Why talking less is actually the key to getting hired and getting a yes. Stay tuned.   I’m Natalie Fisher. I’m a Career and Mindset Coach. I’m here to help you get hired and make all of your career dreams come true, however unrealistic they might seem. The traditional interview is set up so that people will just ask you the questions and then you are supposed to come up with the right answers, give them the right answer, and then hopefully they will like your answer and then you will get hired. That is how we think of traditional interviewing. This is very interesting to me because I have been in sales for a lot of my life.  Studying sales, successful sales calls, which is basically what an interview is if you think about it. You are selling yourself, your abilities, your skills. You need to sell that you are the person who can do the job and  be the best person for it for several different reasons. In sales calls, it shows that the people who close the most deals talk the least. This goes to show that the way that traditional interviewing is set up is actually set up for the candidate to fail  if they follow that traditional sequence. If you were to follow the sequence of just answering the questions, trying to get the questions right, and then hoping that  your answers are enough, then leaving it at that, you have already lost. There’s a lot more at play and there’s a lot more control that you can have over the interview experience itself than you probably know. I teach something called the target method. The target method is aimed to discover what it is that the employer or the person or the team that you are sitting with wants, what they need, what’s important to them. And that’s gonna be different with each person that you interview with. If you are in sales, it’s gonna be different with each prospect  that you are looking to see if they’re a right fit for the product. The problem with the interview process is there’s no room for the candidate to do discovery. So… In the target method, which I’ve developed for my program extensively, it shares exactly how you actually get the information that you need. It allows you to discover what they need precisely for them, for their organization, for who they are as a person and their personality type, and then speak to that directly. And that allows them to then start thinking things like this person is on the same page as me. This person understands what we need. This person is the right person. This person is picking up what we’re putting down. I’ve had a client specifically say that they received that feedback in an interview where they said, look, you are the, you’re the only person who is able to articulate what we needed in terms of business results. And that’s why we’re putting the offer forward for you. So this is a theory. It has worked with my clients. It is working right now. It’s called the target method. And essentially what the target method is that you need to ask questions. before you can give answers. And this might seem very counterintuitive because the interview is not set up that way. It’s not set up for you to say,  I have questions for you first. It’s like, oh no, and you answer the questions and then at the end, maybe you have time for three prepared questions. But then by that time, once you ask your three prepared questions, there’s no time for you to do anything with that information. Most of the time, those questions are wasted. You need to be asking questions throughout the interview and making it a dialogue and a dynamic. that isn’t  usually the way that an interview is done. So it involves some finesse. So for example, they say, hey,  we were wondering what your knowledge of this software is. This is where most people would get stuck. If they don’t have the knowledge of the software or if they’re not entirely sure  what the person’s looking for, they’re gonna think, oh, I don’t have a ton of knowledge with that software. Crap, what should I say? Oh, and then they would say something like this. They’d say, oh yeah. I haven’t done a ton with that, but you I can learn it and I have this and this and I can learn it and you you don’t have to worry about me. I’m a fast learner. That’s how they might answer. That’s because they don’t know that they have another option because that is a bit of a weak answer. Well, if we have all these other candidates to choose from and this person, they don’t really have much experience with this, then we’re just going to cast them aside because truthfully, we need someone who has the experience with this, right? And that’s what they think. They think that that experience is the most important. Let me give you an example. I had a client who was an instructional designer and they were asking her specific questions about a specific software product that they use with their instructional design to make the presentations. She didn’t have a lot of experience with this. She could have said, oh yeah, but that’s okay.  I can learn that. That’s not a problem. That’s what basically every candidate will say. They’ll just say, I might not have the experience with this, but that’s okay. I can learn it. Right. And here’s what I want you to take in. The experience with that software is not important. Okay, what’s important is a bigger picture that they need to bring their focus into and you can help them to do that. Here’s what I recommend and this is a little snippet of the target method in action. When they ask you, what experience do you have with insert software you don’t have experience with? You can say, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m happy to talk about that. But before I answer, could you let me know? what specifically you’re using this for. Then they might say, oh, well, we use it in all of our presentations. We’ve been using it for years. This is the software that we use across the company. We need someone familiar with this to run our learning department. And so you might say, oh yeah, I don’t have experience in that software.  Zero, absolutely none. That is not what I focus my career on is learning that specific software. What I have focused my career on is creating presentations that get shared around the company, creating training that is so engaging. it will actually help people to  retain the information  and have it when they need it. I have actually, I have experienced growth in an organization because of the training that I have put into place and how rapidly that has taken effect and how quickly a sales team has been able to grow from 10 to 40 people because the training that I put into place was so effective that we were able to take the sales team growth at a much faster pace because of those skills. But if you’re looking for someone with that specific experience for that specific software, that is definitely not me. That is the kind of answer that brings them back to, okay, we want somebody with these skills. If they don’t have the software, not a big deal, we’ll train them.  That’s like a minuscule detail here. This is how executives think about hiring. They actually want somebody who has the overall holistic skills, but sometimes  managers and people who are hiring can get caught up in the little tiny details. It’s your job to bring them back from, don’t know how to use Excel, like whatever, you can learn that. to, oh, but what I do know is actually how to make decisions that actually move the company forward. And this is what I’ll tell you about that. What is more important? What do you actually want this person for? It’s not because they can’t learn the software. You’re a capable human. Of course you could learn the software. That is just a little snippet of what the target method does. In the target method, we go in detail about how to ask the questions, when to ask the questions, because the truth is you can’t ask unlimited questions in the interview. It’s not your space to lead and to ask all the questions. It’s their space to lead and ask their questions. However, you do need to insert some questions in strategic places in order to get the information that you need to be really successful in the interview and stand head and shoulders above all the other candidates, because all the other candidates, they are just using outdated advice that may be worked before. But when you say you can learn something, everybody’s saying they can learn something. And it’s true, everybody could learn something. What skill is it that elevates you as a candidate? And if you think you don’t have it, it’s just because you haven’t discovered it yet from yourself. If you’re up for that role and you’re in an interview for that role, you absolutely have a skill that is holistic that you can bring to the table and contribute in that role that you need to show them. It needs to be visible to them and it won’t be visible to them if all you do is answer. why or why you don’t have experience in one line item that can easily be taught. The target method, it’s about  asking more questions,  listening more, and then speaking more targeted, more relevant, more precise answers. Lots of people lose interviews every day because they don’t know how to do this. So don’t want that to be you. Don’t go on another interview until you learn this. If you want to get started, you can sign up for my 90 minute training. I take you through A to Z of my process of how to land a job, of how I’ve helped clients land jobs in tough markets with large salary jumps. And I help them do it not just with the tactics, but I help them do it with their point of attraction, with their feeling, with their whole body. I have a lot of tools that help you to do that. Get started with that 90 minute training. I will see you in there. Like this video, give it a thumbs up if you like it, give it a thumbs up if you didn’t and get out of here. I will see you in the next video. I will see you next week. Thank you so much for being here. 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