by Walker Royce
What are the top one or two attributes you look for in a supervisor?
What are the top one or two attributes you look for in a teammate?
If you were a hiring manager for this role and could ask only one question of an interviewee, what would it be? (This is a great question for a hiring manager because it will expose the interviewee’s understanding of the role and priorities regarding values.)
Who do you think should be selling themselves more: you to us or us to you? (This is a good framework for understanding some internal motivations.)
Have you ever fired anyone? Why, and how did it turn out? (This is another good question for management candidates.)
Have you ever made a hiring mistake? What went wrong? How did you resolve it, and how could you have prevented it?
What topic, relevant to this role, do you feel expert in? Impress me with some insight. (This question can be tailored to any domain and role.)
In what discipline, relevant to this role, do you wish you were more adept? Why?
If you were the boss for a day and could tweak our organization’s mission statement to suit you best, how would you change it? (This is a great framework for assessing alignment with your mission.)
How would you measure customer success in our domain?
What is the difference between customer success and customer satisfaction? (The former is a result you can quote forever. The latter is a transient opinion. It is amazing how much people in product businesses are overfocused on satisfaction and underfocused on success. In some service businesses, customer satisfaction is more meaningful, but customer success is still a crucial dimension.)
SOME IDEAS FOR INTERVIEWEES
Most interviewees, like most interviewers, arrive relatively unprepared for an effective interview. Before the internet, adequate preparation may have been difficult. Today there is no excuse: Almost everything you need to know is at your fingertips. Annual reports, corporate websites, and search engines all provide excellent mechanisms for you to prepare yourself. Understanding the context of the people and organization with which you are interviewing is an important prerequisite for creating a good impression.
Most candidates make an effort to find out something about the company. If a candidate came into an interview with me and asked for an overview of what we do, I would flush them right there. This person is not resourceful enough to be considered.
The biggest mistake made by interviewees is not checking out the roles and backgrounds of the specific people who are about to interview them. In a sequence of interviews, few things are more important. Today you can almost always find out the backgrounds of at least a few of the people who will be interviewing you.
About 10 years ago, I was interviewing an internal candidate for a new sales manager role. The hiring manager, one of my peers and close associates, asked me to interview his two leading candidates. He already preferred candidate A because he was the leading sales rep in a company we had just acquired. Candidate B was an old-timer with a solid reputation and track record. The other interviewers (four members of the sales team this person would manage and one peer sales manager) agreed that candidate A was preferable to candidate B. The hiring manager wanted me to be the final endorsement, because the person hired would have significant interactions with my own organization and because sales manager roles were crucial to our company’s business.
My interview with candidate A went something like this:
Me:
So what do you know about me and my organization?
Him:
Hmmm. Nothing really. Can you summarize for me?
Me:
Let’s see. You are a professional sales guy, right?
Him:
Yep. I was 450% of quota last year and 300% the year before.
Me:
Today you’re here to sell yourself, right? And I’m the customer.
Him:
Uh, yes, I guess so.
Me:
Do you always make cold calls on your customers without knowing who they are, what their role is, and what their challenges or values are?
Him:
Uh, uh, no. That would be stupid.
Me:
(Knowing that I now had my opening to stress this dude out and observe his true colors) Then why aren’t you prepared for this interview?
Him:
Well, I didn’t have time. You know, quarter close and all the business demands. I just didn’t have time to prepare because the needs of my current job are higher priority. (He said this smugly, trying to show he put the company first.)
Me:
Really! Well, I can only conclude that this new role isn’t as important to you as other things to which you assigned a higher priority.
Him:
Can we start all over?
Me:
Sure. Let’s try another topic. Did you do the homework that I sent you about prioritizing our product lines in the context of achieving your sales targets in your territory?
Him:
I looked at it, but I had already built a plan that shows how we can meet our targets without selling any of the legacy product line.
Me:
Okay. But the skills that would be on your new team are mostly legacy product skills. How are you going to accomplish that skills transition?
Him:
It’s relatively easy. The products are similar.
Me:
From your perspective, what is the primary difference between a sales manager role and a sales rep role?
Him:
No big difference. Achieve quota.
Me:
Well, there’s a big difference. You are also responsible for growing the territory, and that requires selling across our diverse product line.
Him:
I know that, but the main priority is meeting sales targets.
Me:
Okay, Ralph. Thanks for your time.
Him:
We’re done? We’ve only spoken for 10 minutes.
Me:
Well, I don’t see a match here. You’re obviously a good sales rep, but your preparation for a more responsible position as a manager is lacking. My opinion is that you feel entitled to this promotion because of your record as a rep, but that is not my view, or the company’s view of what it takes.
Him:
Sorry you feel that way.
