Your Next Job Interview Should Be With Yourself

Too many people start a new job search without catching up with how they've changed since the last time they were looking for a job. Answer just a few questions for yourself and you'll have a better chance of making sure that the job you're looking for is the job that perfect for who you are now.

Everyone knows that when you’re about to embark on a new job search, that one of the first things you do is update your resume.   Assuming you had your last (or current) job more than three months, you’ve taken onboard new skills, experiences and connections that should be reflected in your new cv.  I know. It’s a drag to do this update process, especially if you might have gotten laid off and you’re not feeling at the peak of confidence. Still it must be done. And it’s not uncommon to have a sense of fresh discovery of how you’ve grown professionally after you review the result of the hard work you invested in developing your new resume.  So, you stand a good chance of being glad you went through the process.

 But that’s not the only thing that needs to be updated. You also need to update your entire sense of self and how your place in the world might have shifted when you weren’t looking. It’s entirely possible that you’ve outgrown yourself and you didn’t even realize it. Who could blame you? You were too busy working. And so, the first thing you need to do (maybe even before updating your resume…yes, now that I think of it, absolutely before you update your resume) is to have a little sit-down with your own self and see exactly what kind of candidate you have become when you weren’t looking.

 Here are some interview questions to get you started. If you’re like me, you might be tempted to skip this self-revelatory exercise (I do it all the time with self-help books). But don’t. It might be the most interesting interview of the batch. And the results could transform your job search project – maybe your entire future.

 Here are some suggested questions (familiar ones and a few fresh takes) to get you started on your self-interview.

 So. Tell me about yourself.  Don’t you just hate that question? I know I do. To me it’s the mark of a lazy interviewer who is probably busy wondering if he set Tivo properly this morning, rather than really hearing what you have to say.  But let’s play along with the game anyway. After all, you’re interviewing yourself. So you’d better listen up.

 What’s the most interesting thing you have to say about yourself? Certainly not what your education is and where you got your Bachelor’s. I know of one woman who got the job as a corporate consultant, not because of her Ivy League MBA, but because she spent her college summers at an Alaska fishery. A friend of mine right now is a volunteer administrator in Kenya for Medicins sans Frontiers (that would be Doctors Without Borders to most of us in the U.S.). As for me, I used to be a street musician in Georgetown, where I learned a lot about customer service and pleasing a crowd. And currently I envy my friend in Kenya.

 So what’s with you? What are you proud of? What’s the surprising thing about your past that might make you stand out in a crowd of applicants? What might enchant or engage the imagination of an interviewer?  How have you led your family into a new era of happiness? Education? Dream fulfillment?

If you can’t think of a thing…it’s time to notice that and start infusing your life with more interest. If you bore yourself, you’ll be boring to interviewers.

 What dream came true for you the last time you said yes to a job offer?   If you’re thinking, “uh, Martha, like, land a job?” okay, fair enough. What else?  Was it to keep your family together in the town you love?  Was it to work for a company you could be proud of? Was it to show your children what it means to responsibly hold down a job? Was it to build a specific skill set that you expected would pave a smoother future? Identify those enriching value-add features about your last job and talk about those when you start your for-real job interviews.

 Is that dream still valid for you? Maybe not. Maybe your kids have left home and you’re not so tied to a community with great public schools.  Maybe events in your life conspired to release you from constraints when you weren’t looking. And now you’re truly free to do anything, live anywhere you really want to.  How great is that?

 How are you feeling about the nature of work these days?  When the economy took a wild swing southward, so did the overall emotional climate of employees who increasingly felt victimized by bully bosses and betrayed by broken promises from companies that appear on Best Places to Work For lists.  Are you inclined to think that work is hell and the best thing you can do is just find the most tolerable version of  hell and hang tight until you can retire (which you might not any time soon anyway)?  If that feeling aptly describes your own attitude these days, it’s best to know now.  If you’re determined to cling tightly to that the belief, I’m not going to try to talk you out of it. But I would suggest that you seek out people who really do love their work and find out what their secrets are.  Build that positive body of knowledge around what’s possible for mere mortals like us (as opposed to movie stars and trust fund babies), and maybe your next job won’t be quite so bad.

 Are your job search skills up to date?  If the last time you looked for a job was anywhere between, say, 1998 and 2007, your expectations for speed and perfection (not to mention returned phone calls and responsible job boards) might be a little inflated. It’s not your fault. It’s just that things have changed since you last looked.  Of course, you know that intellectually, but experientially, your system might be in for a bit of a shock.  Be prepared to interview like it’s 1978 (ask your mom), with the Internet thrown in.

The effort that you put into this upfront self job interview could open up entirely new, and up to date, opportunities for you.  (If you end in Kenya, I'm going to be so jealous!)