Stop Interviewing Like You're Trying to Get Picked | Executive Interview Tips

Romie Montpeirous: Welcome everyone to another episode of Leadership from the Heart. I'm your host, Romy. Today I am solo. And today we're talking about how to stop interviewing like you're trying to get picked.

I've been receiving a few DMs and I've even created an interview prep intensive because you guys are asking for it. And so I figured I'd give away a few of the best things that I know. I typically give away everything I know just because. I don't believe in g gatekeeping and so I want to Give you guys a podcast full of how to have the best interview possible.

And it's it is preparation. I don't want to pretend like it's not preparation, but it's more so understanding you and your experiences than it is anything else. And I also did a kind of a short series that'll come out Monday, Wednesday, Friday on TikTok. So go find me on TikTok if you want just the high level clips of how to prepare for an interview.

And I I think that leaders need to prepare for an interview differently than anybody else, although you can take this concept and you can apply it in any sort of interview situation that you find yourself in. And I've worked with incredibly accomplished leaders who walk into the interview and then suddenly they forget who they are. And so my interview intensive is basically just reminding you of who you are. And who does the reminding?

You do, because you know yourself more than anybody else will. Right. These are people who've led teams, who've solved difficult problems, who've managed million millions of dollars in a budget. And suddenly somebody says, Tell me about yourself, and most of us hate that question.

And we suddenly start auditioning, right? they're trying to figure out what the right answer is and what do they want me to say. and this is when we stop being ourselves and we start, like I said, auditioning or performing because we're trying to get them to like us instead of making sure that we like us and also we like them. Because this is a two-way conversation.

It's a two-way decision. I know that you applied for the role, which is why you had the interview, but The interview is not just them interviewing you, it's also you interviewing them. And the more you want the opportunity, the easier it becomes for you to start performing for the opportunity. So this entire episode is to help you prepare more and how to start that today, because interviewing at a higher level requires an identity shift.

Almost everything we want to do at a higher level, if we're elevating ourselves, will require a new identity. You're not walking into the room hoping to be picked. You're walking into the room to determine whether this position is in alignment with what they need, what you know how to do, the leader that you are, and where you're trying to go. Yes, of course.

You want the job. We're not going to pretend that you don't, but wanting the job and needing their approval are two very different things. So your job isn't to convince them that you are impressive. Your job is to help them understand how you think, how you lead, what happens when they put responsibility in your hands.

And there's one incredible simple thing that makes all of this easier. Answer the question that they actually asked you. That is the number one rule I have in all interviewees. I know that sounds obvious, but it's not.

People start to drift, they start to ramble, and they stop answering the question that they were asked. So we're gonna start by answering the question. So, answering the question is the most important interview advice I can give you. It is to answer the question.

You know, I know that people get nervous. We start reaching for the story that we've practiced instead of listening to what the interviewer actually asked. sometimes I know that we give so much context that even two minutes later we're all looking around the room and nobody remembers the original question. And that's not an interview problem.

At senior levels, that's A communication problem. So if someone asks, tell me about a time you had to address an underperforming employee. Don't spend the first two minutes telling them when you joined the company, what department they were in, how many employees there were, what your boss was like, and anything else that happened six months before the problem. Just give them enough context to understand the situation and then answer the question.

So it would sound something like I had an employee whose performance had declined over several months. My first step was understanding whether we were dealing with a capability issue or a clarity issue, or was it something entirely different? After meeting with them, I realized the expectations hadn't been clear and they needed to be. Now we're somewhere, right?

We noticed what happened. You didn't just tell me what you did. You're showing me how you think. This is what I want when I'm interviewing from leaders.

I want to hear how they prepared to first understand the issue at hand. Right. The second part of this is to. Not prepare yourself for the top 30 questions that they ask in interviews, right?

This is where I think traditional interviewing preparation goes wrong now. I know that we Google, we chat GPT, or we claude top 50 interview questions and they start writing down 50 answers. Don't do that to yourself. That's not necessarily going to help you understand who you are.

You're going to walk into this interview trying to remember a script instead of just having a normal Conversation. So instead of that, I want you to have five to seven of your strongest leadership or experience stories. Your stories probably need to be around some competencies. So let's go through the competencies real quick.

How do you lead through change? How do you lead through conflict? Are you developing someone or have you developed someone in the past? What does failure or a mistake look like?

How do you improve performance? What is it like for you to influence without authority? How do you make difficult decisions? And lastly, solving for a significant business problem.

Like what is your brainstorming method? How do you get to a solution? And then how do you follow through and execute? Right?

One story can often answer multiple questions depending on the lens that you're looking at it through. And yes, star can help you organize your thinking. But for leadership interviews, I want you to go deeper than just star, right? So star is situation, task, action, and results.

But I also want you to understand what you noticed. What were you seeing that mattered? I want to understand what did you think and how did you make sense of it? I want to know what you decided and what your other options that you considered were.

I want to know. Your why and why did you choose that approach? and also I want you to give me the results. And lastly, I want to know what you learned and would you make that same decision today?

