Are you prepared to Enter The Dragon?
Jiu Jitsu students learn to use their opponent’s energy to defeat them. Savvy candidates can use a similar technique during their interviews. I am not advocating throwing your interviewer to the ground. Learning Interview Jiu Jitsu can help candidates leverage the energy that the interviewer has around specific parts of the job.
Let’s say you are interviewing for a Chief Commercial Officer role. You are going to interview with multiple functions across the organization. Every interviewer during the interview process has at least one element of the role that they consider really important. For Human Resources, it may be is the candidate a good people manager. The CEO may want to know that you would be able to present solid commercial strategies to the board. The CFO may want to know that you fully understand EBITDA, and so on.
However, one never knows what each interviewer is most interested in knowing. So that is why one of the most important questions to ask of every interviewer is “What are some of the things that you would like me to accomplish in this role in the next 6 to 12 months?” After the interviewer has revealed what they personally feel is most important in the role, this is where Interview Jiu Jitsu comes in.
Let’s say the interviewer wants you as their new Chief Commercial Officer to create and execute a new Go To Market strategy that will enable the company to meet their revenue growth target of 10%. Interview Jiu Jitsu masters will respond by saying to the interviewer by saying “I have successfully done something very similar to that at ABC company. Would you like me to tell you about it?”
Of course, the interviewer is going to say yes. And then, you can wow them with a STAR response that illustrates your success. To the interviewer you will have distinguished yourself as someone who has the right skills, experience and has successfully addressed that interviewer’s #1 concern.
That, my friends is Interview Jiu Jitsu! Become a master at it!
PS. For any of you Martial Arts purists, Bruce Lee did incorporate Jiu Jitsu in his fighting style!