Page 116 - James Caan - Get the Job you Really Want

kind of interview, they are looking for drama, they want a story.
If you are not experienced in dealing with the press, your view
is, ‘Great, they are coming to interview me because I’m such a
great guy, I’ve done really well and they want to write about this
amazing person.’ That is the last thing a journalist is there to do.

They are not there to promote you, they are there to sell papers.
So you have to learn how to present yourself as an honest,
reasonable, fair person and to use your body language and

your facial expressions to convey your warmth. It is a matter of
psychology and human nature. If you are pleasant to somebody,
it is quite di≤cult for them to go away and attack you in an
article. It is exactly the technique you would use if you were
being interviewed for a job: you want that person to like you, so

whatever you say, how you say it, how you behave, how you act,
is all about trying to be accepted by the other person.

Going the extra mile

As you prepare for the interview you could consider what you
might take along to the interview to enhance your presenta-
tion. These could be credentials, your certificates, your awards,
reference letters. Something I generally like to see are examples

of your work.
At an interview for one of the investment managers that we
hired, he showed me a due diligence report that he had written,

and I was really impressed with it. I was trying to evaluate the
usual questions: is he right, is he wrong, can he do the job, can’t
he do the job? There were a hundred things going on in my
mind, but that one document answered a lot of my questions.

104 get the job you really want