By Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter
EP 3138 There’s no point in being great at your day-to-day job if you don’t know how to play the interview game. Most people walk into the room blind to the actual rules and sabotage their chances by falling into early salary traps and giving robotic, canned answers before the first handshake. This episode breaks down the exact mistakes that cost you an offer and gives you a powerful framework to prove your value, reassure hiring managers, and get the money you deserve.
This is episode 3,138 of no-nonsense career advice radio. In this show, I’m going to discuss a few ways you might be shooting yourself in the foot. Well, let’s start there, because this sentence, is everything.
You can be an absolute genius at what you do, a complete rock star, but if you’re not good at interviewing skills all by yourself, well, you’ll never get the chance to prove it. Many candidates end up sabotaging themselves without any clues. Therefore, this interpreter is designed to teach you the skills you need to win the job search game.
We’ll start with this fundamental question, and then we’ll dive into some of the huge money mistakes people make in the first place. From there, we’ll discuss how to take control of the conversation, how to provide undeniable evidence of your worth, and we’ll end it all with a complete shift in the mindset of the person sitting across from you. Okay, section one, two skill questions.
Look, to win any game, you have to know what game you’re playing. That’s what this is all about, breaking down the fundamental challenges that every job seeker faces, whether they realize it or not. This is the core issue, right? Being good at your job has almost nothing to do with doing well in interviews.
The interview is a performance. This is a game with its own unique rules. If you don’t understand the rules, you’re basically at a huge disadvantage from the start.
Okay, let’s move on to the second bullet point, early game money mistakes. It’s all about protecting your negotiating power. Honestly, let’s consider the first and one of the most expensive mistakes you can make.
It usually happens on the initial phone screen. You know the problem, it always comes early. So what are your salary expectations? Answering this question directly is a trap.
When you give a number, you set an absolute upper limit on what you can possibly earn. You’ve lost almost all of your leverage before you have a real chance to show them your value. The solution is to completely flip their script.
So the key is to turn the problem around. You ask about their budget range. Now, if they do push you to go ahead, don’t give out your personal phone number.
Instead, you provide a researched scope of the market. You can design it like this. You know, based on my research on roles that have this type of responsibility, the market price seems to fall somewhere in the X to Y range.
I’m very confident that if we all agree that this is a good fit, we’ll be able to come up with a number that’s fair to everyone. Okay, section three. It’s a big deal and controls the conversation.
The goal here is to be proactive, not just reactive. Once you get past the initial screen, you have to master the art of dialogue itself. Remember, this is not an interrogation.
This is a conversation you need help guiding. Let’s start with a very common mistake. Use the generic script answers you find on some top ten interview question websites.
Come on, interviewers can smell canned answers a mile away. So what is the solution? I call it the best friend test. Imagine explaining your answer to your best friend.
This is your true core answer. Then you just need a little polish to achieve a professional setting. Now, when you give those awesome real answers, you have to keep an eye on the clock.
Let’s be honest, people’s attention spans are short. You basically have about 60 to 75 seconds to make your point before they start getting distracted. So you want to aim for simplicity and impact.
This is a crucial little vocal reminder. You must signal the end of your answer. Don’t just taper off and create this awkward silence.
Instead, you end your sentence with a distinct downward tone. It just sounds final and confident. It’s a small change that can make a huge difference in the flow of the conversation.
But okay, in addition to how to complete the answers, let’s talk about how to coach them. The best way to take control of a conversation is to be proactive. Don’t just sit back and wait for questions.
You guide them to your strengths. For example, tell me about yourself when they hit you with that classic song and you used that magic phrase to directly connect your past to what they need now. So now that you’ve directed the conversation to all the right topics, you have to deliver results.
Just saying you are good at something is not enough. You must provide cold, hard, undeniable evidence. Look, it’s totally useless to say that I’m a hard worker or that I’m a good team player.
This is a generality. General statements are forgotten as soon as they are uttered. What you need to do is use a specific amount.
We’re talking percentages, dollar amounts, quantities of things. You also tell compelling stories. Specificity is something ingrained in their brains.
That’s what makes it memorable. The SOAR framework is a very simple and powerful way to structure these stories. You just describe the situation, your goals, the actions you took, and this is the most important part, the results.
You must live in R zone. What real, practical impact does what you do have? But, you know, what do you do when they ask you something negative, like why you were fired or about a bad boss? For this, you can use the ABC tool. First, A, analyze why they ask.
This is often a test of your emotional intelligence. B is for simplicity. Keep the negative part of your story to 40 seconds or less.
C stands for circle. You surround this little negative fact with a bunch of positive lessons or consequences. But listen, frameworks like SOAR and ABC only work if practiced in the right way.
Just thinking about the answer in your head won’t do. You have to see them out loud. Better yet, record yourself on video.
Then you have to actually observe it. You’ll immediately notice any strange, distracting habits and can check to see if your energy levels are where they need to be. Finally, let’s talk about the interviewer’s deepest fears.
Understanding this requires a complete change in mindset about who you are really talking to in that room. Because spoiler alert, it’s not just about you. You might think that all the pressure is on you, but the reality is that interviewers are often just as nervous, if not more so.
Why is this? Because as stated here, hiring managers are institutionally scared. They are afraid of hiring bad people. That’s why they’re so scared.
A bad hire is an absolute disaster. It’s expensive. Very painful.
This costs companies a lot of money in terms of lost productivity, recruitment costs and training time. You name it. But more importantly, it makes recruiting managers look bad in the eyes of their own bosses.
They have a lot of skin in this game. So if you take one thing out of the whole thing, it’s this. The most important job in an interview is not just answering the questions.
It is to make the interviewer feel safe. Your job is to provide them with evidence, stories, and confidence that hiring you is the smartest, safest, lowest-risk decision they could possibly make. That’s how you win the game.
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About big game hunter Jeff Altman
People hire big game hunter Jeff Altman to provide no-nonsense career advice around the world because he’s done so much in people’s careers Easier. These matters may involve job hunting, Recruit more effectively, manage and lead better, career transition, and advice on solving workplace problems.
He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 job search podcast on iTunes with over 3,100 episodes.
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