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You’re listening to the Get a 6-Figure Job You love Podcast. This is episode 53, Three Truths Hiring Managers Won’t Ever Tell You.
Hey, there, welcome to the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love Podcast. I’m your host, Natalie Fisher. I’m a certified career mindset coach who also happens to want to skip all the BS and get to what it really takes to create real results for you and your career. On this podcast, you will create real mindset shifts that will lead to big results and big changes in your career and your income. No fluff here. If you want to get a six-figure job you love and create real concrete results in your industry and make a real impact. You’re in the right place. Are you ready? Let’s go.
Welcome to the podcast. So, today we’re taking a little break from the client interviews and I have a lot more great stuff coming up, but don’t worry, the interviews are going to be back, because I’ve just taken on another amazing set of clients. A few of them have already achieved their roles, their six-figure ideal roles, and I’m going to be bringing them on as well. So, we are going to have no shortage of successes to talk about and to interview. So, don’t worry. Those will be not going away.
But now I want to dive into coming back to those concepts and those strategies and those tools that we have been working on throughout the podcast. I’m going to give you today, we’re going to talk about the insider perspective of what the hiring managers talk about behind your back. Yes, they talk behind your back. And If you were there, what you might hear. And it’s feedback across the board, it’s just very common. So, this is stuff that really might apply to you if you’re getting stuck and not getting that offer.
I’m also creating a very new, exciting opportunity at an amazing price. This is something I’ve never done before, it’s a three-month program that I’ve been working on for quite a while. It’s the process that I teach, it’s called The 6-Figure Curriculum, and I’m going to be taking a select group of students through my proven process. It’s going to happen in a small group container, where you’re going to be all learning from each other, and I’m going to be teaching a new concept every week, and you’re going to get access to all new material that I’ve been working on, putting together and assembling, and just building out this process to be more clear, more effective, more understandable, the more that I’ve worked with more and more people.
So, basically all you have to do is show up and participate. And at the end, you’ll be invited to do your own podcast success interview. I truly believe it. I know that everyone I take on, I fully, 100% believe that they’re going to reach their success. That is what I wanted to tell you. And without further ado, let’s dive into today’s episode, The Three Truths That Hiring Managers Won’t Be Able to Say Out Loud.
Hello, hello, welcome to the podcast today. I was inspired to record this episode, because I’ve been talking to a lot of hiring managers lately. It’s really interesting, the common themes that come up and what they have to say. I thought that it would be really interesting to share that with all of you, because I’m sure you’d love to be a fly on the wall in that debriefing room when you hear what they’re saying about you.
I have been there and I’m friends with a lot of hiring managers, I did an interview with one of them, and I thought I would just compile some of the really common pieces of feedback, some of the really common things that they say, so that you can get an insight and how to fix them. Because, really, the people that they’re talking about are very smart, they’re very capable, there’s no reason they couldn’t do this role. And yet, the way that they’re presenting themselves isn’t getting them the role, it’s causing the hiring manager to say, “Yeah, you know what? They’re just not the right fit. They just don’t work.”
The reason is not a reason they can give you. And that is something that we often have trouble with. We’re like, “Why can’t they just tell us the reason?” And it’s because, yeah, they couldn’t tell you these reasons. So, I’m going to tell you today, I’m going to give you the lowdown on what they really would say to you if they were being completely blunt and honest.
 
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So, I have done an episode on when feedback’s not available, and that kind of just says, they might want to give you the feedback, but legally it’s more than their jobs worth, it’s more trouble than it’s worth to give people feedback, because not everybody receives feedback well. I told some stories about some people who in the past had not gotten an offer and they were very upset about it. Any feedback you give people like that, it’s going to make them more angry. So, it’s just not worth it sometimes to give the feedback.
But I want to give an insight. So, I’m going to record this episode based on if I was giving feedback to these people and not thinking that they can’t do the job, because I totally believe they could. That’s why I want to give you this insight. So, that’s essentially the problem and the solution. The problem is, we can’t give feedback, we want to, but it’s more than it’s worth. It’s more trouble than it’s worth to actually give that feedback.
