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July 14, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
44:51
Job Interview Skills
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Good morning, morning, morning, everybody!
It's time to step away from the darkness!
I hope you're doing well.
I apologize for the dip in audio quality.
I just did a three-part audio podcast on prostitution and the sex trade, and I knew that was going to be a pretty passionate one for me.
Perhaps I shouldn't use the phrase passionate and prostitution together, but I knew that I was not going to be able to hold the microphone and do a credible job of driving the car and doing a podcast on such a powerful topic, so I got back to using my USB headset and kind of liked it.
Two hands for the car, and it allows me to get the coffee without the pause.
So I think overall quite a bit safer.
And the slight dip in audio quality, we shall trade the longevity of the podcaster for the quality of the audio, which I think is a fairly reasonable trade.
At least I hope it is for you.
So today, let's talk about something quite different from the darkness and the black histories that we have been talking about for the last three podcasts.
and on the board for the last couple of couple of days so there's a couple of people who've Mentioned on the board and if I emailed me saying that they have some trouble with job interviews and Would I
Talk about any aspects of job interviews, and the reason is not because I just happen to know everything about everything, which of course ain't the case, but rather because I have been a manager for almost a decade, and I must have interviewed two or three hundred people over the course of my career, and I have been interviewed probably at least A dozen or two dozen times.
For this job that I have right now, I was interviewed five times, I think?
I'd like to sort of pass along some of the things that I've noticed from either side of the table, and maybe it will be helpful for you, and I'm putting this out on the YouTube-y thing because it might be of value to other people, but it is a very, very important skill, and it's a skill that is not only important in terms of getting a job with the accompanying food and shelter that is most pleasurable, but it is really, really important in the dating realm and in the personal realm, but particularly in the dating realm.
So there's this old bit from Seinfeld where he says, you know, basically that a date is just like a job interview that goes on all night.
And that's funny because it really is kind of true.
And so I'd like to sort of go over some of the things that I've noticed in job interviews.
And I'm mostly going to talk about job interviews for jobs that you want.
I know that sounds a bit silly, but I kind of wanted to focus on The job interviews that are going to occur after you get out of the low-rent, minimum-wage ghetto of youth, right?
I mean, I started working in a bookstore when I was 11 and have had a job pretty much continually ever since, except for a period of about a year and a half, which I took off after I sold a company I'd co-founded.
And, sure, I shouldn't sound quite so pompous or smug.
I was involved in the sale.
I was the Chief Technical Officer, and there were wiser people than me involved in the sale, as far as that business financial side goes, but definitely it gave me some filthy lucre to take some time off and write some books and so on.
Revolutions available at my website, and Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, and Publish America.
Anyway, buy the book!
What generally is the case in job interviews, for jobs that aren't just like, can you serve coffee or can you wait tables and so on, all the jobs that I've had, Let's see, I've been... Why not?
Just for my own funsies.
I've been... I put the New York Times together on Sundays in a bookstore for about six hours and got all the free books I wanted, which was great.
Not through stealing, but through remaindering, which is similar, but legal.
Then what did I do?
Then I got a paper route, which was large and time-consuming.
And then I...
Oh, then I did office work.
I cleaned doctors' offices and travel agents' offices at nights.
Then I was a waiter at Pizza Hut.
I was a waiter at Swiss Chalet.
I was a waiter at a seafood restaurant.
Both while I was in school and also full-time.
I graduated from there.
Actually, no.
Waiter, waiter, waiter.
And then I became a temp because I had some computer skills.
I became a temp and worked in offices.
And then, oh, one summer I was a gardener.
I weeded people's gardens because it was a recession.
I had no job skills to speak of.
And I also ended up taking somebody's grandmother around town, sort of a tourist guide for hire, and sort of odd jobs like that.
I did a variety of, you know, just jobs that... the jobs that have no name, right?
Moving office furniture for a weekend and that kind of stuff.
And... which actually helped me to understand that it's kind of incomprehensible to me how people who do that for a living have fingers still, but that's another matter.
And then I started moving into the professional realm.
I started semi-professional.
I'd learned WordPerfect and so on.
So I started doing those kinds of jobs.
I really got desperate after I didn't have a job and had graduated and I just... I remember phoning up a woman that I'd met who'd given me some temp job or two and I was just totally broke and no money.
And I remember the... Marnie, her name was.
