Look at It From Their Point of View. What Companies Look for When They Hire

Look at It From Their Point of View. What Companies Look for When They Hire

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Most job hunters look at interviewing from their point of view but don’t look at it from the interviewer’s viewpoint. This interview with Stephen Moulton, former HR professional, now career coach, will remind you of what to do and how to do it knowing what hiring managers are really looking for.

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Jeff Altman

So my guest today is Stephen Moulton, who has more than 20 years of corporate HR experience, and spent 20 years teaching leaders how to effectively interview candidates. He’s also coached hundreds of professionals and leaders break through the clutter and get that next great job. He’s the author of several books, including “Tell Me About Yourself” and “The CEOs Advantage: 7 Keys for Hiring Extraordinary Leaders.”  Both on Amazon. Stephen, welcome.

Stephen Moulton

Well, thank you very much. And I want to congratulate you on 10 years of podcasting, and over 2000 additions. It’s amazing and remarkable.

Jeff Altman

Thank you. It’s still stunning to me. And I have something coming out on forbes.com, probably late December about some of the lessons related to that. But enough about me, what do you think about me! <laughter>

Unknown Speaker

I had to use the old joke? Now, you’ve worked in corporate HR and you heard lots of people doing say, lots of dumb things.

Jeff Altman

And we’re just talking about the candidates. We’re not even talking about talking about the hiring managers, right? So when managers are looking at things, what are they really trying to evaluate for? Let’s start with that one, because we’ve got some fun things to follow up with.

Stephen Moulton

Right. There’s a spectrum of what managers, hiring managers are looking for. It’s hard to say if there . . .  any one of them is looking for the same thing. In fact, when you think about it, there’s a skill level difference in hiring managers, from totally unskilled to highly skilled. The problem is, if you asked all of them, they’ll all say they’re skilled interviewers. But they’re not. In fact, most managers when they start an interview, prepare for it when the person is in the lobby.

Jeff Altman

if we’re lucky. 

Stephen Moulton

If we’re lucky, right. So there’s so preparation. A lot of them don’t know what they’re really looking for. In fact, I call that Scratch and sniff interviewing.

Jeff Altman

Fascinating. This confirmed some of the things that are in my assumptions, when I say 80% of job descriptions MAYBE are accurate.

Stephen Moulton

And coming out of compensation, having worked with job descriptions and managers creating job descriptions, that’s a high, that’s a high number of potential accuracy.

Jeff Altman

I’ve always tried to be optimistic about it. And every HR person I talked to, will always say “if we’re lucky.”

Stephen Moulton

So going back to the managers, I think they want to find someone that they can work with, somebody that can get . . . do the job. The problem is they don’t know how to measure that. And that’s the major problem.

Jeff Altman

I so agree. And so often, it seems like they do it by whim.

Stephen Moulton

They have their pet theories. They have their stereotypes, they have their biases. And yet, when I do my trainings, I’ll ask managers, all the people in the room. How many of you are biased?

Jeff Altman

Oh, no, not me. Or are they doing that now?

Stephen Moulton

No, they’re all they’re all saying “not me. I’m not biased.” If you have a brain, you’re biased. Okay. There’s no question about it. The problem is, can you control it? And most people don’t understand that 90% of the biases are subconscious.

Jeff Altman

And we’re not just simply talking about race, religion, national origin, oral communications techniques. We can talk in terms of backgrounds. That looks like an objective criteria. But it makes assumptions about a person.

Stephen Moulton

Well true. Two examples I had. I was working with an executive who said if they haven’t gone to an Ivy League school, they’re garbage. I had another example where I was interviewing for a director, a Vice President of human resources at a hospital system. And in the into the conference room, walked the CEO, the COO and the CFO. And the CFO said at least two of us in this room, went to San Jose State University. Me and him . The interviews went perfectly. Why? He loved me, obviously, you know that this halo effect, we’re similar type thing. So this fit the whole spectrum of biases. It’s just terrible.

