Chapter 1: What mindset shifts are crucial for successful interviewing?
Welcome back to Aspire.
Today, we're kicking off with a special series that I've wanted to make for the longest time, the Career Goals Guide. Now, this series is about giving you practical tools to navigate every stage of your career, whether you're just starting out or preparing to enter the C-suite one day.
Now, I wanted to bring you this series because so many of us spend precious time looking for mentors and professional advice, the kind of thing that you just can't chat GPT your way through.
So I've spent time with my team breaking down the areas where so many of us are doing the work but aren't always taught how to navigate the moments that actually shape our opportunities, our confidence, our real growth and our earning potential.
Now, over the next few weeks, we're going to cover the topics that most impact our professional lives, from negotiation to leadership to career pivots and wealth building. But today, or today, ladies, we are starting with interviewing. So why interviewing? Because it's the entry point. It is the first positioning moment. It's where your clarity, confidence, and judgment are all tested.
And if you can't get your foot in the door, then what are we even talking about here? Now, it is crazy to me that no one gets taught how to interview. And if you're really good at interviewing, you actually don't do that many of them.
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Chapter 2: How can candidates effectively research a company before an interview?
So while none of us are formally taught, there's actually a lot of moments in our lives when we need to interview for a new job, for entry into school, for board positions or even leadership opportunities. Now, I've been on both sides of the table. I have interviewed for roles and I've conducted hundreds and hundreds of interviews. So I know a good one.
And I've spent a lot of time breaking down the anatomy of a great interview. What I want you to know out of the gate is that interviewing is great. a learnable business skill. And yet most people treat interviews like some mystical personality test. You either have it or you don't. You're either good at interviews or you're not. The job is either for you or it's not for you.
And that, my loves, that's bullshit. Great interviewing is a system. And the problem is nobody teaches the system.
So today, based on all of my interviewing experience, I'm going to walk you through exactly how top candidates think, how they prepare, how they speak, and how they actually position themselves so that you are not begging for opportunities, but so you can evaluate companies while they are evaluating you. Because let me tell you, we career girlies, we don't audition, we choose.
Chapter 3: What is the significance of understanding a role's hidden pain?
The Start With Yourself Tour kicks off on April 15th in New York City.
Now, before we start, let me offer you a quick reframing. Interviews are decision-making moments, not just conversations or Q&A sessions. The goal is not to be perfect. The goal is to be understood and to demonstrate your suitability for that role. Let me start with something I need every person listening to hear. Interviewing is actually not about being likable. It's not about being charming.
It's not about being perfect. So you have to start here. Start with yourself and take some time to really get clear about why you're interviewing for the role in question in the first place. This is actually going to shape everything else you do. So first, let me tell you the biggest interview lie. You think if I just show them that I am passionate and hardworking, then they'll see my potential.
No, absolutely not.
Chapter 4: How can storytelling enhance interview responses?
Hiring managers are not hiring potential. They're actually hiring solutions. Most open roles exist because something's broken, something is slow, something is leaking money, something isn't scaling, like something in that organization is just chaotic. Even if the role in question might be a straight replacement for someone who's moved on
Any good company will actually be trying to hire for that former person's weaknesses and actually to increase the productivity or solve a problem. Because like it or not, whenever somebody leaves a company, management will always see it as an opportunity to optimize. Are you the optimization that they seek? Now that's the question.
Therefore, in that situation, your only job in the interview is to help decision makers place you. An interview is not about you recounting your resume. And let me tell you, I cannot wait to get out of an interview when someone wants to read me their resume word for word. That is a snooze fest. But here's what you should do instead. You have to prove that you understand the problem.
And then you've got to prove that you can solve the problem.
Chapter 5: What strategies should candidates use to discuss failure in interviews?
That's it. Pure and simple. It's not your life story, not your trauma, not your childhood dream, unless it's like really, really super relevant. Solutions only, please. And I promise you that that mindset shift alone will actually put you in the top 10% of candidates. So let's get started on the actual tangible steps. Step one, I want you to research like a strategist, not a student.
Most people's idea of research is not that. They skim the website, they read the about page, they kind of scroll on LinkedIn for a hot minute, but that's amateur hour and it isn't sufficient for high performers. High performers actually research in layers and there are four layers. The first one is about the business model. Now, a high performer will look at the business model in depth.
They'll figure it out. They'll say, how does this company actually make money? Is it a subscription?
Chapter 6: How can understanding salary negotiation impact your career?