So, the first thing for you to recognize is hiring managers are doing their job and they’re doing the best they can at their job, but it is challenging for them in a totally different way than it is for you. So, they do meet a lot of people who are able to do the job technically, they do meet these people and they have a difficult decision to make sometimes.
So, even if those people are 100% capable, they see what the candidate presents and they don’t see the real person a lot of the time. So, after having many candid conversations with hiring managers, I can tell you that you can have a lot of value to offer and a few simple things that can create a rift between you and the interviewing panel that you’re not aware of that you’re doing. You’re not aware that you’re giving off this vibe or whatever.
And it stems, I find, from trying to be a certain way. So, trying to get it right, trying to say the right thing, trying to deliver your answers in the way that they want, trying to prove yourself, trying to overly exaggerate or overly prove yourself, overcompensate sometimes, if you have an insecurity. Then, you can start second-guessing yourself and all these things can be fixed with your thinking from what you choose to think.
So, here are some of the things that I’ve heard hiring managers say. They’ll say, “Her voice was so robotic and monotone. I wanted to speed it up, so we could just get this call over with. Her answers were technically very good, but I was just so bored I wanted to wrap it up.” So, this person, they had very good answers, they had a good resume, they came in, they were good otherwise, but then when they started talking, the hiring manager was like, “Oh, I can’t imagine myself working with this person. This is so boring.” They didn’t feel engaged. If it was on the phone, if it was a phone screen, they were probably checking their Facebook or their Instagram or their LinkedIn and they probably weren’t really engaged with the person on the other end of the phone. Even though the person had a good resume and they were totally able to do the job and their answers were technically good. They just didn’t feel it.
The reason for this is that we’re trying to sound like somebody that is saying the right answer, because you would never do that if you were calling a friend and talking to them, you would never call your mom and start talking like a robot. So, the way that you need to do this is you need to approach it as if you are talking to a friend, and being positive with your friend and telling your friend all the things that you want to share with them and only share positive things, unless it’s like a mistake or a failure story that you’re telling, in which case, it’s okay to share lessons and humbling moments and learning moments and teachable moments, that’s all fine.
But you want to phrase everything positively and you have to get a positive feeling about your stories and yourself first in order to be able to do that. But the main point, which I kind of digressed on, was you need to sound like a human who’s talking to another human, who is more likely to be your friend than
 
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somebody you’re trying to impress. Because then you start to sound like a robot or you get really nervous.
So, imagine if you were talking to your friend, how different that’s going to be than if you’re talking to somebody who you feel really anxious and nervous to impress. Whenever we see this in movies or wherever we see, if somebody is feeling so nervous and they built it up in their head, they have so much pressure on themselves to not blow this, they always do. They always blow it. They always do what they’re afraid of doing.
So, to avoid this, our human brain says, “Well, if we act perfectly, if we say the perfect words, if we talk in monotone, if we do this perfectly, if I read this off of Google on a script,” I’ve had people do that. They read something, they’re Googling answers on the phone interview and they will read it and it’s very apparent, we know that this is happening. The person on the other end of the phone, the hiring manager, they can pick up on that vibe.
So, the result is, the hiring manager isn’t able to hear who you are, they have no idea. They’re just getting the robot version of you. So, what we need to happen is you need to acknowledge this, that you’re doing that, and just act like you are talking to a friend, like you’re catching up with a friend, like you’re telling your friend the positive events of your career. Or like a previous coworker or somebody that you can envision that you feel comfortable sharing with.
So, the result of this is the hiring manager is now able to see who you are and more likely to have positive thoughts and want to talk to you again, want to engage with you. So, instead of thinking, “Oh, this was so boring. I couldn’t wait to get off the phone.” She’s more likely going to be thinking, “Wow. She was really someone I could see myself working with. I could really picture her in this role. She seems like a really good person that we’d enjoy working with. I think she’d be a good addition to the culture.” This is what we want them thinking.
But they can’t think that if all they hear is a robotic voice on the other end of the phone, this especially happens in phone interviews, but it also happens in in-person interviews, and I know that a lot of my clients are guilty of this, you know who you are, because I’ll ask them, “How do you answer that question?” And they’ll be like, all of a sudden turn into a robot and I’ll be like, “Hey, where’d you go?” So, we’ve got to be careful of this, because I know that you’re very smart, capable, intelligent, but if you talk like a robot, then that all goes out the window and nobody cares. They’re just like, “Oh, you’re so boring. I can’t wait to get off the phone with you.” But it’s really an unfair representation of you. So that’s the first one.
