Learn how to stress your skills in an interview.
- You need to express your skills as benefits to the employer as opposed to expressing them as features.
- In an employment interview:
- Feature: “I’m an experienced finance professional. In my role as finance manager at XYZ company, I implemented several restructuring initiatives”.
- Benefit:As a result of the implementation of the restructuring initiatives I proposed, the company managed to achieve a 10% decrease in COGS, a 10% increase in operating margin, and a 50 to 30 days reduction in DSO”.
- Stress any skills that you have which they don’t. That gives you an enormous ability to influence them. If for example, you know how to create a viral marketing program on YouTube and they wouldn’t have a clue of how to do it, you will have much greater leverage.
- Find out what problems the employer has. If you can convince them that you have the skills to solve a problem, they will want you to start quickly.
- Talk about problems that you’ve solved on previous assignments until they feel comfortable revealing their problems.
(See HOW TO STAND OUT card)