Jeff Altman

It doesn’t allow for individuality or individual difference; it works on the basis of assumption. And I’ll also go the extra step of it using the examples that you have about universities. Often it deals with social class. So one of my favorite stories, I heard on a podcast about a man who grew up in Los Angeles, and had to travel by bus two hours to school each day through gang territory, and bus. When the bus went through certain areas, everyone lowered themselves, so they weren’t a target. And this is the first black systems engineer at Twitter. And, you know, you pause for a second and look at the price he paid to get to where he was, right. And there’s nothing taken into account. That if you’d asked, you’re on the interview, so walk me through your background, or tell me about yourself, this really wouldn’t come up because no one tells the story.

Stephen Moulton

That’s right. It’s not a story tell people tell.

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Jeff Altman

Right! So let’s start off with Tell me about yourself. How do you believe it should be answering What do managers that she worked with? What do they really look for?

Stephen Moulton

But before we get to that part of it, you have a question you’d like to ask, have people ask in the interview? before they get to tell me about yourself?

Jeff Altman

Absolutely.

That’s about, you know, what in the job description, what’s really important for this job, right? If you get to tell me about yourself, and it’s going to come up at some point in time, it could be at a networking event, as well as an interview. So you got to get people to answer that question, if you want to get people’s attention. My belief is that the attention span of the average adult, the United States is about eight seconds, before they can start thinking about other things unless you get their attention. And one of the best ways to get their attention is by asking a question that has kind of an emotional twist to it. For instance, “Ever noticed that a lot of people just struggle with getting an interview when they’re doing a job search?

Happens all the time.

Stephen Moulton

Now, they use the word in there, the operative word is “struggle.” And if you’re going through a job search, and you’re struggling, that emotionally triggers. That’s what I’m good at solving. Can I tell you a story. And then you share a story about how you helped somebody solve that problem. That’s that’s the short version of what you’re doing with “Tell me about yourself.” And it’s very, very effective in getting the attention and getting engagement. And the key part of that is most interviewers make their hiring decision in the first five minutes of the interview. If the first question they ask is, tell me about yourself, and you don’t get that one, well, you’re done. Well, you’re out. Because most people, they start with the whole biography, everything that’s in their resume, in  their life and everything else, and the person goes to sleep after eight seconds and they don’t even hear any of it because they’re not engaged.

Jeff Altman

I agree with you about that we live in an ADHD culture. So attention span is important. I also believe of voice quality is important too. And thus, I talk in terms of “the theater of interviewing,” and the performance that goes into interviewing, in order to engage an audience to k, them involved, to use your voice. And since we’re interviewing so often by video these days, to use your behaviors in certain ways to captivate, to enchant, to delight, you’re using your smile, the twinkle in your eyes, in lots of different ways to engage an audience. If you’re not doing that, it’s sleep time, right?

Stephen Moulton

Right. And that’s part of the whole getting the response to the Tell me about yourself down is the showmanship, if you will. You have to act. And you’re on a stage whether you like it or not. In fact, I’ll often be on an airplane and somebody will say, “Well, what do you do?” Mm hmm. Have question. ever noticed, and I’ll go through the spiel, and I’ll catch up, and I’ll get them into a conversation and then and they I have their attention.

Jeff Altman

So your approach, I just want to make sure I have this right. They say tell me about yourself, and you’re flipping in a certain way to ask them a follow up question?

Stephen Moulton

Yes. But it’s not a direct question. I didn’t say, “have you ever noticed.” Just “ever noticed that people struggle with getting interviews when they’re going to a job search?” And “yeah, I’ve had that that problem,” or “I’m having that problem right now.” Let me tell you a story. And then you tell the story. And it’s a story about the problems that somebody’s faced, the actions you took to help them and the results they got.

Jeff Altman

So using the example of a coder, “ever notice a lot of managers struggle with getting their staff to deliver early, let alone on time?”