And so I know this sounds like a lot of questions, but it's not actually a lot of questions. If you learn how to storytell, which is basically how your intensive interview prep is going to be, you're going to answer all of those in one. One foul swoop, right? You're going to answer those in answering your your answering the question with your story, right?

And this is how leadership maturity becomes very visible. Your resume tells me what you've done, but the interview helps me understand the leader behind what you've done, right? So our Third phase of this episode or third phase of interviewing is to understand the problem behind the position. So this brings us to your homework to do besides understanding your five to seven stories.

This is how I would prep if I was you. Yes, we need to research the company if you don't currently work for the company. You need to know hopefully what they do, what industry they're in, who their customers are, what their recent performance is and what's changing around them. And you don't have to stop there, although those are typically good enough because then you'll have some open-ended questions to ask them to learn more.

but you can study the position around the business problem, right? So you can ask questions like why does this job exist right now? So maybe they're growing, maybe they're the team is struggling, maybe the last leader left, maybe they're transforming their business, maybe execution is inconsistent. I would also ask if this if the last leader did leave, why no internal, or maybe there are some internal, but why are no internal candidates being looked at for the role because that says a lot of things.

You're also looking for the red flags is what I'm trying to say, right? But they could be looking for a culture shift, which is not a red flag, because at least they're aware that they need a culture shift. You know, there's all types of reasons why people create jobs or positions. What you need to do is be able to read the description and look for the cues.

If the same idea keeps appearing where it's like transformation, collaboration, operational excellence, growth, employee engagement, then that's telling you something. Then then they're looking for your experience, right? And the questions you want to start asking, and this is being able to look around corners as a leader, is Where have I already solved versions of those problems? And that changes the interview because you're no longer walking in with less leverage, right?

You're walking in almost saying, This is why I deserve this job. You're walking in so prepared to have a conversation about here's what I understand you need, and here's why my experience may be useful. That's a completely different type of conversation we're having in an interview, right? But and not but and we also need to understand what they want from this role.

So let's jump into the question behind the questions because you're gonna have questions as well. And you wanna understand the question behind your question. And so First, we're gonna examine you answering the questions, and we're back to you making sure you answer the questions, right? Because interview questions, they aren't that random.

They're literally just trying to collect evidence. When somebody asks you a question like, tell me about a time you disagreed with your boss, they're probably not fascinated by your old boss. They're listening for, are you an optimist, a pessimist? What are you, what, what is your default?

Energy pointing towards. Is it positive? Is it negative? They're listening for judgment, influence, emotional maturity.

How do you communicate? And how do you handle power dynamics? Right. So when they ask you a question like, tell me about a failure, they don't need your confession.

They're trying to understand the way that you hold yourself accountable. Are you self-aware? What is your learning agility? And whether people, whether you blame other people.

That's what they're asking about. When we're asking about a difficult employee, we're listening for coaching, boundaries, empathy, accountability, whether you have the ability to develop people or just label them and leave them as they are. When they ask a question like, why do you want this position? besides the obvious, whether it's a promotion or a new gig or more money, right?

We we're not asking you to flatter the company. We're wanting you to help them understand the connection between the opportunity and your experience and where you see yourself going. So listen for the literal question and understand what the competency is that they're trying to actually uncover. And then you answer the literal question first, then you go into your the question behind the question part, right?

So why do you want this position. This is a great position for me in my growth where I see myself in the next five to ten years. I do realize that you guys have in, you know, where you guys promote from within. And I love the way that your culture's set up.

Like you can flatter them in so many ways. And so don't over flatter them, right? Obviously you want to work for this company because you've done your research and you find that you align with them so far. So we're going to answer the question and then we're going to go into your five to 10 year plan.

Right. A quick tip about answering questions is everybody knows that interviews cause anxiety. This is where people get shook, they're a little jittery, they may not be presenting as their whole self. And I know that when especially in a panel interview, there's so much pressure to answer the question immediately.

But you actually don't have to. You can say, let me think about that. And then pause. And I know that the silence is deafening.

I know that you're trying to find an answer, but all you can hear is like either nothing or everything at the same time. but feel free, try it. Make sure that you're comfortable with silence. Slow down, take two seconds, take three seconds, and think.

You know, you can literally say that's such a good question. Please give me a second to think about an example or the best example. That's not weakness, right? I know back in the day we needed the answer right away to show like sharpness, but this is showing that you have composure.

Leaders aren't valuable because they answer everything quickly. They're valuable because they can think while pressure still exists. And sometimes the most executive thing that you can do in an interview is to not rush and fill the silence, but to listen, to pause, to think, to answer. And when you're done answering, stop talking.

Don't ruin a strong 90-second answer with another three minutes because the interviewer hasn't immediately said something. Allow for the silence. Silence doesn't automatically mean you you answered wrong or bad. It's time for them to think too.

At the end of the day, we're all humans, you know? And so I've already gone into like why I created the interview prep intensive. It's because I think that. We used to script and now I want us to be able to know who we are, know our experiences, own our experiences.