Second, lack of being relevant, you’re not talking in relevant terms to the hiring manager. So, really, the hiring manager only cares about what you can do for them. They only care about that before they really care about getting to know you as a person. They do care about getting to know you as a person as well, that happens very naturally as I mentioned in the last point, just by you showing up as somebody who’s human and speaking humanly, that’s going to happen naturally.
So, the second thing they care about the most is going to be relevancy to the role. They only care about what you can do, how you’re going to succeed in this role, what you’re going to do for them, what results you’re going to produce. And if you’re not thinking about this in your answers, then you easily go off track, because there’s a thousand things you could tell them about yourself.
So, you want to filter it through, how is this important to them? Why do they care about this? And ask yourself that first, and you can get clarification in the interview too. But the thing that they will likely be thinking and saying, the behind-the-scenes, fly-on-the-wall conversation is going to be something like this.
 
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“Well, the answer he gave to tell me about yourself, wasn’t relevant to the role at all. And he rambled on and on. And in my head, I was thinking, ‘When is this going to be done? When is he going to be done talking so I can move to the next question?'” So, the solution to this is you want to ask yourself in relation to the job description, how does the information you’re choosing to give them tie into what they need now for the role?
There are, like I said, lots of things you can choose to tell them. So, you want to be very selective in what you choose to tell them. Asking them questions, if you’re not sure you can get clarification on this during the interview. There’s nothing that says you can’t ask questions during the interview. And this engages them and it creates more of a dynamic. So, you can ask them questions such as, is that along the lines of what you were thinking in terms of my ability to help on this project? Did that give you a good idea of how I could add value in this particular area? Am I correct to assume that the job description states you’re looking for somebody who has a passion for, or somebody who can do this? You want to always frame your questions from the point of view of, I’m thinking about you, I’m thinking about what you need, I’m getting clarification on what you need so that I can help you see how I’m the best person to deliver this for you. That’s the mind frame you want to come from.
When you’re intentionally getting on the same page as them, you’re thinking about these things proactively, you can adjust their needs in the questions and the answers. So, you can ask questions that address their needs, and you can answer questions in a way that address their needs.
But if you’re talking about something completely irrelevant, so say they’re using a particular software in their organization and you haven’t used that, but you’ve used another one. You can give an example of how you’ve used that, but then you want to tie it back to how you’ll be able to learn the new one and the commonalities that it has. So, even if it’s just a general commonality of, “Oh, well, I learned this in a couple of weeks, I had to learn this on the job. So, learning this on the job will be fun for me. It’ll be no problem. I enjoy that kind of challenge. And I’ve actually already started learning. I have a book on my desk about it.” I had a client who actually did have that.
So, addressing that question of how, what you’ve already done, ties in to what they’re doing, to what you need, even if it’s not exactly the same thing. But just coming from that mind frame of, “I’m thinking about what you need, and how I can either get there, or how I’m already there, or how I’m very close, or how this could match up in the best situation to be the best fit for both of us.”
So, when you’re intentionally thinking like this, they can sense that, and it’s not just about having everything they need, you don’t have to check all the boxes to get the job, it’s about that willingness and that intention to be there, to figure out what they need and to help them with it and to ultimately achieve it. They just have to have that belief that you can deliver the result. They don’t have to have… You don’t have to know everything before you start. They just have to have the belief that you want to, and that you’re passionate about it, and that you can, and that you have before, and that your past experience is an asset. They just have to have those beliefs.
So, as a result, they’re going to start thinking things like, “I really liked the way she explained her role in the last project, what she did, it really made me feel as though we could trust her to be able to tackle the same types of problems we’re having here. I think she’d be a good fit.” So, that’s the kind of thinking you want them to have. That can be achieved by your thinking. So, when you think a certain way, it’s more likely that they will think a certain way.
