do this, I do that.
I mean, that would be your day.
But it's To me, I've never heard of a question like, describe your typical day in a job you haven't gotten yet.
That seems kind of nutty to me.
So I think it was okay to be confused at that, but I think it's also okay to say, I'm not sure, I don't really know how to answer that.
Could you be more specific or something like that?
Or could you rephrase the question?
I mean, it's okay in an interview if you don't understand something to say, I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're asking for.
You know, not in a, what the hell's wrong with you, but...
But, you know, like, I'm sorry, I don't follow what it is that you want.
Right, right. So, yeah, that's okay.
It's okay to not know, but it's much better to more, like, if someone asks you a question that you don't know the answer to, you don't know how to respond, you are, I believe, you are much, much better off, instead of pausing and trying to guess what they want, You're better off to just say, I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.
You know, in a lot of places, like school or whatever, right, where if you don't know the answer, you're kind of laughed at and so on.
But in a job interview, I always liked it when people said, I don't know what you're asking me.
Because if they just kind of paused and I could tell that they didn't really understand, but they were trying to answer anyway, that was a negative for me in hiring someone because...
If I gave them instructions on the job and they didn't understand those instructions, what I really wanted them to do was to tell me that they didn't understand so that I could...
Otherwise, they'd just go off and try and do something for a day and do the wrong thing.
Like, I want people who say to me, I'm sorry, I don't understand and I want to make sure I really answer the question well.
Could you rephrase the question?
Right, right. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I didn't do that.
I felt that I had to know the answer, so...
Yeah, don't fake it.
Philosophy and integrity is all about honesty, right?
And if you honestly don't understand the question, I think it's important to say, I'm sorry I don't understand the question.
Right. I know it's not easy to do because we want to be like, hey, I got it, I know.
But it is much, much better to say I don't understand the question than it is to answer the question without knowing what the question really means.
Right. Like in the first...
And of course, it's a double plus.
Because first of all, you're being honest and you are saying that you don't understand something you don't understand.
But second of all, if they're the kind of people who...
We'll get upset at you for not understanding a question and asking for clarification, then unless you're about to starve to death, you really don't want to work there.
Okay. You don't sound like you believe me.
I'm disappointed because I really like the interviewer and the people that work there.
Well, no, but you didn't say that, right?
Like, you didn't say, I'm sorry, I don't understand the question, right?
Yeah, no, I didn't say that.
Right, so if you said, I'm sorry, I don't understand the question, and I want to make sure I answer it well, can you rephrase it?
And they said, well, that's stupid, you should have understood the question the first time, then you don't want to work there, right?
Because they're just nasty. Yeah, yeah.
Did you see the difference?
Yeah, if you say that then you'll know if you want to work for them or not.
Well yeah, I mean because if somebody is asking you a question and you're saying, I don't understand the question, can you rephrase it or can you explain more about what you mean?
I mean that is an act of confidence, isn't it?
It's an act of saying, I'm comfortable with not understanding something, and I really want to make sure that I answer the question well, so I'm not going to self-attack for not understanding.
I'm just going to ask for clarification.
I think that is a confident thing to do, whereas we often believe that admitting ignorance is a weak thing to do, but when you honestly don't understand something, it's a confident thing to say, I'm sorry, I don't understand.
Right, right. Have you had a chance to do any research on the place that you are going to go and do the interview?
Yeah, I read through the website.
So if they say, why do you want to work here, what would you say?
I'm enthusiastic about selling things.
I think it has a lot of room for growth.
And I just like working with people, and I like the feeling of closing a sale.
And I just...
It's a motivating thing because you are sort of...
Let me just interrupt for a sec because you kind of went off the rails there, right?
Yeah, yeah. And this is important to stop and say, because this isn't the real interview, right?
It's to stop and say, why am I going off the rails?
I'm sorry, what do you mean by going off the rails?
Well, you just kind of started stalling and erring and umming, right?
I mean, the first part of the answer was very clear, and then you started going, right?
Which is fine, but it's just important to know why that happened, because you don't want that to happen in the interview if you can avoid it, right?
No, no, no. I hate doing that.
Sure, sure. So why did it happen just then?
Because I was afraid of giving a stupid answer.