Stephen Moulton

 Right. “Well, yes, yeah.” “Well, let me let me give you a story about when that happened to me,” and then just share the story. And people love stories.

Jeff Altman

It works really well. Now, I heard you go into your, your framework for storytelling. But was that STAR? Situation-task-action-result? Or did you did you just use a different approach to the story?

Stephen Moulton

Well, STAR, if you will, was a copyrighted thing that DDI had on their targeted selection program. So I avoid using STAR. It’s the same concept– the problem or situation you’re facing, the action you took, and the results you get. Or the outcome become.

Jeff Altman

Par! Par for the course.

Stephen Moulton

Or or you can say challenge-action-result. CAR.  But it’s still the same concept of you describe the struggle that you’re facing? You talk about what what you did to resolve that struggle. And how you got how you got through it.

Jeff Altman

Beautiful. Now looking at it from the employers’ perspective, what are they looking for, from the answer? What are they hoping to hear when you’re answering “Tell me about yourself?”

Stephen Moulton

You know, they hear the same thing over and over and over. When they hear . . . when they hear people give that response, what this does, in this approach is to give them something different which sets you apart from the rest of this candidates that they didn’t already talk to and ask that same question of. That also starts to engage them in a conversation. And what they’re looking for is something different. Frankly,

Jeff Altman

They want to be engaged.

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Stephen Moulton

They want to be engaged.

Jeff Altman

and entertained and influenced and persuaded. There’s a wh, things that they’re looking for out of this experience that comes with as I say, in my own work, when firms hire competence is only one thing they look for, right? Self confidence, character, chemistry, maybe a little bit of charisma because charismatic people always do better than non- charismatics.

Stephen Moulton

 Right.

Jeff Altman

Ultimately, they want to trust the person that they hire.

Stephen Moulton

And they want somebody who has their act together.

Jeff Altman

Now, I agree. And my thing is always, how do you measure for “got their stuff together when each side is trying to lie to the other?

Stephen Moulton

Well, let’s just say they’re both trying to put the best foot forward.

Jeff Altman

Posture. I’ve never heard of an employer saying to a job hunter, “you know, I got a problem. Right? I’ve, I’ve taken over this group, and I’ve inherited a team of bozos. We are the lowest performing group in the organization. And my predecessor got fired. And so did hers.  I need to hire someone to save mine.  No one ever says that. Which gave me the the idea that hiring managers are posturing just like job hunters?”

Stephen Moulton

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Jeff Altman

So when the employer, the employer obviously gives up on the idea that they can really well, they forget that job hunters are posturing. They really believe this is the truth.

Stephen Moulton

Unfortunately, sometimes that’s true.

Jeff Altman

I believe that because statistics show that within 12 to 18 months of a new hire, most hiring managers have buyer’s remorse.

Stephen Moulton

Right.

Jeff Altman

So given that fact, I’m wondering, what does the hiring manager what else are they looking for and some of the questions that they’re asking?

Stephen Moulton

You know, I think most people are looking for someone like them. Someone who thinks like them, something that, not necessarily looks like them, but has the same philosophies, they figured they can get along with. They’re not looking for someone who’s going to complement them by being different. And that’s the sad part of it. What, a lot of times when I was I’ve always, I shouldn’t say always, I learned to do a structured interview approach. And I, I really set everything aside to try and get the details of what this person’s accomplished, before I make any kind of decision. And that’s not easy to do. Because a lot of things can play into the biases that we have. But gathering the data is really crucial to making a good hiring decision. And there are some companies out there that are really rigorous about using a behavioral approach to interviewing.

Jeff Altman

A behavioral approach to interviewing. Could you explain that to the audience?

Well, let me back up and say there’s, there’s really kind of three basic kinds of questions you can get in an interview. There’s a weird or unusual questions. All right. Like, why are manhole covers round? Questions like where does light go when it goes out? Questions like, Why do people drive on parkways and park on driveways? You know, weird, unusual questions. And there’s not much you can get out of that as far as the qualifications of an individual. The next type of question is what I refer to as a hypothetical question . Stuational questions. “What would you do if” questions? What kind of answers do you think you’d get the hypothetical questions?