I remember leaving a message sort of like, OK, Marnie, I need a job.
I'm desperate.
I will... Something to do with computers would be great.
I don't care really at this point if it's moving computers or cleaning computers or Or, you know, reaching around and cleaning inside of computers or, you know, anything I need to eat.
And she ended up sending me on a job, and I'd already done some work on the side, which ended up being the company called Caribou, which I co-founded with my brother.
She sent me on a job for a COBOL programmer and it's because I had learned programming and was a programmer with some credible, at least some credible effects of programming and I became a COBOL programmer for about a year while working on this other job on the side and then I quit and I started this other company which then grew and did very well and so on.
It's still running!
Anyway...
So I've been interviewed for the low-red jobs, but that's not really that important, I would say.
And the principles that I'm going to talk about will work with those as well.
But the job interview skills that I would say are the most important.
I'll sort of go through them, and then you can hopefully give them a shot and see if they're of use to you.
The first and most fundamental aspect of going into a job Interview I would say is the search for mutual value.
I should refine that.
It's the implicit search for mutual value that is so essential in a job interview.
So, the search for, the implicit search for mutual value is when you, when you go in for a job interview, if you go in, and I'm just going to overcharacterize this, so I apologize if you want me to be offensive, but if you go in kind of like, hat in hand, and with your need for the job being the fundamental criteria,
And with sort of lost, desperate hope written in big black crayon across your forehead.
Okay, my forehead could take that many pieces of text, maybe yours can't, but if you go in like, oh god, I just, I don't care.
Whatever I have to say to get this job, I just, I've got to get this job.
I just need this job.
And whatever I've got to say to get this job, I'll say to get this job.
You know, in the sort of ironies of life, you're not going to get the job.
Or, if you do get the job, you're not going to want the job because you're going to be working for a total lunatic.
So, I guarantee you that approach is not going to get you what you want, which is a good job with a good boss and a good future and, you know, something that's enjoyable to go to, or at least not painful to go to, and a job where you have a computer so that you can post on the boards all day.
Shh, just between us.
This implicit search for mutual value is something that is very important to focus on when you are looking for a job and also when you are looking for a mate.
But we'll get to the mate later.
Save the best for later.
So, I've been interviewing some senior sales people for the company that I'm at right now.
When they come in and they say, yeah, I got a job offer from Oracle.
I got a job offer from SAP.
I'm set for job offers.
I'm just, you know, exploring.
What they are, I think, attempting to do is to establish that they have value and that, you know, you'd better hurry.
Only one left, you know, and these will go fast, folks.
They're trying to establish that they have value to you By telling you that other people find them valuable, right?
Now, only insecure people will go for that line, right?
So that's what I mean by implicit search for mutual value.
You don't want to go in there and say, you know, I have 15 job offer people hanging off my leg.
If you look down, you can see them under the table and they're all shouting six-figure salaries at me.
And if you don't match it in the next five minutes, I'm going to eat your muffin and leave.
You want to leave out the eating the muffin part, that's offensive.
But you want to, because a confident person will not look at you and say you must have value because other people find you valuable.
Right?
Because those other people could all be crazy, right?
I mean, there's no... Or you could be lying, right?
It's a double-edged sword.
When you're in a job interview, you don't want to tell someone that you have value because other people find you valuable.
You want to communicate that value directly to the person through your interaction with that person.
A confident person doesn't need to bolster the impression that he's making to someone by saying, other people find me great.
I mean, it's like some guy going up to a woman and saying, yeah, you know, I mostly date models, but hey, in your case, I'll make an exception.
But any confident woman is going to say, okay, so you date models, that's great, but that has nothing to do with whether I find you valuable or attractive.
That just tells me that you don't find yourself that valuable or attractive, right?
Because, like, if you... Let's just say it's all about looks, and it's not, and certainly not in a job interview, but let's just say it's all about looks.
If you're a really good-looking guy, like, really handsome kind of guy, right?
Then you don't need to say, I date models, for a woman to find you attractive, physically.
Because all she has to do is look at you, and you're physically attractive.
And so you don't need to say, I date models, right?
That's sort of overkill, right?
It's like...
You know, it's like George Clooney leaning forward at dinner and saying, you know, I'm considered to be the sexiest man alive.
It's like, if you don't find George Clooney sexy just looking at him, then him telling you, you know, that other people find him sexy isn't going to, it's just going to make him look insecure, right?
