Never Apply for a Job Again!: Break the Rules, Cut the Line, Beat the Rest (23 page)

The idea here is to truly inquire and truly listen to this person’s journey, not to operate as some reporter or investigator, impersonally running through questions. You want to be present with this person and have her feel that what she has to say is truly special. In doing so, you accomplish several objectives:

You obtain the information you seek: knowledge and experience that will help you in your direction.

You allow the interviewee to extol her personal path, choices, values, and virtues. People want to justify and validate their lives, and there’s rarely the opportunity to find interested listeners who treat them like experts in their own workplace. This is truly a subconscious gift you are bestowing upon them! Someone is interested in their thoughts, their opinions, and their life path. This is golden in terms of building up your relationship equity.

The interviewee subconsciously ascribes a certain amount of intelligence to you just by the act of your listening, even if she knows nothing yet about you. Think about it: you’re smart enough to listen to her!

You also create a subconscious sense of being beholden to you. When you’ve really listened, an inner desire to be of some assistance to you grows. It’s just human nature: If you give a lot to me, I’m going to be thinking, “What can I do for you?” Fact is, you’re just simply more liked in life when your focus is on being interested rather than interesting.

CareerGuy Tip: You’re always more liked by listening.

Stage 2: Questions

Again, focus on getting as many answers to your questions while you’re discussing their background. This is how you get the specific information you need. By being interested rather than interesting, you’re building strong relationship equity to cash in later.

The truth is, the long-range value of your meeting will always come more from the development of an actual relationship with your target than from the relative value of any particular question you could ask. That’s not to say to leave
out those burning, authentically fascinated questions you have…but know that the main purpose of this first contact is to establish an ongoing relationship that gets
all
your questions
always
answered by a new friend!

The simple act of showing genuine interest in Stage 1 will very well take you beyond the initial five to 10 minutes requested for the interview because you want to have this person talk about herself as much as possible. If you’ve asked probing questions and really milked this person’s sharing as much as possible, you will often find yourself 30 minutes into the meeting still talking about her! This is good!

Remember, you started the whole conversation with this phrase, which is crucial: “But first, before we even get started, if I could take a moment, I’d just love to know….” You said that because you wanted to distinguish this initial conversation as preceding the one you came in for, even though this is exactly what you came in for.

As 20 to 30 minutes may now have passed, for the sake of integrity, you need to at least acknowledge that you’ve gone over and request a few minutes. If you’ve established good rapport, this shouldn’t be a problem.

EXAMPLE: [Look at your watch] “Wow! Oh my gosh, I so appreciate your taking the time to walk me through your own path of success. It’s really inspiring, and you’ve already answered many of my questions. I do notice that we’ve gone over the five to 10 minutes I requested. Is it alright if I have just a couple more minutes to ask you a last question or two that I had prepared?”

You’ve built up so much relationship equity at this point that she will agree to give you a few more minutes. There will likely be no hesitation whatsoever on her part because she feels
inwardly honored by your interest in her. You have no idea of how gifted people feel when being listened to and what they are then willing to do for you, until you try this!

Then, simply review your list of questions, seeing if there’s anything burning that wasn’t covered. Don’t ask more than one more from the list (if any), because you want your very last question to be the Resume Slip.

Stage 3: The Resume Slip

As your last question, you’ll take out your resume and place it on the desk, facing the person, asking, “Just one last question. Can you do me a favor? I’m going to shut up for a couple minutes. Would you take a look at this and tell me X?”

Your “X” can be one of many things: “…if I were to choose to go this direction one day, what parts of my background would fit into the field we’ve been discussing?” “… as part of my research, I’ve been wondering how my experience relates to this industry. What do you see that would be relevant if I were to focus more in this area?” “…as part of my research, and determining a possible congruence to this field, what do you see that I should emphasize more or less if I were to connect with others in this area?”

Again, the particular question doesn’t matter as long as you ask something that gets her quietly reviewing your background. The idea is to first set her up for a bit of “quiet time” (“I’m going to shut up for a couple minutes…”) and then to ask a question that causes your contact to delve deeply into the resume. She received it when you sent it with your Approach Letter…but likely didn’t read it.

One caveat: what is critical in the design of your Resume Slip question is that it be absolutely congruent with the
overall research that you’re doing, not some shifty “Okay, now let’s talk about me and getting a job!!” That incongruence will throw everything off, and both you and your interviewee will feel weird. Yes, in the end, you’ll eventually land an opportunity out of your research, contacts, relationships, and so on, but you need to always remember the research mode that those interactions need to be conducted within… and the Resume Slip question you ask must relate specifically to that research.

Notice that you didn’t use the word
resume
but rather
this
. You don’t want to shift into a job-search mindset by using the “r” word. Just as you referred to it as your pertinent information in the Approach Letter, simply put it in front of her and refer to it indirectly.

CareerGuy Tip: In stealth meetings, stay in research mode, at all times, under all circumstances.

This particular stage is where outright magic can occur because of the relationship equity you’ve built up in your bank account. Because you were interested in her and her story earlier, she will feel compelled to answer this last question. This is why you don’t want to ask many more questions before this one because you want to capitalize right away on that built-up equity/energy.

Several results may occur from her reviewing your background to answer your Resume Slip question:

At a minimum, she could give you valuable feedback and simply answer your inquiry, which is enormously helpful in its own right.

She may notice something in your background that could stir a memory of a position that either she or someone she knows may have available, or a particular direction you might pursue.