So, the third one is a lot of candidates are coming across as desperate. So, when you are inadvertently focused on yourself in an interview, and any self-doubt of your own is coming up, if you have your own financial problems or you have your own stuff, then they’re not going to hire you based on that. We think maybe somebody wants to, but it takes the focus off everything that you bring to the table, and it
 
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just leaves them feeling sorry for you. So, hiring managers will find themselves feeling bad for a candidate, but having no desire to hire them.
So, the feedback in the debriefing room sounds like this, “She was obviously really, really desperate and that came through. And even though technically she was capable, she was really concerned that her experience wouldn’t be enough, because she was older and she lacks some of the job description bullets. And she was trying so hard to overcompensate for that and I could tell it was coming from a really needy, desperate place. And I just really felt bad for her.” So, that’s feedback that the hiring managers have had in the debriefing room conversation, that, of course, they’re not going to tell you to your face.
But what would you do if you had this information? So, the solution to eliminate this needy and desperate vibe that you might be coming across with is shifting your focus. So the focus that you have during the interview is everything. So, this comes from two things. One is a scarcity mentality. So thinking, “Oh my God, this is the only opportunity. If I don’t get this, then what’s going to happen? I’m going to end up homeless, living in a box on the street.” If you’re thinking of that when you’re going into the interview, you’re going to come across needy and desperate.
Or, “Oh my God, if I don’t get this, I’m going to have to spend another day at this job that I can’t stand.” You’re going to come across needy and desperate. If you’re desperate to get out of where you are and you can’t… That’s essentially like, “I need something from you worse or more than what I can give to you.” And nobody likes that vibe, it’s a turn off, it doesn’t work.
So, it’s either scarcity mentality, or it comes to thinking about yourself in a way where you have value to offer. So, leave your own crap at the door and just bring the value that you have to offer. Because no matter what your financial situation, no matter what your own issues are, you have value to offer, and it’s always there. You just need to focus on that and bring that to the forefront. That’s how you get the job.
You can’t focus on two things at one time. So, you can’t be like, “Oh my God, I’m going to end up living in a box on the street,” and be thinking, and be deeply entrenched in a conversation about, “Okay, so what does your department need? And what project are you working on? And what’s your timeline for that? Oh, I can contribute here, here and here.” You can’t be having both of those conversations going on in your head. So, you have to pick where your focus is. But the big mistake people make is they’re not aware of this and their underlying focus is on themselves and what’s going to happen if they don’t get this. And then, they end up performing badly in the interview based on that thought process.
So, it doesn’t serve you ever to be heavily focused on yourself and your own issues in an interview. You need to leave all that at the door and you need to focus completely on them. So, you know that old thing, if you can help them get what they want, you will automatically get what you want. Now, I don’t know if that’s the saying, but it is true. So, if it’s not them, it’ll be someone else. So, that’s the first thing, you need to focus on what you offer them.
Then, you need to have more of an abundant mentality, because the truth is, this is not the only opportunity there is. So, if you’re thinking, “Oh my God, this is it. If I blow this, I’m in trouble.” Then of course you’re going to be feeling terrible and you’re going to perform not as strongly as you could. But there’s lots of opportunities available for you. And whether it’s this one, or it’s not, that’s yet to be determined, the chances are going to go up significantly when you’re looking at it from the perspective of, “What can I offer? I’m open to this if it’s a win-win for both of us, let’s see how I can help here.”
It’s going to go up dramatically of God’s your mindset versus, “I need this so bad. I need to get a job immediately. Oh my God. If I don’t, I can’t imagine what’s going to happen. My family, this and that and
 
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the other.” You’re not serving anybody by focusing there. So, you need to choose your focus proactively before you go into the interview.
So, most of my clients are not in this situation, but I know a lot of listeners are. So, it’s really important, because if you go in and you keep going in with that mentality, there’s a lot of people who are interviewing after interviewing, after interviewing, being like, “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” and it could be very well this, could be what you’re doing wrong.
So, when you are able to focus completely on the value that you offer and completely on the fact that opportunities are abundant and you’re just there in full curiosity. One of my clients use curiosity so well, just so like diving into getting curious about them and really engaging in a conversation with them. You will be able to create new thinking in the hiring manager’s mind.