It's like, as I mentioned before, it's like Tom Hanks going to interview for a job, for an acting job, bringing his two Oscars and setting them on the casting person's table and saying, I think these pretty much speak for themselves.
It's like, yeah, you might be a good actor, but you know, you're kind of an insecure jerk, so I don't want to work with you.
So this problem of bringing in a... Now, references are fine, right?
They're going to call references and you want those people to say good things about you.
But don't come into job interviews bringing the implicit threats of other job offers.
That's just not a good idea.
And it shows... Quiet confidence is the important thing.
And I know that for a guy with 540 podcasts, the word quiet associated with confidence might not be the best metaphor, but I wouldn't necessarily bring a podcast to a job interview.
In fact, I've had to explain away my podcast in a job interview before.
Not the easiest thing in the world.
But hey, that's no problem.
So, that's what I mean by the... So I just wanted to talk about that implicit thing.
I know I was going to talk about the other thing first, but I just wanted to get that out.
So the exploration of mutual value is to remember that a job interview is a mutual interview.
Right?
This is not a person on high deciding whether you eat or not based on his or her whim.
Right?
It is an exploration of mutual value.
If you go in to be interviewed, you will not get the job.
If you go in to interview, to interview your boss as well as be interviewed yourself, then you have a much greater chance of getting the job.
Assuming that you have, you know, some minimum qualifications or at least can show evidence of a willingness to learn and come across as bright and so on.
So, when you go in, I mean, yeah, you can expect to be asked all the questions, you know, if you've been out of work for a while, why have you been out of work and What's that?
I've never seen the movie, but I quite like that.
What is your policy on Columbus Day?
We work.
Really?
It's Dupree.
Me and you, me and Dupree.
I don't think the film is very good, but that clip, which I saw repeatedly in the hotel room in New York, because when I turned the TV on to check the time, that's when I was there.
So anyway.
So you want to go in and you want to ask, you know, what kind of company is this?
What kind of culture do you have?
What happened to the last person?
You know, if you're being hired to replace someone, what was it about that person that didn't work out?
You know, what's your policy on this?
What's your policy on that?
Look for, you know, is this a kind of punch clock or is it, did you get the job done, right?
Do you have to be at your desk at 9?
At 9.02 there's people tapping their watches.
There's nothing wrong with that, but I just want to get a sense.
Or is it like, you know, I don't care if you come into work, when you come into work, as long as you get your job done.
What kind of culture is it?
Like, what kind of events do you do outside of work with people around Christmas?
Is it, you know, nothing, or is it, here's three slices of pizza, attack each other for the remains, or do you go to a formal dinner, or do you go to Nerf Ball, or do you go to Whirly Ball, or laser tag, or anything like that?
You can ask those kinds of cultural questions.
Tell me a little bit about the history of the company.
And you can interview your boss.
Do you like working here?
What is it that you like working here?
And so on, right?
What is the personality style that you think will fit into the team?
You know, because what you're doing is you're interviewing the boss to find out if you're going to be a good fit.
You're proactively looking to see, do I want to work for you?
Right?
This is a very, very fundamental thing.
That's what I mean about exploring mutual value.
You know that they want you to work for them.
Or might, because they've called you in for an interview, but the thing that you want to do to establish that you have value, and this implicitly establishes that you have options, right?
You're proactively evaluating the situation to see whether or not it's a good fit for you.
So you want to interview your boss as much as he's going to interview you.
And keep asking questions, right?
So that you can get a mental map of how does the boss resolve conflicts, how does the organization work, and just, you know, run through a series of questions in your mind.
There's nothing wrong with having them written down and going through them and making little notes, right?
Because then it's like you are taking the care, and this says a whole lot about you as an employee.
It shows, obviously you do your research, you go to the web, you ask questions about the company, but if you're going to ask questions about the fit, then it shows that you are proactively trying to find a good fit for yourself and you are trying to responsibly find a good fit for the employer.
Because the challenge with being somebody who hires someone is that you have got to try and figure out whether they're going to fit within the job requirement, the team, all of these kinds of things.
You have to kind of do that mostly one-sided because most people, especially when they're young, don't feel this mutual interview thing, right?
I mean, you don't go to a job at McDonald's and say, you know, am I going to be a good fit in your team?
Or at least most people don't.