Right. So the important thing as well is to know when to stop talking, right?
Yes. I think you gave a pretty good answer.
At least I think it was one thing I would say, but I thought it was a good answer.
And then you kept going, right?
Yeah, yeah. And then you kind of went, right?
Because, you know, of course, who am I to talk with 1700 podcasts, right?
When to stop talking, but it's okay to give a short answer.
And then they ask questions, right?
Give a short answer and let them ask the questions, right?
Yeah, yeah. You know, like the band is always supposed to leave the stage when the audience still wants more, not when the audience is totally ready to go home and is done with the show, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Now, the other thing that I would say about your answer, which I thought was good, but the other thing I would say is, your answer was very generic, right?
So you said, I like selling stuff.
I like selling things, right?
But that's not specific to the company you're going to.
And it doesn't matter what they make.
But let's say they make jet skis, right?
You say, I love jet skis.
You know, I was born on a jet ski.
I named my first dog jet ski.
You know, I have a jet ski tattooed on my...
Well, I can't show you that in the interview, but maybe after you hire me or whatever, right?
So it has to be something if they sell steak knives.
It's like, I used to be in a gang and all we used were steak knives to get people or whatever, right?
So don't say, you know, I like selling...
Things, and hey, I see some things on your desk.
I could sell those, right?
I think you want to try and make it more specific to the field itself, right?
So if I was going for a job at Best Buy, I'd say, this place, like, I love this place.
I love technology. I love toys.
And I really like helping match people with the right technology, and you do that here, right?
And I have a lot of respect for this company because of, you know, whatever, X, Y, and Z. So try and make it specific to the place you're going to, right?
Okay. Well, they don't sell a particular thing.
Other companies hire them to help sell their products.
Okay, so that's good. So I like designing, I like helping people to sell things or whatever.
I mean, I agree with you, like, the things maybe then make more sense.
But try and make it more specific to their website, right?
Like, most websites will have somewhere, they'll have, you know, their mission statement or their company philosophy or their statement of ethics or whatever, right?
They'll have something like that.
You know, we are committed to integrity and blah, blah, blah.
We are committed to delivering A-plus customer satisfaction experiences or whatever, right?
And so go through the website and find what their mission statement is, what their ethics are.
And I would say, you know, like I was really drawn to this company because I too value You know, integrity and getting the job done in the most efficient way.
Like, whatever it is that they've got on their website, I would try and work that into why I want to work there.
Like, I think it's a good match in values.
I think it's a good match in terms of what I believe in and what you guys believe in.
Does that sort of make sense?
Yeah, that sounds good. It also tells the guy that you've read the website, which I think is important.
I always felt it was kind of weird when someone would come in to interview at my company and you could tell for sure that they hadn't read the website.
That just seemed weird to me.
It's like to me it was like why would you bother coming all the way down like dressing up getting your resume coming all the way down here waiting being interviewed and then driving all the way back and taking your suit off and like that's four hours or three hours or whatever right and yet you wouldn't spend 20 minutes reading the website it just would seem weird weird to me and that to me was around preparation and conscientiousness and so on so read the website but whatever that they've got that you can use in the interview that's on the website I would do that.
And if you can find a typo on the website, fantastic.
Write it down and bring it in and say, I just happened to notice, I'm not sure if this is live, but you might want to just check this out.
Okay. Does that sort of make sense?
Yes. Now, you may get the question, since you're looking for more of a growth-oriented position, you may get the, where do you see yourself in five years kind of thing.
Oh, right, right. Yeah, I always try to, like, on a postage stamp, that would be my, or a wanted poster, one of the two, that would be my approach.
I'm sorry, what was the first thing you said?
On a postage stamp.
Oh, on a postage stamp.
On your wife. No, I don't know.
Sitting in your chair, smoking your cigars.
So, what have you thought about in terms of that?
I haven't thought about that.
Well, you need to.
You need to. I mean, I obviously can't answer where you want to be in five years, but I think something along the lines of, I think I have a lot of talent and ability in the business world.
And I like taking on new challenges.
I really like working with people.
I like bringing out the best in those around me and hopefully they can bring out the best in me too.
So I hope to be in a position that will Help me really exercise my talents.