So, they will start to think like this instead, “She was really articulate in how she presented herself. I really saw how she was going to help here. And she didn’t seem to have hesitations about her own ability to figure things out. This gave me a sense that she’s probably the right candidate for us.” So, this is the truth of what hiring managers experience, but they can’t tell you this stuff, they can’t tell you to your face.
So, when you correct these things, you show up as you. Because all of that other stuff, like the doubt, the fear, the worry, the pressure, none of that is you when you’re working, when you’re delivering, when you’re doing your thing, when you’re in your zone of genius, none of that is you. So, it’s not fair for you to show them anything other than that. So, you got to leave all that other crap at the door for the interview.
So, when you’re that person with nothing to prove, but everything to offer, hiring managers are going to be magnetized to you. They’re going to have a different thought and feeling about you. And you can control how they think and feel about you with how you show up thinking and feeling. So, these are some of the insider conversations that happen in the debriefing rooms. I really hope that it was helpful for you to hear that. And that you will be really honest with yourself about what it could be that you’re doing right. Or take it as a heads up if you haven’t gone to any interviews yet of how you need to focus your mind. Because you create the job you want with your mind. It’s all going to be with how you think and how you feel. You want to know that you can control how they’re going to be talking about you to a certain extent.
So, that’s all I have for you today on that topic. Thank you so much for listening. And I encourage you to get in on working with me while I’m still taking one-on-one clients. Because I have been working with a lot of them, the success stories just keep rolling and we’re going to have four more coming up on the podcast. I expect to be scheduling more anytime now. So, just emails keep coming in from people saying, “I got the job. Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe I’m typing this.” It all comes from this work that we’re doing, this mindset shift work.
If you’re getting a lot out of the podcast, then you really need to get signed up to work with me, because we’re going to create magic together and you’re going to make a lot of money. So, thanks again for being a part of my world. I will talk to you next week. Bye.
Okay. So, I finished the podcast on The Three Truths Hiring Managers Won’t Tell You, and I thought of two more pretty common pieces of feedback that my clients sometimes get. Sometimes they’re lucky to get this feedback and sometimes you don’t get it, but it’s being said behind your back. So, I just wanted to bring these two as a couple of bonuses to this podcast episode. So, I hope you enjoy them, or I hope you find them useful.
So, the first one is, sometimes people have a tendency to just not give enough information, they just kind of assume that they’re like, “No, I can do that. I’ve done that before.” So, they just don’t feel the
 
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need to prove it to the hiring manager. So, sometimes they’ll be like… So, I have this example. I was interviewing for somebody in an HR position and I needed to hire an HR person. So, I asked her, “Can you give me an example of a time when you handled confidential information or sensitive information? Can you tell me about that in your job?”
She had worked at a security company, so I thought she’d have lots of examples of this. And she made it difficult for me, because she just said, “Yeah, all the time, every day, all the time.” And I thought, “Okay, can you tell me a little bit more about that? Give an example?” And she just kept saying, “Every day, all the time, don’t worry about it. I can do it.”
So, this is kind of an extreme example, but sometimes candidates will do this, and it’s hard even if me, as the hiring manager, really likes the candidate. If they’re not giving me any information that’s specific and tangible and really cements in my head that like, “Oh, they can do this, they’ve done this before. I get this.” Then, that’s going to be hard for me to make a case to hire them, in my own head, to my coworkers, it’s going to be hard.
So, what she really needed to do there was give me some more information, because I did like her and I was really excited to meet with her. Then, she just kind of gave me nothing. So, it felt like I was getting a soggy napkin, like, “Oh, that’s it. Come on. Can you give me some more?” So, sometimes hiring managers can feel this way, and then the thoughts that they’re going to have are, “Well, she just didn’t give me enough to go on. She just didn’t present her case strongly enough. I just didn’t get that feeling from her that she was doing it, or that she was experienced, or able. I just didn’t get what I needed.”
So, when she provides more detail, then that’s going to open up a lot more thoughts in my head, as the hiring manager, and I’m going to be thinking stuff like, “Oh, okay. I really like how she explained about how she handled the information.” And if she told me a story about how information had almost gotten compromised or gotten compromised and the actions she took quickly to rectify it and what she learned from it, that would have been really valuable, or just digging into something concrete.