But as a manager, when you're hiring someone and you see that kind of proactiveness, that attention to detail, that care, what it says about the person is, I don't want to waste your resources or my resources.
And also, I'm going to spend some additional time up front to make sure it's a good fit before I get hired.
I'm careful, I'm methodical, I'm respectful of your needs, I'm trying to find a good fit, and I'm going to work proactively with you.
Right?
Because everyone says, you know, are you a self-starter?
And we'll get into some of the sort of questions.
But if you've done your homework and you're proactively looking for a fit that is going to work for you and it's also mutually beneficial, right?
So if you're asking questions and you find like you don't like to get up before noon and they want you there at 7 in the morning every day or you don't like to travel and they want travel two weeks a month, or you're a guy who likes stacks of manuals and procedures and they have don't steal or don't do evil is their company motto and no structure at all.
Or you want no structure and it's like, well, the first thing we're going to do is send you on six months of training and teach you about everything to say and every keystroke to type.
Right?
You want to proactively find that stuff out.
That is going to mean that you're working together with the boss to find a good fit for the company.
Now, what this will also do, not only will it make you come across and legitimately so as somebody who's confident, who has options and who is going to put the extra time in and be proactive to find the right solution to a problem.
Should I work here or not?
But the other thing that it's going to do, just one moment, The other thing that it's going to do is it's going to weed out insecure bosses, right?
The last thing that you want.
I mean, outside of sheer starvation.
The last thing that you want is to end up with a boss who is a petty dictator.
Those bosses are a nightmare, and I've only had one in my entire career, and it really was just because there were no other job options.
But these people can make your life a kind of a living hell, and they're very bad for you.
It's like repeated sandpapering of your skin.
You can survive it, but it makes you pretty raw, right?
And if you're sort of proactive and you are engaging your boss as a proactive potential employee to find out if you're going to be a good fit, a good boss will absolutely respect and appreciate that and will move you up in the list of potential candidates.
A bad boss will be irritated and perceive you as undermining his authority, right?
Because he wants control over and so on.
Like, and if you have any other options at all, don't take that job.
Like, don't.
Don't.
Don't.
No matter what the salary is, don't take the job.
Actually, I shouldn't.
Let me qualify that.
If you have other options, don't take the job.
Or if the other options you have are like so pitiful relative to, right?
But just be aware going in that this is going to be somebody who's going to make your life hell.
And maybe if it's a big leap in salary and you can stick it out for a year and it's going to be good for your resume and it's a big promotion, but you know, I can almost guarantee you that you're going to get a really bad You're going to have a really bad time.
You're not going to learn things that you want.
You're going to start to dislike your profession.
And also, at the end of it, you're not going to get a good reference.
Because for sure, you're going to come to some sort of conflict with this manager over time, right?
If you have any self-esteem, you're going to end up with that problem.
So the other reason for being proactive and positive about looking for a fit yourself and interviewing the person you're being interviewed by You won't get a job offer then from a jerky boss, because he won't like somebody who's that proactive and that confident and that positive.
Now, you're going to get some questions that are tricky.
There are no perfect answers to any of these, but I'll sort of give you the stuff that's worked for me in the past.
People will say, you know, what is your greatest weakness?
And for God's sake, don't say, I work too hard, I'm too committed, I just make too much money for the company and other people resent me for the fountain of gold that I am, right?
That's nonsense and people just know that's empty coaching and training and you're just, you know, you're putting on that syrupy smile for the potential employer.
I like to say, gosh, where do I start?
Where do I start?
I know I've got a lot of strengths, but they come with some weaknesses as well, which I'm aware of and I'm working on.
Personal things in my career.
I sometimes lack attention to detail.
I absolutely will move too fast for people and it will make them tense.
I don't step them through my reasoning.
I'll just give them the conclusion.
I can't avoid conflict with clients at times, or I want to, and I just have to make myself do it.
So I have to watch that tendency in myself.
I can have a messy desk, which I don't have a huge amount of paper to keep track of, but I can let my desk get a little messy.
That's not always the best presentation for people.
I will absolutely get over-focused on a problem that I'm working on.
This was more true in the programming realm, and I wrote about this in The God of Atheists.
I will absolutely get over-focused on solving a technical issue and sometimes lose track of the big picture.
And either I sort of come up for air later and go, oh, okay, this one isn't that important, or I need a sort of strategic intervention from my manager to pull me back and say, you know, let this one go, let this one go, or at least let this one go later.