This was a classic case of an interviewee not doing their homework, on two fronts. First, I was a well-known leader in the company, and this employee had access to tons of information and other employees who would have gladly prepared him for our interview. Second, to not understand the role and the measure we look for in sales managers was suicidal. I don’t know how this person got through the other interviews, but he was undoubtedly good at dominating the conversations, and the other interviewers were just flat-out irresponsible. They had thought this guy was the slam-dunk candidate because of his performance record as a rep. My peer, the hiring manager, had a clear reputation for such promotions, and everyone knew it. My conversation with the hiring manager was a difficult one, but I told him that this candidate would only be endorsed over my dead body. My interview with candidate B went phenomenally well. He got the job.
Whatever your situation, you should do everything you can to understand who is interviewing you. Then research their biases, positions, history, resume, or anything else you can get you hands on. While this may seem difficult in some circumstances, you should still try. Here are a few suggestions.
Research the company, the specific organization, and the role on the web. If you know people who work for the company, talk to them beforehand about culture, current circumstances, important lines of business, recent reorganizations, and whatever you can think of to demonstrate to your interviewers that you have done your homework and you are resourceful.
If you are working through a recruiter or a corporate human resources rep, ask them who will be interviewing you and find out who the
hiring manager is.
Google the names you get both internally on the corporate website and externally. You may find biographies, papers they have written, quotations in the media, or other material that gives you a perspective on their likes and dislikes.
If you can’t get much information before your interviews, feel free to ask each interviewer who else you are talking to, what their hot buttons are, and what role they have. Ask the interviewer’s opinion on how to deal with the next person. Some people may not confide in you, but many will, and everyone will respect your desire to be prepared.
Be honest in your interview. Candy-coating your answers or avoiding sensitive topics is easy to see through. Just speak your mind, be yourself, act confident in what you are good at, and be humble in what you don’t know or have no experience in. For me and most other interviewers, the difference between ignorance (answering “I don’t know”) and arrogance (“BS”ing your way through an answer because you don’t want to appear unqualified) is a showstopper.
Based on the information you have about your interviewer and your observations as the interview unfolds, recognize what sort of personality you are talking to: analytic, driver, expressive, amiable. Embrace their style and communicate with them as discussed in Chapter 4. This will be noticed, and it will increase your comfort level as well as theirs.
If some jerk interviewer (like me) tries to stress you out and provoke you to get a reaction, embrace it. Do the best you can and play offense: Attack with your strengths and knowledge. Don’t be defensive and don’t make excuses. If the interviewer is adding stress for the reasons I do, they will not expect heroic responses. They will just want to gauge your reaction and natural tendencies. If they are adding stress because they are a jerk or because they already have a negative opinion of you, this position is probably not for you anyway.
CHAPTER 8
Is English a Romance Language?
Romance languages are the languages derived from Latin, such as French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The word romance has its origins in Latin. Romanici Loqui meant to speak in Roman, referring to the local dialect in Rome as opposed to the more formal dialect of Latin itself. Across Western Europe during medieval times, serious writing such as religious doctrine, scientific research, and nonfiction news accounts were usually written in Latin, while popular folklore was written in local dialects (vernacular). The folklore consisted of stories, plays, and writings that were often centered on love. Later, books of fiction came to be known as romance novels.
English is not a Romance language. It is the product of Anglo and Saxon dialects brought to Britain by Northern Germanic settlers in the 5th century. Nevertheless, English can be used romantically. This chapter is intended to prove this point (although it will not withstand the tough scrutiny that should be applied whenever the word prove is used). Humans spend much of their time pursuing love, and this pursuit clearly involves some crucial communications that can make or break a relationship.
If you find this subject to be an odd topic for this book, remember that this book is full of odd topics. Almost everyone would like to be more effective at communicating romantically, at least when the time is right and that is their intent. It is a topic worth covering.
Few people would call me romantic. But those few people who would—my spouse and a few close friends and family—know me intimately. Romance and intimate communications are best reserved for those people with whom you are close and intimate. There are precious few acquaintances with whom it makes sense to share such communications.
Communicating romantically can be done in any language. It is not the words, sounds, syntax, or semantics that make a communication romantic. It is the intent, the tone, the creativity, the imagery, and the personal expression of your intangible feelings. The two poems at the end of this chapter say essentially the same thing, but one uses the English language like a Don Juan and the other uses it like an automaton.
Most people are pretty uncomfortable with romantic communications. They become more comfortable when they feel deep love for someone. Then it is easier to communicate romantically, and your partner will feel loved and become more comfortable with reciprocating. In this cycle of loving communications (both words and actions), trust, intimacy, and safety become stronger and communicating safely and intimately becomes more comfortable. As most happily married couples can attest, this sort of interaction strengthens a relationship. Exchanging an occasional romantic communication is a healthy practice and is certainly a recurring theme of most relationship advice. Conversely, couples in rocky relationships or divorced couples will cite a lack of romance (that is, intimate communications of some sort) as a key reason for their unhappiness.
