I have attended several interviews over the past 6 years and my success or failure in getting an offer has almost always been determined by my ability to shift power dynamics in the room. As a career coach, I apply for and attend interviews regularly. In the past 12 months alone, I have attended 8 interviews with only one that did not convert to an offer. That interview also happened to be the one in which I lost my “power”. I allowed myself to be flustered by an unrelated question about my age that made me look defensive and jolted. While there are several roles for which my application may not get me a call-back,when I do get an interview, be it technical or behavioral, 7 times out of 8 it leads to a job offer. This is not a brag, but rather a science that my career coach shared with me- one that anyone can access and perfect over time. But this skill is rarely taught in schools and frequently overlooked by young professionals. For many, like me, who have received our formative education on the African continent, unlocking the science of impeccable interviews is even more challenging. This is because many of the principles for successful interviewing like creativity, curiosity, structuring and framing thoughts are not core to our traditional learning methods.
In addition to attending several interviews and supporting clients to prepare for several more, I have also had the privilege of being on the other side of the table, interviewing several individuals in case interviews for consulting jobs, and even supporting companies in the banking, education and technology sectors with hiring. In all these experiences, I have found the interview to be one of the easiest platforms through which you can secure a job. Regardless of how creative the interviewers are, I have only ever been asked two questions in all my interviews. The two questions every hiring manager wants to know are 1) Who are you? and 2) Why should we hire you? I hear you lamenting that in 2002, you were asked how many tennis balls fit into a Boeing 747 and the sheer panic of the experience has since put you off interviews . I, too, have been asked tricky and unexpected questions. Most recently when applying for a role in an education foundation, I was asked about my knowledge of the relationship between the price of oil, the value of the naira and investments in pharmaceuticals. Yet, I still hold on to my statement that the hiring manager was only asking me one of the two questions that every hiring manager asks.
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I call tricky, unexpected or technical types of questions, 3rd tier questions. Most of these 3rd tier questions are asked because the interviewer wants to answer a 2nd tier question, such as “how does the candidate think about problems?” Other 2nd tier questions are there to gauge how you structure things, how you communicate, and how you behave in difficult scenarios where there is conflict or pressure. All 2nd tier questions are fundamentally asked to answer the critical tier 1 questions- Who are you and why should we hire you? Quite simply interviewers want to know the price of oil in the market because they want to know how you think about the current affairs in the world and they want to know how you think, because they believe that will more accurately demonstrate – who you are and why they should hire you.
Since third tier questions are the most difficult to predict, I always advise preparing for technical topics before any interview. However, the second and first tier questions that we often neglect are the true game changers. The reason for this is that, typically, your propensity to answer third tier questions is already tested by your background, your application and your resume. Hiring managers will rarely invite you to the interview if they don’t believe you already have the basic credentials and expertise for the role. It is for this reason that you will get higher returns investing in detailed and optimal responses for tier one questions on who you are and why they should hire you. The good news is you know the answer to those questions better than any interviewer. You know who you are and therefore you know what kind of value you can bring. You are a walking “cheat sheet” to your own interview.
That is the good news! The tricky part however, is that interviews also happen to be the place where hiring managers can make judgments about you based on a number of factors that are unrelated to the role. The well reference Case and Paxson study shows that “for both men and women…an additional inch of height [is] associated with a one to two percent increase in earnings.” https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/09-139_10bce2ab-9752-4576-ad79-c504ea15478c.pdf Other more widely accepted correlations encourage interviewees to wear neutral colors to interviews to ward off potential judgement about appearance and character based on dress. Even the sound of your voice, the grip of your handshake (or confidence of your elbow bump or head nod in these COVIDial times) can pass a signal to the employer about who you are that could be wrong. Particularly for historically marginalized groups, the interview is an important battle ground to mute those judgments and point decisively to who you are and the quality you can bring to the role. What I will say next may sound idyllic, but it is the truth. Shifting the power disequilibrium is critical for a successful job interview. In fact, if there should be any disequilibrium it should tilt in favor of the candidate. It is true that the employer owns the job, but the job is not a person sitting in the room discouraging or taunting you. The job is an outcome distant from the other important elements in the room. It is those elements that dictate where the power lies during the interview.
So, what do you have in every interview room? First you have time. It may not be much time, but in the average interview you will speak 2 to 3 times longer than your interviewers. Your time is powerful and you can use it to reframe and pace the conversation- to show the interviewer your value. In addition to time, you have the subject matter of the conversation. You have brought to the interview the single thing the interviewer would like to know most about. You have brought yourself, your knowledge, your background and your experiences and the interviewer really wants to know about you. It is like you have entered an open book exam. You are the book, so begin to strategically open up and present the most clear and accurate answers to the questions that show your fit for the role.
Even when you have the time to frame your narrative and are most intimate with the knowledge of all your experiences, there is of course one critical piece that the interviewer knows much more about than you do. The interviewer typically knows more about the organization and the role. Typically, though not always, the person interviewing you has a clear sense of the demands of your role. Sometimes he or she knows exactly how they would like to leverage your skills for their own professional advancement. At the very least, your interviewer knows more about the organization and what it is like to work in it. This power is fortunately one of the easiest to gain additional knowledge on, even as an outsider. To better know the role you are applying for, you should find an individual who has done a similar role before (ideally in the same organization). Take time to understand not just the opportunities but the challenges of the role. Ask the individual about the mistakes they made, the ways they failed and lessons they learned. Understand what were some of the key technical gaps and common pitfalls. Ask about gender dynamics, race and other potential discriminators. Deepen your knowledge of the role to reclaim the power in the room and select some questions for your interviewer that will help you reestablish power.
Interviews are a great platform to reclaim power in the job search process that typically favors employers. I always encourage clients to invest in mock interviews to prepare. The interviewer only knows about the role/the company and the job of a good interviewee is not simply to equalize, but to flip the power dynamics of the interaction. The employer is typically more excited to hear your responses than he or she is to ask the questions and give you more information about the company. They want to understand what you bring to the table and each interaction deepens their interest and willingness to engage. In this scenario you have the power to divulge the information you believe will best position you for the role. By all means, do use it.
Vivia Ojo
Vivian has consulted with some of the largest international development, educational and corporate organizations across the world and with several African Governments focusing on people and capability building. She has worked on business strategy and job placements with McKinsey and Company, MasterCard Foundation, and African Leadership Academy. She is a board member of United World Colleges Nigeria and a member of Umsizi Fund’s peer learning network that convenes over 30 employment placement organizations from around the world including Harambee, Generation, and Education for Employment. She has a longstanding passion for transforming the African education to employment landscape. She has done work on this as part of her Masters in Public Policy from Oxford University and has been published on the topic in the Harvard Africa Policy Journal among others.