And if you talk about the things that you have as weaknesses as an employee, then you're showing a good degree of self-knowledge.
You're also showing a good degree of confidence, because it takes a confident person to say, I have weaknesses, I have deficiencies, I'm aware of them, I'm working on them.
And it also says, it actually is in a funny way, it really elevates your strengths to talk about your weaknesses.
Right?
So, if you talk about the things you're not good at, but you're still there and want to be hired, what you're saying is that I have strengths, implicitly what you're saying, and it's going to either communicate it self-consciously to somebody who's really self-aware or unconsciously, but either way it's good.
When you talk openly and frankly about your weaknesses and deficiencies as an employee, You are implicitly saying all of these, but you're still going to want to hire me, because I have all of these weaknesses which are overshadowed by even greater strengths.
Right?
So, it's an act of self-confidence in a very subtle manner to talk about your weaknesses.
And to talk frankly about them, it also, to an intelligent and aware boss, which is the one that you want, it is going to tell that person That you are coachable.
Right?
Because if you say, well, what are your greatest weaknesses?
And it's like, well, I work too hard and I'm just too damn good at what I do.
And that's the only weakness that you can come up with.
Which is nonsense, because we all have our strengths and weaknesses, right?
So somebody who refuses to tell you that they have any weaknesses, or gives you a train puppet, it's like a train seal answer.
Is somebody who is not coachable or is very unlikely to be coachable?
Because you're going to start seeing their flaws relatively quickly in the job, right?
But if they, in the interview, if they've shown no self-reflection, if they've shown no capacity to process their own flaws, then they're not going to be coachable.
And that's going to be a really difficult person to work with.
Coachability is a very, very important element in life.
Can you take feedback?
Can you take constructive criticism?
Can you adjust your behavior to improve?
So, that is another thing to talk about.
When people ask you about your weaknesses, be frank, be open.
You know what they are.
There's no secret here.
You know what they are.
Maybe steer clear of things like kleptomania and sexually inappropriate jokes, but you definitely talk about your weaknesses as things that you're conscious of, because then the boss also knows that if you say, well, I have a lack of attention to detail, then your boss notices that you have a lack of attention to detail.
Your boss feels comfortable or feels that he can legitimately come up to you and say, you know, you have a problem with this lack of attention to detail.
And you're going to go, no, I don't.
You're not going to do that, right, because you've made it in the job interview.
So that's another thing that you want to do.
That is, honesty is the best policy.
It really, really is the best policy.
There are lots of people who teach you what to say about job interviews.
But I find that frankness and openness is the greatest strength that you have.
It will take you a while to get a job, but you will end up with a job that you want in a culture that you like.
That's really important.
Life is short, right?
And if you can, you know, live off your ramen noodles for a while to get the right job.
Because once you're in a job, I mean, you have to stay there for a while.
Otherwise, you're a hop, skip and a jump.
I mean, unless you leave before the three-month period, right?
Which is a probation period for most jobs and so on.
So, that's another aspect.
Now, when people talk about your strengths, Then you can say, you could say something like this, right?
It's like, well, I think I have strengths.
I mean, I'm not someone who goes around talking about them all and hopefully my references will mention just a few of them, right?
But, you know, I do think that I'm good at this, right?
So be certain about your deficiencies and be qualified about your strengths, right?
That shows, again, a kind of quiet confidence, right?
And don't oversell yourself in this part, right?
I'm a genius.
I can juggle flaming balls of sunlight in my hand and so on.
With one hand, because it's the one hand that makes that statement unusual.
So, you want to say, well, I believe that I'm good at this, I've had good success in this, I believe that I have great strengths in this area, and be frank about those.
And I would also, when I interview, I say, well, I do have good strengths in this area, but I still have to watch out for this, right?
So again, it shows you're fluid, dynamic, able to learn, coachable, that you have You have a positive feedback mechanism within your own soul, which means that the manager isn't going to have to confront you in unpleasant ways on your weaknesses.
So to be self-critical takes a lot of the load off the manager.
The manager wants somebody he doesn't want to have to manage.
You want somebody who's just going to do the right thing.
You have to keep intervening and correcting them and so on.
Because that's kind of exhausting and it's sort of impossible once you get more than, like, I've managed 25 employees.
If they all are people I've got to manage directly, it's impossible.
