Interview Danger - Don’t Be Oversold!

Pat Schuler

Pat Schuler was born in a humble log cabin, stolen by gypsies at an early age and raised by wolves, all of which served as excellent preparation for a 25-year career in sales and sales management in corporate America. She helps sales executives, managers and business owners salvage their investments by turning around sales reps in trouble. She makes a difference in an astonishingly short time. Seeing these sales reps flourish is the joy of what she does. www·geminipro·com

You are probably familiar with the metaphor that the job search is a sales process. This is even more true for the interview. No mystery here. You’re trying to persuade the interviewer that you’re the best fit, the best buying decision, with the highest potential Return on Investment (ROI) and the lowest potential risk. This is exactly what the best big-ticket (and best paid) sales people do every day. So why not take some lessons from them as you pursue your job search?

But there is a danger, something that more than 80% of us forget, especially in the later stages of interviewing.

Like a big-ticket sales person you’ve done your homework and you’re ready for another closing conversation.

• You know the industry or you’ve done extensive research on it, including informational interviews. If you’re changing industries or specialties it’s especially important to know the vocabulary and the acronyms that are common to the area. Failure to do so brands you as an outsider and a greater risk. At that point you need either to walk on water or you need to be a much cheaper hire to stay in the ru nning.


• You’ve researched the company and even the person you’re interviewing with. (We see that as many as 30% of sales professionals use Google to research the person they’re meeting with.) How often are you doing this when you interview?


• You know the problems and challenges of the industry and this particular company. As a candidate, how can you prove your potential value if you don’t know the problems you’ll be asked to solve? In sales jargon, these problems are called pains. Your entire value proposition is based on the problems you solve, the improvements you can make, the ways in which you simplify life – the pains which you eradicate! If you can’t understand these problems and speak to them, you have NO chance of closing the sale, in your case, of getting the job.


• You have your success stories (some as case studies or white papers) and accomplishments prepared so you can articulate your value. You can prove by example that you’ve already faced the challenges they’re facing, and you’ve won. Sales people come to any presentation prepared to tell the prospect about other clients who’ve successfully used their tools or services to solve the problem. Again this lowers the perceived risk of the interviewer and is your best opportunity to build a va lue case for hiring you. This demonstrates your probable return on investment or ROI. How good of a deal are you?


• You have references prepared and you either already know or you will learn what the interviewer hopes to hear from your references. What areas still cause her concern about you? In sales these would be the interviewer’s questions and objections which you have failed to address. Top sales people ask some version of the question, “What concerns do you still have?” “What have I missed?” “What else do you need to know, hear or see to feel that moving forward with me is a good decision?” Can this be a scary question? Absolutely! Failure to ask some version of it means you have dramatically lowered your odds of being selected. Asking the questions shows the interviewer you have a certain amount of courage and have nothing to hide. Ask – you’ll be amazed how often the interviewer will tell you specifically what her concerns are.


• You have ascertained in the initial phone interview (or at the l atest during the current interview) what sales people call the timeline. You have specifics on how they accomplish this hiring process and when they would like you in place solving problems and making money for them.


• You know you’re in the ball park for compensation. You’ve researched the industry and the norms in this particular company. Sales people call this determining the budget. Are there ways to sell beyond the budget? Certainly. With the right match of skills to the pains, the prospective employer could even create a position just for you.


• You are prepared to negotiate the best compensation possible. Sales professionals expect to negotiate. Most of us hate to negotiate. Some of us even feel it’s demeaning. After all, you think, they shoul d know how valuable you are and give you what you’re worth. You shouldn’t have to ask for it.


• Bottom Line: If you don’t negotiate, I guarantee you that at least 60% of the time, you are leaving money or benefits on the table. It could be yours, if you’re willing to ask questions and give good reasons for the higher compensation you have in mind.

Sounds like you’re prepared to ask for the order. In this case the order or deal is your next job. What have you missed? Why is your future at risk?

You’re in danger of being oversold! You may have heard it called being blue-skied. We are so busy selling, persuading and building value that we forget one very important fact – in most cases, the selling is a two-way street! The interviewers have been subtly (or not-so-subtly) selling you on the company and the position. Yes, I know, you occasionally run into the interviewer from the Jack Webb/Dragnet school of interviewing. (You know, the person whose face will crack and peel away if they smile or answer an y of your questions.) But those people are few and far between if you’re interviewing with the right people and not HR.

Over 90% of the time, you are being sold at least as hard as you are selling. This becomes more true the higher up the ladder you go i n your career.

How do I recognize I’m being oversold?

What might that sound like? You could be hearing legitimate benefits like an on - site daycare or fitness center, each of which has swayed hiring decisions of clients and associates. At a certain level, it could be membership in a country club or social club.

More insidious are the subtle cultural cues. Ever heard, “We’re a work hard, play hard group here at Universal InterGalactic!” My experience has been that this is code for “We work 12-14 hour days and everybody meets in the bar to drink heavily on Friday.”

For many of us, there’s something seductive about the work hard, play hard stance. Perhaps it’s the whole comrade in arms mentality. If you don’t do your research, you risk being oversold and finding yourself in a siege mentality instead.

Another version of being oversold might sound like “Join us on the Grand Crusade!” Also very seductive, especially for those who would like to make a difference in what we do. One former client increased h er workload by over 40% when she moved to a medical services company. She is happily working 12- and 13-hour days because she knows that her product saves lives. She is also being paid extremely well for doing so. She negotiated. The point is that some would not be prepared to make that trade for any amount of money.

One of the key areas where many of us are oversold is – you guessed it – compensation. If there is any element of incentive compensation, this is where we are most likely to be burned. Even serious sales professionals. Especially sales professionals. We always want to believe we’ve finally found the perfect compensation package that will reward us for all our hard work.

