I interviewed someone the other day for a client. A 15 minute screen went into 45 minutes of: "I did this. I did that. I was here. I was there. I know him. I know her...." Not once did the candidate ask anything about the client, the organization, the business plans or the opportunity. I literally had a migraine after the call. I learned only one thing about this candidate: He thought very highly of himself.
The candidate was not presented.
Two points:
First, there needs to be a balance between what you give yourself credit for, who around you gets some credit and what the organization as a whole did. Business is too complicated to be made up of a bunch of individual islands. For most, there is more value to individual plus the other people that help you out. ie: The sum of the whole greater than the sum of the parts.
Second, you must always try to gain an understanding from the interviewer as to what is important on their mind at the time you are talking. Of course you do your research up front. But you should always try to get the other person to talk and reveal key nuggets of information for you. Then you can use this information to scope your presentation of yourself properly.
Soon we will give you some techniques that you can use when interviewing to make sure that you put yourself in a position move forward.
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