So, you know, whatever it is, that's a very generic answer, but something, you know, and if there's anything more specific in that company than that you would be interested in, you know, I think it's, you know, maybe, oh, I'd like to do more project management, or I'd like to do sales, I'd like to travel more, I would in the long run like to manage a group of other salespeople, you know, think big and, you know, tell them what you're looking for in the long run, and it's okay to dream in that position, in that answer.
Okay. Does that make any sense?
Yes. Yeah, so I would...
And practice your answer.
You know, practice, practice, practice, practice.
I had to do a lot of this.
I mean, you and I didn't exactly get the best social skills instructions from our families, so you kind of have to, you know, repeat it until it feels human, you know?
That's the way that I had to approach these kinds of things.
Okay. Yeah, I need to do that.
Yeah, practice, practice, practice.
Don't try and think of everything on the fly because it's too stressful in a situation to do that.
Now, is there anything else that you think might help, that I could do that would help?
My resume, should I include more things on my resume?
I mean, should I use different wording?
More verbs and stuff like that.
Okay, there's a couple of things I would suggest about your resume.
resume.
What is a self-rewarding job?
A job that I can't think of a word.
That's okay. You say the objective.
You say seeking hard-working and self-rewarding job for mutual benefit.
First of all, a job can't be hard-working.
A person can be hard-working, but a job can't be hard-working.
So when you say, I'm seeking a hard-working job, that doesn't quite make sense.
I think I know what you mean, but I think it's important to be a bit more clear.
Okay. I mean, what is your ideal job?
What is it that you would like to do?
In the abstract, what would be the best thing for you?
Very best thing?
Yeah.
Um, I haven't thought about that too much.
Well, let's throw a few things in and we'll just sort of see if it, right?
So objective, without a doubt, you're looking for work because you have a resume that's in someone's hands.
So I don't think you need to say I'm looking for a job, basically, because that is taken for granted, if that makes sense.
Yeah. It's like having a personal ad saying, I'm looking for romance.
Like, well, of course you are, because you have a personal ad, right?
So I think I would not say that.
Objective is something more specific, because this is very generic, right?
This could apply to any job.
It's okay to change your objective for each job that you're applying for, right?
Because each job is going to have different ways that it's going to appeal to you.
So, it could be something like, I'm really looking to develop my sales and leadership skills with an eye on management, or something like that.
To me, that would be an objective that's more specific.
Okay. You know what I mean?
Like, what sort of skills are you looking to develop for what end, right?
So, if you say, well, I really want to develop my sales and leadership skills to...
To grow within an organization, then what that says to the interviewer is A, you know that you need at least sales and leadership skills to be a manager, that you're looking to grow, that you're willing to pay your dues, and that you have some plan for the longer term.
Right. Because the objective can't be, I'm looking to get a job, because that's a yes-no thing.
That's not something that you can develop.
It's like, well, what do you do once you've got that job, right?
So I would put down something along those lines, and you can listen to this again tonight and sort of fix it up, but that would be my suggestion.
Okay, okay. Now, does that make more sense?
I personally, and there's six million different ways everybody can give you a different opinion, Yeah, I mean, you can leave the education where it is right now, but I personally think that I would move it down to the bottom because it's the least relevant thing.
Yeah. Actually, I do have some...
I did take a lot of classes in college, but I never graduated from college.
Just kind of figuring if I should put that on the resume or not.
Oh, absolutely. You should put any classes you've ever taken...
That you've completed, I would put those.
Even if you didn't get a great mark, I would put the classes on.
And then you have to have, of course, a good answer as to why you didn't finish college or whatever, right?
So that's something you can work out.
But absolutely, I think it's very important because what that does is it tells people that you are interested in continuing education.
So I would put that...
Yeah, I would put that. And then if you put in some college, you don't need to put in that you went to high school, because obviously you went to high school if you went to college, right?
Yeah, yeah, because you need a diploma to get in college.
Yeah, so I would put some of that college stuff there for sure, and I would drop high school completely.
Okay. Does that sort of make sense?
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
All right. Now, the other thing that I would mention, and this is sort of technical about your resume, is that just under sales representative, you have demonstrate product, attended many sales meetings, generate leads.