You get how a person thinks?

Stephen Moulton

You get hypothetical answers. Okay, they get the textbook hypothetical answer because what would you do if well, if I had this come up, I would do this, because that’s what the world says I’m supposed to be doing. But in reality, I do that. But they don’t say that. Alright? And then you have the behavior based question, which is, “tell me about a time when.” Now I’m gonna give you a secret here that I teach people to do because when you respond to behavioral interviewing question, “Tell me about a time when,” you try to say, about this time frame, working with this individual user, first and last name, if you can. “So when I was working at square d with Mike Javits, my Director of Human Resources, this is the problem I faced. Now, the reason I suggest using that name, the name of the company, and the name of the individual, is that subconsciously, the person who’s the interviewer is thinking “this must be a true story, because he’s attached a name to it.”

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Jeff Altman

Interesting, I could see that working.

Stephen Moulton

Okay. And you choose to keep it a true story, because they may well ask to talk to Mike Javits. Okay. All right. So then, then you tell . . . you go through the PAR thing of problem or challenge-action-results, you want to keep it fairly short. So you take no more than a minute to give that response. That way, you have their attention through it. And you’re changing from the problem to the actions to the result in about 15 minute, uh 15 second increments. And now if they want more information, they can ask more. But you’ve not muddied the waters with a lot of extraneous stuff. You kept focused on one topic. And it’s easy for them to follow when its one topic. And it’s problem-action-results. They can follow that.

Jeff Altman

Yeah, and you know, when I think of that problem, action result approach, or any of the frameworks for that matter, it confines you so that you don’t wind up rambling. So if you think of it from the standpoint of what you’re trying to accomplish, everything is designed to deliver the information to the audience in a way that they’ll receive it well, and “get it” and you’re demonstrating how you fit the role that the employer has available. Right?

Stephen Moulton

Right. I was coaching a former vice president of a very large retail grocery store. He had lost his job because of a merger. He had been out on 20 interviews, and he says, “Steve, I’m struggling. I’ve done all these interviews with 20 different companies and I’ve not even made the second cut. Here’s a vice president who have been on one side of the desk interviewing people for years,

Jeff Altman

Often the worst interviewers, because they know what they look for. They don’t know what other people look for, and extrapolate what they look for on the other people. And it’s very different.

Stephen Moulton

His problem was he’s rambling. Okay, so I sat with him for an hour and we’ve focused in, I’d ask questions. We put created the problem, action, results for various situations. Next day, he went on an interview with a large corporation. That afternoon he had a job offer because he was able to focus in and responding properly.

Jeff Altman

And I’ll go the extra step, telling a story of mine, of someone who came to me, who had been on 15 interviews, no second interviews. And we went through a mock interview, and I heard his answer to tell me about yourself and I just said, “Oh, God, I know what it is. And the answer was, he was bored answering the question and it came through in his voice, every interview, they asked the same things. And he gave the same answer, in the same kind of way. And it showed no life. And notice how singsong I’m being with that?

Stephen Moulton

Right.

Jeff Altman

And I remember him doing much the same kind of thing. And thus, it didn’t engage people. It put them to sleep in much the same way he was put to sleep. And my reminder, folks, is it’s opening night at the theater. You’ve spent a couple hundred dollars for tickets for the show. You want to see a good performance. Now, three months later, there’s an audience there as well. They want to see the same performance as opening night. They’re not . . .  they don’t care if the cast had a bad night the night before.

Stephen Moulton

Absolutely

Jeff Altman

It’s your opening night, you want to see the show at its best.

Stephen Moulton

Right.

Jeff Altman

And often people don’t give that.

