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Persuading Others: A Simple Move for Acing Your Next Interview, with Robert Cialdini
One of the things that I try to talk about in the book Pre-Suasion is how it can be used in the workplace. And, of course, the first thing we have to recognize is that this might help us get into the workplace. It might allow us an advantage in getting a job the one that we want.
Typically when we go into a job interview we know that there will be an evaluator there. Sometimes it will be a small team of people who will be evaluating the various candidates and what we always say to them is, “I’m very happy to be here. I want to answer all of the questions that you might have of me.” I’m going to recommend that we say something else before we begin the interview. And that is to say, “But you know, I wonder if you could answer something for me? Why did you invite me here today? What was it about my resume that attracted you to my candidacy?” And what we will have done is to cause people to now search into our evidence for our strengths, for the things that recommend us to them most effectively.
I have a colleague, he’s not a colleague it’s an acquaintance, who claims that he’s gotten three straight better jobs by using this small persuasive tactic. And he says it’s even the case that in a couple of the instances when there were a committee of people evaluating him one person would answer, “Well, it’s because your background and experience was the strongest thing for me.” But he also would say, “Well actually for me it was that your statement fits best with our value statement. You seem to value the same things that fit with what this company is all about.” And then the two of them started to argue as to which was the strongest reason for bringing him in. It was all good and he got the job.