I received an email from Dennis, a Kenyan Skilled Migrant to Australia. Like many new skilled migrants to Australia he was experiencing panic and desperation. Money was running out and he feared that he and his family would be homeless despite the fact that he was a highly qualified IT professional with two Masters degrees and over eight years work experience.

We setup a skype call and talked a lot! Our main topic of conversation was his state of mind. Dennis told me that he had over thirty interviews, was making second round interviews but never making it to a job offer.

Dennis was pretty down as he thought he was failing. I asked him to rethink the way he was looking at things from an emotional and more objective standpoint. I thought of a good analogy,

“What if you came second in the Olympics one year, Would you be disappointed?”

Dennis paused and then said no he wouldn’t be disappointed. I helped Dennis realise he was so close he should not be thinking in terms of failure at all.

Dennis started to see things differently, what did he need to do to win the gold medal (by landing a job). The answer was right there…PREPARE MORE.

I helped him celebrate the fact that he had successfully landed so many interviews. Dennis was so close to his goal, now was not the time to view his results to date as failures.

Dennis had another interview the following day. I went through the organisations website to see what he knew about them. It was clear he did not know enough about the organisation he was hoping would hire him. 

If you meet a client for a business meeting you try and learn as much about them as possible. Yet when you are interviewing most people think a 30 minute review of the company website is enough.

What will separate you from your competition at an interview is a deeper understanding of the company who may hire you. What you need to know is their business drivers, competitors, what projects they have running now and their overall strategy and mission. The majority of this can be googled or found through research. Take the time to learn more and stand out from the crowd at interview.

Back to Dennis, we talked for over two hours and I reminded him that for the company that was interviewing him next they did not know what had happened in the past. They are only interested in his future. It was essential he lift his mood and not carry the energy of the past into his new interview. He had to let it go so that he could succeed. Being present is an essential part of succeeding at interview.

A few days later I got a skype message from Dennis 

Hi Ailis. Just a quick update. I actually got the job offer. Unbelievable!

The hair on the back of my neck stood up, Dennis had won his gold medal!