“To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.” – St Catherine of Siena
The interview is broken down into several parts, from the introduction, followed by the interviewer’s brief overview of the company, to the interviewer checking you are a suitable candidate, questioning you to extract what value you can add to the company, to the interview close.
Throughout the interview you will have used a variety of techniques to increase your chance of the interviewer realising you are the ideal person for this position. At the interview close stage, you need to close the deal, to finally ensure the interviewer will choose you.
But, first you need to understand why people want what they can’t have. Scarcity makes us want a product more, which is why collector’s items are so valuable – there’s not that many of them. I have a friend who collects album covers with faults; the guitarist jacket is the wrong colour, a name is spelled wrong. These items are worth quadruple the price of a normal collector’s item even though the product was wrongly produced, the value is in the fact that this item is unique, one of a kind. And it’s being one of a kind, a unique item that will secure you a job offer.
If you have followed the rules in this book, so have already sold your unique selling point and highlighted on several occasions the value you will bring to the organisation, so all that is left is to make yourself scarce.
If I was selling a necklace, I would put a big sign in my shop window saying “Ruby Necklace Only 10 Remaining” if I was selling an old comic I might say “Limited Edition Superman Comic Only 100 Ever Produced” but when making yourself look scarce at a job interview you need a different tack, but the psychology remains the same – the interviewer doesn’t want to miss out.
With the interview being highly impressed with you, mainly due to your new selling skills or by you embedding commands into your interview answers, telling him to recruit you, you next need to highlight that you are not freely available and you can do this in two ways:
- At some point towards the end of the interview, explain how you are under pressure from other companies to accept a job offer “Thank you for inviting me to the interview today; I have really enjoyed meeting you and learning more about your organisation. I have a hard decision now, I’m really impressed with the vision you have for the company and I can see myself fitting in here really well, but a company that interviewed me last week is pushing for me to accept their job offer” this is highly effective, especially when it sounds of the cuff and as if you really talking to yourself out loud.
- A different version is to use a similar line to highlight that you have 3-4 job interviews lined up. “Thank you for today, I’m really impressed with your company I have several other interviews lined up this week for similar positions I hope they can match your high standards”
Remember by this stage of the interview, the employer is already highly impressed with you, all you are doing here is saying, “Look I’m not going to hold out for this job” if you have done your homework and the interview has gone as planned, the interviewer will want to hire you anyway, but they can’t as they have to follow their company policies and procedures and interview the other 4-5 candidates that made it through the first round of CV’s and application forms, and now they have the fear that an opponent company may snatch you up first, making them want you even more.
By highlighting how you can add value to whichever organisation you accept a job offer from, the current interviewer or their competition, you are now taking the interviewer on an emotional journey.
Taking them on a high when they realise how they can turn your skills into profit and down to a low when they realise that a competitive organisation is still in with a chance of recruiting you. emotional journey will add to your unforgettable performance, but as we started on a high, you need to end on a high….