Then, I’m going to be thinking, “Okay, so she’s got some experience, some solid knowledge about this.” Or even if she told me something about the practices that they used at her last company or how she made sure that confidential information wasn’t compromised, anything, I’m just looking for anything. So, that makes it hard for a hiring manager to really get on board with you as a candidate, as the top choice, if you’re not giving them enough.
That brings me to my second point, where I will have a lot of clients that will say, “They told me that my stories were not strong enough.” And I’ve had a lot of people start working with me for this reason. They’re like, “I get feedback and they tell me my stories are not strong enough.” Then, they get in their head about, “What story should I tell? Am I telling them right? Are they long enough? Are they too long? How much detail? Not enough detail?”
So, this also comes down to specifics. You want to paint a clear picture as far as how they did this, what happened? What your role was in the story? What actions you took? Basically, they’re looking for your thought process around how you handle a certain thing.
So, I have a guide, if you leave me a review, take a screenshot of your review, send it to my email, natalie@asknataliefisher.com, You will get a guide that’s going to give you 50 plus examples of stories told in the right amount of detail, examples that you can then play off of for yourself to come up with your own stories and have that confidence that you’re telling them well.
But a good indicator is how do you feel about the story? Do you feel good about it? Do you feel confident about it? Do you feel proud of it? Even if it’s a mistake or something you learned, are you happy with the lesson you learned? Do you feel like it makes you a better employee? You want to ask
 
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yourself these questions, because the story is how successful the story is going to be and how strong the story is going to be is going to depend on how you feel about it.
So, if you’re feeling embarrassed about it, if you’re feeling wobbly like, “Oh, I’m not sure if I should be telling this or saying this,” that’s probably not going to yield you the best result. So, you want to be proud of the story, certain that you got the lesson you needed from that story, if it’s a fail or a mistake, and you want to be tapping into how you feel in your body about telling that story and that’s what’s going to make it the most successful.
It’s not about the specific words that you use, or how long it is, or how short it is, or how long ago it happened. That stuff is not important. It’s more about how you feel when you’re telling it, how certain of yourself the lesson, or the event, or whatever you’re getting across in the story, how certain you feel about that. That’s what’s going to demonstrate who you are at your best.
So, those are the last two, not giving enough detail to go on, answering questions kind of too confidently, just being like, “Yeah, I can do that. No problem. I know how to do that. Yeah, I used to do that all the time.” Not giving any proof, not giving any detail, not giving enough information.
Then, the second piece of feedback when they say, “Oh, the stories were not strong enough.” What they mean is the same thing, essentially. They didn’t get enough from the stories that you told. They didn’t get that essence of who you are, how you work, how you think. They were not sold on the fact that you would be performing at a high level for them. Or simply somebody else just did a better job of that than you did. So, those are the last two I wanted to tack them on here as bonuses. I hope that you found this super useful and you can go back and evaluate yourself and where you’ve been going wrong.
I also have a very cool opportunity coming up for my 6-Figure Curriculum Mastermind. This is going to be a three-month program. I’m going to be taking a group of students through, and we’re going to be going from where you are now to getting you into that next career goal of yours. So whether that be at a six-figure plus role, whatever your next salary goal is, your promotion, your next six-figure role.
You can apply to get the information for that. Actually, you don’t have to apply, you just go to the link I’m going to give you in order to get started. I’m going to walk you through that whole process. I’m going to show you exactly how it works. You’ve heard from the students on the podcast, who have already been through this process successfully, so they can tell you it’s safe. You just need the courage to say yes. This is the first time I’ve ever offered this and the lowest price I’m going to be offering it at.
So, if you want to get in on the information for this, you’re going to want to go to www.nataliefisher.ca/6figures, and that’s the number 6 and then figures. That’ll take you to a page where you can sign up for this workshop, where I’m going to go through the process with you in detail, show you some more examples, show you how it works and invite you to join me for the next group that I’m going to be taking through this. It’s going to be so exciting. So, thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you next week.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Get a 6-Figure Job You Love Podcast. If you’re ready to dive deeper into your career mindset and start creating bigger, more impactful results in your career, join me at www.nataliefisher.ca/getstarted. I’ll see you over there.