So if you show, yes, I'm aware of my strengths, this is what I believe, but, you know, with this strength there's also this challenge which I have to make sure I keep a focus on.
Again, this is showing a self-correcting, self-reflecting employee.
That's very good, right?
That's what the manager wants to see.
So the manager can get on with sucking up to his bosses to move up the chain.
So the manager can do the things that he wants to do.
Managers don't want to be people who end up just running around after people fixing their mistakes.
They have their own careers and their own dreams and their own desires to aspire to.
They want a productive team that's going to be a self-starter.
And they want to be available.
The ideal job of a manager is things are chugging along.
Yes, you're reviewing.
Yes, you're giving feedback.
But basically, you want to be kind of like a doctor.
And being kind of like a doctor means that you don't sort of have to go over to each of your patient's house every week and say, Are you okay?
Anything wrong?
Any problems?
Right?
You want to see people as a manager.
You want to hire people who have the ability to identify problems themselves.
It doesn't mean that they have to have the ability to solve all the problems because it might involve resources or higher authority than they themselves possess.
You do want to have employees who can identify problems, right?
So, if you're a doctor, you want your patients to come to you, you know, when they're not well, when they're healthy.
You want your patients when they can become unhealthy.
Oh my god, because they're not patients if they're, you know, I don't know.
Sorry, let me start this one again.
Maybe more coffee will help me think clearer.
So you can't function as a doctor if your patients don't notice that they're in pain and come to you for a solution.
You can't function as a doctor if your patients don't say, Doc, it hurts when I do this.
So you can say, well, don't do that.
"Oh, this joke on the planet." So you want to be somebody who shows, through self-criticism and so on, that you have the ability to identify problems, right?
And, you know, it doesn't hurt if you've done something to resolve those problems, right?
A self-confidence course, or, you know, anything, right?
Like, oh, I realized I had problems with confrontation, so I took a course on confrontation, or something.
You know, some damn thing.
Um, but that's not essential.
The important thing is that you just have the ability to monitor and correct yourself.
That's going to be very powerful, and again, that's going to get you the right kind of boss, right?
Because you want the boss that you can replace, right?
So you can say, well, I want your job in three to six months, so how much do you enjoy it and what do you do?
No, but you want to have the boss who himself is going to want to move up.
You don't want that guy who's been stuck in the same position for 20 years as a mid-level manager, because that brother ain't going nowhere.
And what that means is that you're gonna have to do a lateral move to, you know, he's like a, you know, when you're drilling down, you hit a big rock, you gotta drill around it or something.
It's just like you drilling up the organization in your career, if you get hired by the guy who's got nowhere to go, then you have nowhere to go unless you work around him.
And if you're a really good employee, he's gonna block that because you make him look good and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So you've gotta make sure that you work for an ambitious boss so that as he moves up, you get like, you know, You get the chance to, uh, to move up as well.
My God, it's so much better with gesturing, don't you think?
It makes me look so Italiano!
So... So those, those things I think are all, uh, are all very important.
Now, salary expectations, which you're going to be asked for as you move forward in the process of being interviewed.
Salary expectations are another important aspect to talk about.
Now, it's important to do your research here, and there's lots of stuff available on the web that can help you find out, in your geographic location, for the level of job that you are, and do a couple of levels above and below, right?
So that, you know, if the guy says, well, that doesn't quite match, and so on, right?
Then, you know, one of the things that you can ask is you can say, well, when it comes to sort of salary negotiations and expected salaries, do you guys have like salary bands and you have like 3% negotiating room on either side, or is it a bit more sort of depending on the skills and abilities of the individual in question, right?
How is it that you guys determine the issue of salary?
And if they say, well, we have a salary band, Then you can, I think, reasonably and legitimately say, well look, why don't you just tell me what the salary band is, right?
And then I'll tell you whether that's acceptable to me or not.
Or maybe I won't tell you right now, but I'll tell you at some point whether it's acceptable to me or not.
I don't think that's a jokey thing to do.
I think that's a reasonable thing to say.
Because if this guy's got a salary ban that's got five bucks on either side, then you giving your salary expectations isn't really... there's not much point to it, right?
Because he's going to not have any real ability to negotiate.
And so, if on the other hand, though, he's got room to negotiate, then you have to have some sort of sum or figure in mind.
And all of that is perfectly available on the internet.