That's how you walk in with confidence when you you look at the role and you look at what you're trying to solve and you identify yourself within the the issues that they have that you've already solved them. And so a lot of our intensive is about you reminding you who you are, right? And then I think this is one of the last parts of the interview, but typically at the end of an interview, they ask if you have any questions. And so this is your moment to interview them back.

You're evaluating the leader that you'll report to. Hopefully they're in the room. You'll evaluate the culture, the expectation, the authority of the person, the health of the team, and whether success is actually possible. And we're not gonna go with the five questions that Google or chat or Claude have.

You're gonna ask genuine questions that you want to know so that you Are a full-body yes as well, right? Some of my favorite questions to ask, I'm going to tell you, is what would you say 12 months from now, and I was hired that you made the absolute right decision? And I then want you to listen carefully to this. So you're asking them, you're putting yourself in the role, you're asking them to look down 12 months from now, and you're saying, What would success look like?

And then you're gonna listen and you're gonna write because They're gonna tell you what success looks like. And that's exactly what you do when you get the job, right? You go after what they said success looks like because they're telling you what success means to them, right? And then you're going to ask, you can ask questions like what prevented you or the team from achieving that so far.

Now you're learning what obstacles there may be. Another question is like, I always I tend to ask, like, how tied are we to the current team, just to see what the power dynamics are. I typically ask, where does this role have true decision making? authority and where do I need to partner and be in alignment.

You know, I'm never making a decision in a vacuum. I'm always high collaborative, but I also want to know where the true decision making authority is. I want to know as much as possible so that when I walk in, you're already gonna have to learn the power dynamics and the dynamics of the teams, all the teams, but it's always helpful to understand where your authority stops and somebody else's starts before you walk in. And this is important because titles could be deceiving, right?

And every organization has a different org structure and a different way that they see things. another question I like to ask is what does this team need most from its next leader? And it's because you're going to hear not the most sophisticated answers, but you're going to be gathering information as to what they believe this. leader needs to bring to the table, whether you have what it needs, because you don't ever want to put yourself in a role where you're also not the best fit and you knew that going in because they needed a people leader and you're more of an individual contributor and analytical person, right?

Like, although I know we want the job, but you also have to put yourself in the best position for the role. And of course you can supplement talent on other ways. But walking into this, I think leaders always need to know if what kind of leader they're looking for to see if you're the best leader for that role. And ultimately, every interview, every next level, every next version of you requires this identity shift.

And we've talked about it a lot. in my content and this because I think that operating at one level above is necessary for you to be able to obtain that. It's it's what's required of you so that you're you're not asking for permission. The interview is not the moment that you suddenly become the leader.

It's the moment that you are able to articulate the leader that you've already been practicing becoming. You don't need to know everything. You don't need the perfect answer for everything. You don't need to pretend that you've never failed.

As a matter of fact. You should have stories of where you miss the mark, right? And explain those as best as possible. But you should know yourself well enough to communicate this is who I am, this is how I think, these are the kinds of problems that I've learned to solve.

This is how I lead people. This is what I value. This is what I've learned. And this is what I'm still willing and able to learn.

And this is who I am. And that is confidence. That is. Confidence without pretending, without performance, because you don't, you do know who you are.

You you don't have to perform. You're you're just showing up. And that brings so much calmness and so much groundingness into the interview. So before your next interview, here's what I want you to remember.

I don't want you to spend The three days before cramming to predict every question. Just know your stories, know your results, know your leadership. On the flip side, you're going to understand the role, understand the probable business problem, and you're going to practice explaining how you think, not just what you did. Prepare questions that you genuinely want answered to be able to say yes to this role as well.

And then when you're in the room, you're going to listen to the question, you're going to answer the question, you're going to give context, you're going to explain your thinking, you're going to provide evidence, and then you're going to stop and let it become a conversation. Because at the end of the day, Me as an interviewer, I actually just want to have a conversation. And don't forget that there's two sides determine: do we want this person for the role? And do I want this role and the leadership team?

And the most important question is: can I solve for the problem that they're looking to be or to have solved? So don't walk into your next interview hoping they see your value. Your goal is to know enough and to do enough work beforehand that you know your value. Then you're going to spend the entire conversation helping them see it as well.

You're not there to beg to be picked. You're not there to perform a version of you they think they'll like, you think they'll like. You're there to have a thoughtful conversation about what they need, what you've learned, what you've accomplished, how you lead, and whether there's alignment between the two. And whatever happens after that happens.

And you should be able to walk out of that room saying, they got to meet me, not my rehearsed interviewing persona. Not who I wanted them to see. They got to meet me, the leader. And everything happens for a reason.

You can never, ever, ever miss what's for you. So if you don't get the role, I know that it's discouraging. I know there's feelings around that. Just understand that something better, likely, is around the corner.

And with that, we conclude this week's episode. And I'll see you guys maybe next week for another episode of Leadership from the Heart. Thanks so much for listening.