Stephen Moulton

Yeah, and then you go back to the situation with the interviewers. An interviewer may have a bad day. And you might be sitting in front of them at the end of the day, when they’re hungry. They’ve had a crummy day. And you’re getting interviewed for a position. And they really don’t want to be there. And they really don’t want to be in front of you. And that is to your disadvantage. And you’ve got to engage them. I remember I was talking talking with one of my recruiters when I was at a Husker company. And she had interviewed an individual engineer at the end of the day. And she walked into my office and said, “this guy isn’t getting . . .  not even worth it. Not even worth it. I said, “What happened?” And she said she was having a crappy day. And he just wasn’t answering the question that well. I said, “Tony, did you really give him a chance?” And she said, “Yeah, not really.” So she brought him back in and re-interviewed him, ended up hiring him. Turn out to be a fantastic engineer. But it was a skilled interviewer having a crappy day.

Jeff Altman

And folks notice in this scenario, it has nothing to do with the job hunter. It has to do with the employer. It has to do with their willingness to connect with you. And pay attention maybe.

Stephen Moulton

Right,

Jeff Altman

And their ability to shift their mood. I’m wondering are there circumstances where you would ever coach a job hunter, “I’m getting the idea that this wasn’t a good day. Would it be better if we rescheduled?

Stephen Moulton

Yeah. Yeah. In fact, a study was done of parole judges years ago. And they were trying to figure out was there . . . what was happening with when they were open to giving parole and not open to giving parole. And here’s what they found. Early in the morning, you know, from eight to 10. They were very open to giving parole. From 10 to noon when they’re getting hungry, that diminished significantly. After lunch, they’re more open to giving paroles and an hour and a half, two hours later, <raspberries sound> What’s that telling you about when you want to schedule your interviews? First thing in the morning or right after lunch.

Jeff Altman

And your doctor appointments, too, by the way!

Stephen Moulton

 That’s right. My wife went in for surgery one time and I’m talking to the nurses, “You’re here early? Yeah, that’s great. Because the first thing in the morning, the doctor is going to be awake. There’s fewer mistakes first thing in the morning.

Jeff Altman

Although if it’s 4am surgery , I don’t know about that. When a hiring manager gets to the point of asking, so do you have any questions for us, what are they hoping to hear  when they ask that question?

Stephen Moulton

Are you really interested in being successful in this position? Are you going to help me solve my problems? So I think the questions you want to be asking are, “in the next six months, what do you hope I’m going to accomplish here? At the end of the year, what’s going to make me a great employee on my review? You know, those kinds of questions are really going to be more important to them than benefits about.

Jeff Altman

And, by the way, those questions will also allow you to hear whether this is a job that you can succeed in because sometimes you hear crazy stuff, right? At which point you can mentally start taking that step backward and go, “okay, glad I dodged that bullet,”. and get yourself out of there.

Stephen Moulton

Yes, right. Yes, that’s one really important questions to ask.

Jeff Altman

Overall, when hiring managers are making decisions, when they get to the point of deciding, they’ve got two or three people that they can choose from. They’re bringing them back, because no one’s going to decide between the three people on the basis of one interview. They want to have one more opportunity to bring them in for the beauty pageant, except they’ve narrowed it down in the Miss or Mr. America beauty pageant to three finalists. Once they get to that point, what are they looking for?

Stephen Moulton

Well, I guess the question is, what has been the interview strategy up to this point? Are they the only person making the interview . . . doing the interview and making the decision? Is there a group of people that are going to be involved in making the decision? Are those individuals gonna be interviewing them one on one, or in a group interview/ team interview? At that point in time, I think they’re just looking for any reason not to hire you.

Jeff Altman

So it’s a rule out scenario first.

Stephen Moulton

Right?

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Jeff Altman

So folks, you can do things to disqualify yourself. I’m wondering, one of the things I tell job hunters to look for, is, in the first round, or in the earlier rounds, there may have been a rough edge that surface up until that point, which can be the excuse for why they turn you down later. So you have to proactively address that in later round interviews, so that . . .  they never forget this thing. And they’re going to go in there like it’s a sore, and they’re going to poke at it and poke at it and poke at it until you cry Uncle. So, understand. folks, I believe that that’s what’s going to happen. But is that been your experience when you talk to hiring managers, as well? They keep poking at that spot, as part of the rule out process?