So you can say, well, I don't know exactly where this fits into these, but here's a couple of salary bands that I've worked with for this geographical location.
And so I would expect it to be somewhere around here, naturally.
I would like it to be on the higher side, and I think that I can justify that with the skills that I'll bring to the table.
But, you know, here are the salary bands that I've sort of looked into, which I feel are sort of reasonable, and you can tell me whether or not the jobs that I've looked up fit within the category of the position that I'm looking for, you know, whether I'm totally out to lunch as far as that goes, or whether they're vastly too low and I should have been going for the executive level position salaries, or something like that.
There's nothing wrong with throwing a couple of jokes into a job interview.
I mean, assuming that you've got a good sense of humor and can make the jokes that sort of make people laugh, right?
All of that's quite important.
But... Ah, a sad little car crash.
You know, it's gotta be somebody podcasting with only one hand.
Oh, what a shame.
What a shame, but everyone's okay.
That's good.
So... BMW.
Oh, what a tragedy.
So, um... Reboot!
Oh, that's what my brain is saying.
It's saying, don't keep talking, have a coffee.
It's always important to listen to the voices in your head, you know, as long as they're not speaking Scottish.
So, if you can throw some humor in, like if you're somebody who every time you make a joke people look at you like you just bit the head off a bat, don't do the jokes, right?
But if you can make some jokes and so on, it's not the end of the world.
And I'll tell you why, because the other thing that occurs at any sort of professional level interview is that people are trying to figure out a very, very important question.
A very, very important question.
This is the great unspoken of economics.
And the very, very important question is this.
Are you going to be fun to work with?
Right?
Yes, people will hire people who aren't fun to work with, but that just means that those people's skills have to be that much higher.
It means that the demands for their productivity are going to be that much higher to make up for the fact that they're not fun to work with, right?
Because economics, as we've talked about before, is not just about cash, but it's about happiness and pleasure and so on, right?
And so, if you go in and you're positive and you're pleasant and you're, you know, maybe you make a joke or two, then what people are going to get out of that is that you're not, you know, irresponsible or, you know, but you're kind of light-hearted.
You're going to be fun to work with.
Because, you know, especially in the computer world, but in most professional gigs, there's a lot of FaceTime involved, a lot of sort of going and talking to people, having long meetings, and so on, right?
And if you're a dour, humorless fellow, then You know, it's not going to be that much fun to work with, right?
I mean, that's something that I think is important as well.
There's nothing wrong with being a little bit relaxed and a little bit, you know, wanting to enjoy yourself.
And also, what it means then is that if you make a joke or two and you get the stony face, you know, well, what are you doing, you old madman?
Right, then this is another way of weeding out a dour, humorless boss who is going to crush every creative drop out of your human soul, right?
Who is going to milk your happiness tier by tier, right?
So, again, a little bit of levity, a little bit of enjoyment is going to weed out the people who are dour and humorless and, you know, they may be good at their jobs.
It's not like being humorless is a crime.
And maybe you are a dour and humorless person, in which case, if you don't make jokes, then you're going to end up with the boss that you want.
I think that it's important to be yourself.
It's true in all situations but in job interviews it's important.
Most of us have a habit of self erasure in the presence of perceived authority.
Because we grew up with aggressive parents or whatever, We sort of, when we're in a situation of perceived authority, we kind of become wide-eyed and empty and pleasant, and we don't sort of bring our personality, because we're trying to figure out, what does this person want?
How do I give it to them to avoid punishment, right?
What does this person want?
How do I give it to them to avoid punishment?
That's what we're, and of course that's in school too, even if you never got it from your parents.
But that's, you know, you desperately want to avoid that because if somebody's going to hire you when you have that attitude, it means that they're kind of like not a good person in terms of their use of authority.
So being yourself, I think, is essential.
Having levity, I think, is essential.
If that's who you are, right?
I mean, to be natural.
To be creative, to make mistakes, to ask questions.
In fact, I would say that I generally have asked some really dumb questions.
I remember going for a job interview as a gold panner.
I said, well, what is it that makes the glaciers move?
Like, there's nothing behind pushing them, so what is it that makes them move?
And the guy did give me one of these looks.
It's like, well, because they're just like slow water, right?
They just spread down to gravity and that pushes them, right?
And I'm like, oh, okay, well, that makes sense.
Right?