Are they direct to consumer? Do they run ads? What's the service offering? And how do they charge for it? Where is the majority of the revenue coming from? Now, if you don't know how a company makes money, you simply cannot be valuable to them. So you have to learn that piece.
The second thing, you need to understand the stage that the company's at because each stage values very, very different skills. And during an interview, you are in the business of maximum understanding and demonstrating your suitability. So this is one place where you get to do that. You have to ask yourself before you go in, are they an early startup? Are they scaling after a period of growth?
Or is this a mature business or a declining one? If a business is an early stage startup, they're going to value scrappiness. Someone who is willing to wear multiple hats and have a do whatever it takes mentality.
Chapter 7: What questions should candidates ask to demonstrate leadership potential?
I am telling you, every business that I have ever started, the type of people that you're looking for in the beginning are just those who are oozing the idea that they want to come in and help and they'll do anything to make this company a success. That's what you want.
But it's very different if a business is scaling, then they're going to value someone who understands growth, understands integrating new systems. And for a mature business, it's all about optimization and so on and so on. So know what type of business you're walking into. Then you have to articulate your understanding of the business and position your skills for the stage of the company.
That's going to be a huge win because it demonstrates a broad understanding of the business needs outside of just the role that you are interviewing for.
And what you really need to know is that the way managers look at things, this idea of T-shaped leaders, those that can see the bigger picture and demonstrate an understanding of the needs of the company outside of their core competency or their division, those people are always going to be the most highly valued.
Put simply, all that means is if you know what you do and you understand what that person over there does and a little bit what that person over there does and a little bit about what the company is trying to do, you will ultimately be always more valuable to the company. Now, the third
thing you can do is ensure that you understand the competitive landscape familiarizing yourself with the business's competitors and understanding exactly what makes this company different is super important you don't need industry expertise but you do need to show an interest in their business or the space or the category Now, remember what I said about not reciting your resume word for word.
This is where you can create conversation mid-interview and actually show up as who you are, your personality and all the things, but with relevancy to the hiring process. By you saying a little off-the-cuff remark about one of the competition, offering your thoughts on that, you actually position yourself as somebody who really understands what they're
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Chapter 8: How can a strong follow-up strategy influence interview outcomes?
I had a candidate very recently, an interview with a candidate for a senior design role, and he was a very, very skilled designer with an incredible resume. But it actually seemed to me like he was living in a total vacuum. When I said that his designs reminded me of X, he said he hadn't heard of them. I was like, fair enough. Maybe my reference is off.
When I asked him who in our category he admired, he cited our company and the company that he was currently at, his current employer. Okay, I thought. Finally, I asked him what launch had impressed him in the last few years, and he couldn't name one. Now, this was either one of two things, arrogance or just a complete lack of knowledge. And frankly, I don't want either on my team. Now,
I'm not saying that you need to do like a deep and meaningful data mining exercise, but you owe it to yourself to show up having an opinion and a point of view on the business so that you're in a situation. It's not like a nice to have, this is just a must have. The next thing that I'm going to suggest is that you try your very best to learn exactly what they're hiring for within the interview.
And this is what I like to think of as the idea of like the role's hidden pain. Job descriptions are really sanitized, but behind every bullet point is something that the organization is actually trying to solve for. If the job description says they're looking for strong communication skills, it's likely because people keep misunderstanding things.
If they ask for the ability to work cross-functionally, that equals the teams don't talk to each other. Your job is to decode this by asking really thoughtful questions. What problem made you open this role? Where do people usually struggle? These are good examples of great questions. Now, I want you to turn all of the research into interview ammunition, because this is where most people stop.
And top candidates, well, they go one step further. Top candidates turn the research into points of view and conversational topics during the interview process. Let me give you a little example. You could offer something like this. I noticed you're expanding into new categories. Usually that creates operational challenges around the calendar and around the approval process.
And I've dealt with that. And then you're going to give an example. You say, I've dealt with that. And by working closely with X, Y, and Z, I saw da, da, da, da, da. That's the way you do it. Or you say something like this. I saw you recently launched a solution for whatever it might be. At my last company, that stage was where retention becomes really fragile.
So I'd be curious how you're thinking about that. Notice what you're doing here. You're already operating inside the business. In your interview, this completely positions you differently. It positions you as a peer and not a hopeful applicant.
And there is strong research that shows that interviewers rate candidates as more competent when they demonstrate a contextual understanding of the company's specific challenges. So try it. Do a little Emma. Practice in the mirror. You know how much I love to do that. It's not silly and it's definitely not overkill. It's actually trying and everyone loves a trier.
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