Stephen Moulton

Right? And any little, any little reason not to hire you will be a part of this because they got to live with this person. That’s a source of sore spot for them. They’re not gonna want to live with that sore spot, even if it’s not true, is that it’s a maybe it’s a figment of their imagination. But to them, that’s reality.

Jeff Altman

Right. So folks, you have to be prepared for that rough edge that when you reflect on  because that’s gonna be the place where they can easily rule you out unless you deal with it. So let’s say they’ve got three finalists, and one of the three just hasn’t dealt with it. How do we play choose between the final two? How do you play “Solomon dividing the baby” and picking the right one.

Stephen Moulton

You know, what I do the structured approach. I’ve gone through my six or eight competencies that I’m looking for. And I’ve rated whether or not these people had them. Well take a look at where their strong and OK skill levels are. And narrow, narrow down to, you know, both. Steve had strong on the first four and, okay, on the second four and Peter had strong on the first . . .  some of the first four and strong on the second four. It might be splitting hairs. But finally is going to be truly do I like this person or not.

Jeff Altman

You’re going to say that because it’s always the subjective criteria that eventually emerges. The coin flip. The mental coin flip that people have. Okay, they’re comparable. Neither one’s perfect. I’ve got to fill this slot or I lose the budget by the end of the year. Okay, I like her better.

Stephen Moulton

Right?

Jeff Altman

And this is where we get into biases again.

Stephen Moulton

That’s right. But you know, as far as I’m concerned  if you’ve actually found two qualified people, and they both can do the job, and they both look like they’ll fit the organization, at that point in time being subjective is okay. It is, as long as they’re qualified. If they’re not qualified. That’s, that’s different.

Jeff Altman

And I’m going to go back to the point around, yes, under law, there’s the bona fide occupational qualifications, that gets used as a criteria for evaluation. But in these days, where the perception that white heterosexual males are advantaged in the workplace, folks, we’ve got . . . we’ve got to be aware of that the bias exists. And . . .

Stephen Moulton

like the opposite, the opposite side of that, if you have a minority candidate and a white candidate, and you choose the minority candidate, no, yes, that’s a bias because you’re trying to advantage the other person. But it was interesting, there was a Supreme Court case 30, 40 years ago, where a white . . . It was a city of Santa Clara. And a white person had gone through this selection process. And they had a score of, let’s say, 76. And they got down to the hiring for that. And they selected a person was 74. Happisened to be a minority. The white person sued. And what the Supreme Court basically says, Is 76, 74, no big difference. Management’s got to have the ability to make a decision for the best purpose of the organization. And if they choose a minority over a white, because there’s a best purpose, the organization has to be able to make a management decision. That management’s decision, by the way, is biased. They had the ability to do that. But they’re essentially, essentially equal.

Jeff Altman

And folks I’m wondering here, I’m thinking out loud, that if you’re a minority individual of one form or another, race, gender, a whole host of different things, whether it’s appropriate for you, or whether you should be encouraged to put that on the table, about diverse thought, diverse approach to things that you can see things that others might have a blind spot to, in the course of your interview.

Stephen Moulton

There is a lot of research that says having teams that are diverse, actually are more effective, more productive, and more innovative.

Jeff Altman

So it’s wise to put that on the table.

Stephen Moulton

I think in, not, not just putting, like you said, but in a story, saying, I was part of this team, that was a really diverse team. And we outperformed everybody, because of our diversity. You know, and describe how you did that. And what made a difference in that–that can be a sales tool. But just laying in the table, hey, you know, “you got to remember having diversity is really important,” Now that just kind of throws it in their  faces, and thank you very much, I’m not gonna play that game.