How do I keep from being oversold?
Here are some questions you might to ask:

Team bonus –

• Who qualifies as “The Team”?


• What’s the history?


• How many times in the last month/quarter/year have they been successful?


• What factors is the bonus designed to reward or incent?


• What factors can impact the numbers or ratios?


• What allowances are made for factors beyond your control? (Like equipment failure, a transportation strike or bad weather)


• Can one person destroy it for everyone? What does management do if this is a pattern?


New bonus/incentive –
• How is it structured?


• What problem is it designed to cure?


• Who designed it?


• What percentage of the team is expected to qualify for it?


• Based on historical data, what percentage of the potential participants would have qualified if this program had been in place last year?


• What’s changed since then?


• What are the challenges and obstacles to success?


• How could the program be affected by management decisions and/or industry trends?


Individual bonus/incentive –

• What are the specific criteria for success?


• What is the exact timeline? Be particularly aware of distinctions like booked vs. shipped!


• What percent of your peers qualified last period?


• What got in the way of those who failed to qualify?


• Ask to see examples of the reports that determine qualification and a list of those who qualified last period.

These questions may sound hard-nosed and as though you don’t trust the interviewer. Soften the questions and make them more diplomatic if that’s your personal style. Just make it very clear that you’re not taking bland assurances where your compensation is concerned. I’m not saying that an interviewer would deliberately mislead you, but you definitely want to protect yourself from their enthusiasm and overzealous view of your or the department’s future.

The stories from people who have been oversold would fill volumes. One of my favorites is the candidate who chose technology Company A over another because Company A had lakeshore cabins that the employees got to use for free! After the hire, he found out there was a complicated fo rmula based on seniority to determine who got their first choice of dates. New hires barely qualified at all. Free also didn’t include taxes the employee was expected to pay, which could amount to as much as $100 per day. No real surprises when you think about it, and still better than paying full price at a resort, but those facts took some of the luster from the candidate’s decision.

Another favorite compensation story is about a senior sales person who exceeded her multi-million dollar quota by 25%. She was very excited. This meant an extra bonus on top of her regular compensation, plus a trip for two to the Bahamas. Imagine her dismay when she found out that she qualified for neither the bonus nor the trip because she was short $25,000 in one of fo ur categories of products and services. She had not read the very fine print about specific amounts in each of the categories. She’d been working all year so she and her husband could qualify for the trip.

Bottom Line: What can you do to protect yourself?
You must know what’s important to you. The key to any successful negotiation (and successful job search) is to be very clear in your requirements: what’s important, what would be nice, and what’s a deal breaker. Being clear on this makes you much less likely to be oversold.

Have your questions prepared in advance. What do you most want to know? Are you ready for 13-hour days or is work/family balance one of your highest priorities? Ask gracefully about culture and a typical day. Use the behavio rbased style of questions the interviewers have been using on you.

What else can you do? One tactic is to interview those who will be your peers. These players are usually considerably more candid. They may not feel the need to do you any favors, but most will enjoy making certain you have an accurate picture of the terrain, especially if they feel they were oversold themselves.

Another tactic is to call into the sales department. Explain your mission to one of the sales people. You’re apt to get an accurate reading on how the manager and the department are viewed and a decent reading on the culture. You may need to promise that their confidentiality will be respected. They may have to work with the people you’re discussing and they won’t want a ny fallout.

Be on the lookout for what I call fluff words. You’ll find them in abundance in most conversations about compensation, benefits and responsibilities. They include: usually, frequently, probably, often, almost always, almost never. What do they sound like? You ask what percentage of your peers qualified for the bonus last quarter. What you hear is, “Why, just about everyone in the department who was really working made the cut.” If you listen closely, what you heard bears no relation to an answer to your question. What you want to hear is, “12 out of 17, or 70%.” If you can’t get specifics, don’t count on anything that’s being implied. Even if you have a history of beating the odds, in this case the game may be wired against you.

Finally, let’s ask why you are being oversold. As I said, it’s not because I think most interviewers deliberately mislead you. But look at the situation from the viewpoint of the interviewers:

• You and one or two others hold the hope for ending the interview nightmare.


• Most haven’t been trained to be effective interviewers.


• Interviewing is a huge dent in an already full schedule and you have potential.


• The position may have already been open for months.


• Everyone is tired of taking up slack for the open positio n and you look presentable.


• The interviewer is genuinely proud of the company and excited about what you could accomplish in the position.


• You’re seriously underpaid at your current company and you could save them thousands of dollars in budget money.


• They don’t know you borrowed rent money from your in -laws last month.


• They want you excited and eager so they can sell the dream when you balk at the low-ball offer they plan to make.

Sometimes candidates are concerned about rocking the boat and souring a potential employer on them. Your responsibility in the interview is not to submit to the Spanish Inquisition, but to ask questions as well. The truth is most interviewers respect questions if they’re handled diplomatically. In some cases failure to ask questions that are specific and incisive can disqualify you for the position. If you can’t ask them tough questions, how will you handle your peers, a challenging vendor or a problem employee?

You may be in a position where you really need the job. You’re living on your credit cards and the bills are piling up fast. You’re struggling to make ends meet and any job looks good. It’s tempting to take the first thing that’s thrown your way. You may even think it’s just a temporary solution.

If the little voice in the back of your head is trying to be heard, at least give it a hearing. You may be like the associate who was promised a corner office and her own admin. She arrived her first day to find she was sharing a conference room and a phone with three other people. This temporary situation lasted three months while her office was being built. How effective do you think she looked in her first ninety days?

Please, look before you leap. Ask the tough questions diplomatically. Don’t get enlisted for the crusade. Don’t confuse yourself with a nonprofit or volunteer. Make sure you check to see if you’re heading for the frying pan or your career could end up in the fire.