But if you ask a question that's dumb, and again, you know, I mean, I know there's no dumb questions and blah, blah, blah, right?
And it was a real question.
I mean, it's an obvious one when you think about it, but it didn't occur to me.
If you ask a question that's sort of, quote, dumb or obvious, then don't ask stuff that you can get from the website, right?
Never ask anyone a question in business that you can get from another source, because it just means you're asking them to do your homework for you, which is not a very respectful thing to do.
But if you ask a question, and sometimes it's worth doing this, and I've done this in interviews before, I've asked a question that's not exactly totally obvious, but also is not, you know, and I want to see, like, if the person gives me an eye-rolling kind of, what are you, some kind of idiot look, then I don't want to work for that person, right?
Because it means then that I'm going to become frightened of getting something wrong, right?
I don't want to live like that, that's no good.
So, uh, and also, then, if you ask a question that the person, uh, is obvious to that other person, something basic about the industry, then you can also, um, You can see what their reaction is to a question that is obvious, and also they can see your reaction to being corrected by you.
So, oh, okay, thanks, right?
As opposed to, really?
Or, well, it's not that obvious, you know, or whatever, right?
They want to feel that a manager wants to feel that you can be corrected in a reasonable way and will take criticism and so on.
Now, the other thing that I think is also important to ask is probably the last one that I'll get to.
There's lots more, but I think you sort of get the idea.
I think that it's very important to show some interest in the business proposition, what's called the value proposition, for those who haven't geeked out on tech terms and on biz terms.
The value proposition to the customers is an important thing to establish.
And this is true no matter what you're doing.
So even if you're just some low-level coder, which is a job I look back with fondness, but if you're going for some low-level coding position, then I think it's important to say this, to say, I might maybe don't say look.
Look!
Look!
Give me an answer, dammit!
And I'm going to take that muffin.
But I think it's important to sort of ask this, to say, would you mind spending a minute or two stepping me through the value proposition of the product?
Why is it that clients buy this?
Right?
Because obviously they're going to spend 50 bucks or 500 bucks or 5 million bucks on your product.
How is it that that pays for itself?
What is it in the software or in your business or in your product or in your service that is the basic value proposition?
If I'm going to join you at any level, I have to really get what it is that makes this business tick, because I want to make decisions that are going to enhance that value offering that you have as a business.
Step me through the basic value proposition.
I don't need a whole sales pitch, and I'm sure you wouldn't give me one.
Just step me through like the five step process about how you establish value with clients and is that value verified and so on, right?
And just so I really understand and a smart manager will recognize that you're asking a whole bunch of stuff that is very important, right?
So if you are asking for a potential employer about the value proposition of the company, What you're actually doing is you're asking, how long is this company going to be around and how professional are you people?
Right?
Because if they're like, oh, you know, it's just, it's pretty colors and people like it, it's shiny.
We don't know why they buy it, but, you know, they seem to buy it, right?
That may still be a company to work for, but be aware that it's not very professional management, right?
They haven't gone through the value proposition, they haven't gone back and verified it with clients, they haven't proven how much their software or product or service or whatever is worth.
And again, that may be something that's, you know, but that's a company where if you go and study some business or at least learn some business on the job, there's room for growth, right?
Because they're obviously not very professional in terms of their management capacities.
So I would say that that would be another good question to ask.
And also managers are going to appreciate that.
They're really going to appreciate the fact that you're asking about the value of the business as a whole.
Because that's what any decent manager is focused on.
It also shows that you kind of have a larger perspective on what it is that you're going to be doing.
That's also important.
You're going to have a larger perspective, right?
So, when you're typing code, right, at some point that's got to translate to clients finding value in what you do.
So, asking a potential employer, I mean, assuming you're not going for a job at Tim Hortons, you know, what's the value proposition of what you're doing, is a very, very helpful and insightful question to ask, and also shows your confidence that you want to, it implies that you want to work for a company which is going to be providing the most value to a client, both for longevity, for professionalism of management,
It also shows that you're aware of these business issues and that you're going to make your decisions based on what it is that gives the greatest value to a potential client.
So I hope that these are helpful.
You know, job interviewing and all of these things, you know, with some translations are effective in the realm of dating as well.
But I hope that this has been very helpful.
Thank you so much and best of luck on your job interviews.
Thank you for the recent donations.
I look forward to more and I hope that this gets you all of the money and professional success that you deserve.
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