Demonstrate is present.
Generate leads is present.
But then further down, you have started, worked, handled.
Those are all past tense. So I would make the decision to put them all in the past tense, right?
So under sales representative, you want to say demonstrated products, attended sales meetings.
I wouldn't say many.
I don't think many is important.
And then generated leads.
I would put a little bit more into how you generated leads.
Did you cold call? Did you scour the internet?
Did you scour newspapers? Did you go through the yellow page?
Like, how did you generate the leads?
I would put a little bit in about that.
Okay. I also think that under construction laborer, I don't, unless you're going for another construction job, I wouldn't put any details in about that.
I mean, I think everybody understands that a construction laborer, you've got heavy lifting, painted roofs, sanded and prepped.
Unless you're going for a job that requires you to do a lot of heavy lifting or paint rooms or sand and prep drywall or whatever, I would say that just leave those details off.
Okay, but sometimes they ask for the gap of unemployment, like if they see...
Oh, no, sorry.
Leave construction laborer in.
It's just the three bullet points you have underneath that.
I don't think they're necessary. Oh, just leave out the bullet points.
Okay. Yeah, just leave out the heavy lifting, painted rooms, sanded and prepped.
Because none of the jobs that you're going to go for, I don't think it's going to be relevant.
I would leave it in so that you don't have, you say the question about that, but I would leave that off.
I would also take off bag boy down the one below.
You said started as a clerk's helper bag boy in November 2004.
I think bag boy is just such a, I mean, it's such a lowly term.
I would just leave that off.
All right. So just started as a clerk's helper in November 2004.
All right. Sorry, no comma after fast-paced.
You say, in fast-paced work environments, you don't need a comma after fast-paced.
Oh, right. Okay. I'm not sure what you mean when you say worked cache registers and handled cache.
Aren't those two things the same? Oh, yeah.
I was kind of having a hard time explaining that.
Because as a supervisor, I handled the cash much more than the...
You could say handled daily cash receipts or managed daily cash closure or something like that, but it just sounds a little bit like I worked the cash registers and I handled cash.
It's like, wait a minute, there's two things to say.
So I would just expand that to make it a bit more clear or to drop it.
Okay. Now, you also, just little, again, little things here.
Under availability, I would put a full stop at the end or a period at the end of the sentence, because you have that after your objective.
- Okay. - And also at the end of available upon request.
- Okay. - And that would be, those would be my suggestions.
It really just is around, you know, practice, practice, practice.
To get the answers so that they're a little bit, you can just sort of say them, not off the top of your head or improvising on the fly, because that's a really tough thing to do, right?
And it's hard to know when to stop, and especially you think a lot about what you're saying.
Am I saying the right thing?
Do I sound dumb? You don't want to do that parallel processing, so I would just rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.
Stay up until 11 o'clock, just going over and over your answers until you can think of the question and you can just come up with an answer that is succinct.
And give yourself the permission to be honest when you don't understand the question.
Just say, I'm sorry, could you rephrase?
Sorry, I don't follow the question.
Could you try again? Something like that.
Okay. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
I need to do that.
That'll help me a lot.
Yeah, don't fake stuff in an interview, because if you fake stuff in an interview, you're either going to get hired by someone who likes the fact that you're faking stuff, which is not good, or You're going to get rejected by someone because you're faking stuff and they don't like that.
And most people don't like it when you fake stuff.
And you understand. I know you're not lying or anything like that.
I'm just saying that this is a habit that you have, which comes out of your history, which I really understand and sympathize with.
But don't pretend to have an answer.
This isn't math class anymore.
You can be a lot more honest in these sorts of situations.
Okay. Okay.
Yeah. I will do my best.
Alright. And how are you feeling?
Feeling pretty good. A helpful call?
A useful call? Yeah, very helpful.
Thank you. Great. All right.
Well, listen, I will send this to you in a couple of minutes so you have a chance to sort of go over it again.
But, you know, best of luck tomorrow.
I'm sure you'll do much, much better.
And, you know, if it's not tomorrow, you know, you just keep practicing and keep working.
But I think you'll do well tomorrow.
Okay. Thank you. All right, man.
Take care. Best of luck. Okay.
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