Page 130 - James Caan - Get the Job you Really Want

who is in the role at the moment, or who last performed the
job?’
Just by the interviewer’s reply, ‘Oh, it was a he or a she and
they were in their mid-thirties,’ you now know something
useful.

Your response might be, ‘And what were the things they did
that really impressed you?’
Once the interviewer has laid it out on a plate for you, all

you have to do is match your skills against their wish list. By all
means make notes, because he or she is giving you the five key
components of the job, and your task is now to demonstrate
that you are competent in each of those areas. As you do so,
subconsciously the interviewer will be sitting there ticking

o≠ those five critical components, thinking, ‘Oh, that’s quite
interesting, she can do this, she can do that.’ It will then be very
di≤cult for them to say afterwards that you are not right for the

job. Whenever you are able to, bring that question into play as
early as you can. If you leave it too long you might have talked
yourself out of the job by focusing on the wrong issues.
When I attend business meetings that are not interviews,
I use exactly the same technique. I arrive at the meeting and say,

‘Firstly, thank you for taking the time to see me. Can I ask you a
question: what are the three things you would like to achieve
from this meeting?’ The minute they tell me that, I can see the

entire landscape of their agenda and pick out the right path to
get to where I want to be.
Again, the whole skill lies in knowing the questions you
should be asking.

118 get the job you really want