A few first-hand experiences have shaped my views on romantic communications. My wife Jennifer has opened my mind on this front, and I’m sure that is one of the main reasons we are so happily married. We lived 2700 miles apart for more than a year of our courtship, which contributed greatly to our appreciation of romantic communications. Emails and phone conversations represented most of our interaction during this phase of our relationship.
Jennifer and I decided that our marriage ceremony would include each of us reading a poem. We agreed that our poems would answer the question, “What does my partner mean to me?” We both worked through many versions to get these poems just right. In retrospect, I would recommend this exercise to anyone who is in a new relationship, getting married, or in a longstanding relationship. It will help you communicate with each other in a way that builds trust and intimacy. Sharing your communications with other people is not necessary, but when you do, it certainly raises the stakes and adds a new dimension of significance.
The catalyst of my attraction to my wife was a puzzle. Several years ago, I was obsessed with identifying English words that contained all five vowels. As I ran across them in newspapers, magazines, and books, I added them to a list. After the list reached 30 entries, I created a piece of prose that included all these a-e-i-o-u words structured into meaningful sentences. After a year or so, the list was up to more than 50 and my essay grew longer. Each time I added to it, I refactored the paragraphs to shorten the length. I tried to include all the a-e-i-o-u words with as few other words as possible to make a reasonably sane and literate storyline. It occurred to me that this essay would test observation skills by asking someone to determine the odd thing about this single paragraph. Here is the original version of this puzzle, circa 2002.
PUZZLE 6 REVISITED
Evaluation of Auditioned Dialogue Caught on Audiotape
I have a questionable reputation and inconsequential preoccupation with abstemiously outmaneuvering the word elitists so proud of their vocabularies. I offer this nefarious and unorganized paragraph as a poser to those tenacious puzzle solvers who consider themselves unequivocal authorities in such sacrilegious education. This poser is authorized by an unsanctioned, consultative group of unrecognizable experts with no boundaries and no regulation of the puzzle’s equation. One of these experts is ambidextrous, the other mustachioed, but both are overanxious with speculation on the graciousness with which our discouraged readers will facetiously appreciate a tale that is as tall as a sequoia. The solution is not insurmountable, but any underestimation of the “strangeness” of this paragraph will result in an unavoidable anxiousness, mental exhaustion, and evacuation from one’s subordinate sensibilities rather than the euphoria of an uncomplicated solution. The revolutionary title is simultaneously an ostentatious hint and a precarious permutation of encouraging words for those unaccomplished souls of the word-puzzle persuasion who need evolutionary rejuvenation and a perturbation of consciousness. The unprofessional words “menstruation” and “ejaculation” belong in this paragraph as well, but why? Any denunciation or repudiation of the gregarious sentence structure would be counterproductive and result in an attenuation of interest. One precaution: The word choices are not unintentional. No more recapitulation. Most solvers get it instant
aneously without requiring a continuance.
The solution to this puzzle requires:
An appropriate number to describe the extent of strangeness of the paragraph.
Two additional words that the meet this strangeness standard.
Identification of the two most special words used in the paragraph in the context of this puzzle.
This version has 65 a-e-i-o-u words. The two special words are abstemiously and facetiously, which have the vowels in alphabetical order and even include the y, which is sometimes a vowel. Of the 228 words in the puzzle paragraph, more than 28% of them have all five vowels. That is strange! Puzzle 6 evolved this puzzle to 100 a-e-i-o-u words and a few additional paragraphs. Of the 252 words in the later version, almost 40% of the words have all five vowels. Not only is that even stranger, you are probably thinking that I am the king of strangeness for wasting so much time on such trivial diversions. No doubt you are correct. Nevertheless, I found that this exercise required creative writing and was a great mental exercise. It would work as a creative writing assignment in an English class, where the constraint need not be words with all five vowels but could be something just as strange, such as the following.
Words that are also common first names
Words that begin and end with the same letter
Words that are palindromes
Words that don’t contain an E or an A
Back to romance. I offered the early version of the a-e-i-o-u puzzle to various friends and colleagues who are bright, educated professionals. Only my best friend of 30 years had the observation skills and insight into my odd brain function to solve the puzzle. But I hadn’t yet tried it out on my future wife. She and I had worked closely for a few years at the same company. One day, she told me that some of her projects were like puzzles and she enjoyed solving them. With that cue, I sent her a few of the puzzles I had concocted over the years, fully expecting her to be flummoxed by my obtuse a-e-i-o-u puzzle. She solved it in less than one day.