Jeff Altman

And thus folks working it into a story. At any point in the interview, becomes a way that, even if you are the one minority individual as often happens for black men and black women, for example or, in some parts of the country, LatinX men and women, you have to be in a situation where you can call out the fact that you were able to spot the blind spot of the dominant group and present it in such a way that they could get it and be open to it.

Stephen Moulton

Right.

Jeff Altman

That becomes a great story to work with.

Stephen Moulton

That’s a very powerful way of interjecting that potential or making difference on a team.

Jeff Altman

Amen. What haven’t we covered so far that we should?

Stephen Moulton

Gee! You’re the executive level.

Jeff Altman

Ah.

Stephen Moulton

I’ve seen a lot of organizations at the executive level send their candidates off to industrial psychology for a review of their mental, so to speak, suitability? Have you seen that happening?

Jeff Altman

Very often. Very, very often. And it’s always interesting which tests they send them off for.

Stephen Moulton

I know, I spent a whole half a day with an organizational psychologist for one position. And it was, you know, it was the intellectual stuff, it was psychological stuff, you know, personality profiles, and all that kind of stuff in an interview for two hours. It was like, I think I’m brain dead at this point in time.

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Jeff Altman

We know that about you, Steven . . .  but that’s a different conversation.

Stephen Moulton

Right.

Jeff Altman

 But some of the tests people get sent off for, you can go on to Google, find out about the approach that the testing organization takes and sometimes you can go to . . . use Google to understand what the organization is trying to find out about you through the test, and steer your answers in ways that are effective. Is that what you found?

Stephen Moulton

Yes. And I’ve also found that not all the tests are really accurate.

Jeff Altman

Yeah!

Stephen Moulton

I was working with an organization. And they were using a test across the organization. And it was a situation where the person would be interviewed by this company. And then they would base them on certain criteria of telecom organization, whether or not to be successful. And I went back and looked at the results that . . .  those the results that were given, and there was zero correlation between successful people and, and the actual interview results.

Jeff Altman

And often, that’s one of the things that organizations fail to do with their hiring managers. They fail to evaluate the success rate that people have had with their hires, to review what they could be doing better.

Stephen Moulton

That’s true. That’s true. And, you know, when people get up to the executive level, they think, well, I’ve been doing this so long, I can’t fail. Because I’ve been doing, you know, for years, and I, you know, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna be wrong, right? My guts going to tell me this person is good, or this person is not any good.

Jeff Altman

The lies we tell ourselves. Steven, this has been a lot of fun. How can people find out more about you, the work that you do, the books, whatever?

Stephen Moulton

If they go to jobsearchskillsforprofessionals.com, they can download a free resume template that has been proven to be 50% more effective in almost everything else that I’ve seen. And it includes do’s and don’ts, not only the template but a sample resume, 104 words, verbs, actually words that they can use in a resume that are effective, and a free opportunity to do 20 minutes with me on a career caffeine strategy session. They can get the book “Tell Me About Yourself” that’s on Amazon on Kindle, and I got version 2.0 coming out in about a month.

Jeff Altman

Fabulous. Career Caffeine?

Stephen Moulton

Career caffeine strategy session. You know, a lot of people are just  all over the place. I gotta get them focused in there, to get them energized.

Jeff Altman

And I do understand. And Stephen, thank you so much for making time today. And folks, we’ll be back soon with more. I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. Visit my website, TheBigGameHunter.us. I’ve got thousands of posts in the blog that can help you. Also, I want to encourage you to subscribe to No BS Job Search Advice Radio in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to shows. Great information, again, all designed to help you find work. But it’s not personalized to you . . . and that’s really where I come in.

If you’re interested in one on one coaching with me at my website, TheBigGameHunter.us, there’s a button there that says schedule where you can schedule time for free discovery call or schedule time for coaching. I would love to help you. And connect with me on linkedin at linkedin.com/in/TheBigGameHunter. Hope you have a terrific day and most importantly, be great. Take care

9 Ways People Sabotage Themselves on Interviews

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