Imagine you walk into a car dealership looking for a new vehicle. Before you’ve said much more than hello, the salesperson launches into a pitch.
“This baby has 375 horsepower! Premium leather! An upgraded sound system! You’re going to LOVE it.”
Cool.
Except you have three kids, two dogs, and a camping habit. You came in looking for an SUV.
The salesperson is so busy telling you why the car is impressive that he never bothers to find out what you actually need.
Would you buy from him?
Probably not.
Yet people essentially do the same thing in job interviews all the time. They walk in prepared to talk about themselves: “I’m looking for an opportunity to grow.” “I really want to get into management.” “I’m excited to take on bigger projects.” “I’m looking for a company where I can advance.”
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. You should want to grow, enjoy your work, and find opportunities that move your career forward.
But what does any of that have to do with the person hiring you?
You’re selling a sports car to someone who needs an SUV.
Think Like a Marketer
My background in marketing has profoundly influenced how I approach interview preparation.
Good marketing isn’t about shouting, “Look how great this product is!” It starts with understanding the person you’re talking to. What do they need? What problem are they trying to solve? What matters to them? What might prevent them from saying yes?
Once you understand those things, you can determine whether what you’re offering meets their needs and communicate the connection.
Interviewing works the same way.
The hiring manager isn’t interviewing you because they’re deeply invested in your desire for professional growth. They’re interviewing you because they have work that needs to get done. Maybe they need to increase sales, build a team, streamline a broken process, launch a new product, improve customer retention, or bring some order to complete chaos.
Whatever it is, your first job is to figure out what they need.
That sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people walk into interviews without doing much research beyond a quick glance at the company’s website and rereading the job description. They prepare to talk about themselves without first determining which parts are actually relevant to the conversation. It’s the exact same mistake I see on resumes constantly, which is why tailoring your resume to the job description and preparing for the interview turn out to be the same muscle, just used at two different moments in the process.
I want you to do the opposite.
Before an interview, read the job description again, but this time, don’t read it as a job seeker asking, “Do I qualify?”
Read it like a marketer asking, “Why do they need this person?”
Look for clues. What are the three or four things this person absolutely needs to accomplish? Which responsibilities appear repeatedly? What seems particularly important? What problems might be hiding underneath the corporate language?
Suppose a job description says the new hire will “build scalable processes to support a rapidly growing organization.”
You could read that and think, “Great! I have process-development experience.”
Or you could go a step further and wonder why a rapidly growing company suddenly needs someone to build scalable processes. Maybe things are messy. Maybe processes that worked with 30 employees are falling apart with 100. Maybe different departments are doing the same thing five different ways. Maybe leadership is spending too much time putting out fires.
You don’t know yet.
But now you have a hypothesis, and that’s much more useful than simply knowing you check the “process development” box.
This Isn’t Just an Interview Skill
If this hypothesis-forming approach sounds familiar, it’s the same thing I ask clients to do with their resumes, long before an interview is ever on the calendar. A resume that simply lists “process development” as a skill is doing exactly what our car salesperson did: describing the horsepower without asking what the buyer needs it for. That’s the whole idea behind the one thing recruiters actually want to see on a resume: evidence tied to a need, not just a list of things you’ve done. If your resume and your interview answers are both built around the same discipline of “what do they need, and where’s my proof,” you walk into the room with a consistent story instead of two disconnected pitches.
Listen for What They Really Need to Know
This way of thinking continues once the interview starts.
Suppose the interviewer asks, “Tell me about a time you had to deal with resistance to change.”
A lot of candidates hear the question and immediately start searching their mental files for the STAR story they practiced the night before.
Instead, take a moment to consider why the interviewer might be asking.
Maybe this team is going through a major transformation. Maybe the person in this role will have to introduce new processes to people who have been doing things the same way for 15 years. Maybe the last person in the position had great ideas but couldn’t get anyone to adopt them.
The literal question is about resistance to change, but what the interviewer may really need to know is, “Can I trust you to get people on board when they don’t initially agree with you?”
Now you can choose an example that gives them evidence.
This is why I don’t want my clients walking into interviews with a bunch of canned answers. I want them walking in with an understanding of what the organization needs and a collection of experiences that demonstrate their ability to provide it.
If they need someone who can bring order to chaos, show them when you’ve done that. If they need someone who can influence executives, provide evidence. If they’re hiring someone to rebuild a struggling team, think about times you’ve developed people, improved morale, addressed performance issues, or fostered a healthier culture.
You’re still talking about yourself, of course. The difference is that you’re selecting what you share based on what will be most useful to the person listening.
That’s marketing.
Different People, Different Needs
It’s also worth remembering that “the interviewer” is rarely just one person with one set of needs. A recruiter, a hiring manager, and a future teammate are often sitting in on the same process while quietly evaluating you against completely different criteria. I’ve written before about how recruiters and hiring managers need different things from you, even in the same interview loop. Thinking like a marketer means noticing who’s actually asking the question, not just what the question is.
And Here’s Where This Gets Even More Powerful: You Don’t Have to Guess
Ask.
If you suspect the company is struggling to scale its processes, you might say, “It sounds like the organization has grown pretty quickly. What are some of the challenges the team has experienced as a result of that growth?”
Then listen to the answer.
You may discover that your hypothesis was completely wrong, which is useful information! Or, they may describe a problem that’s remarkably similar to something you’ve handled before.
Now you can say, “That’s interesting. I inherited a similar situation at XYZ Company…”
At that point, you’re no longer throwing accomplishments at the interviewer and hoping something sticks. You’re talking about a problem they actually have and sharing relevant information about how you’ve handled a similar situation.
That’s a very different interview.
Get Out of Your Own Head
When I talk about empathy in interviewing, I’m not talking about being warm and fuzzy. I’m talking about developing the discipline to get outside your own head.
Job seekers understandably spend a tremendous amount of mental energy thinking about themselves. Do they like me? Was that a good answer? Am I talking too much? Do I have enough experience? Am I going to get the job?
Meanwhile, there’s another human being sitting across from you trying to make a difficult decision.
Think about them.
What do they need to know to feel confident moving you forward? What might concern them? What information would be most useful? What should you ask so you can better understand their situation?
The funny thing is that focusing on being helpful also leaves you with less mental space to obsess over how you’re perceived. You’re not sitting there trying desperately to be impressive. You’re listening, thinking, connecting dots, and sharing useful information.
That tends to make for a much better conversation.
It’s also why your most impressive accomplishment isn’t necessarily the best one to share. Your favorite story may not be your most useful story. The thing you’re proudest of may have absolutely nothing to do with the problem this company needs you to solve.
Relevance beats impressiveness.
Relevance Beats Impressiveness, Even on Paper
This same principle is exactly why I push clients to rewrite their resume summary for relevance instead of just cramming in their proudest achievements. If you’ve ever wondered how to write a resume summary that actually gets interviews, the answer is the same lesson as this one: lead with what they need to see, not with what you’re most proud of. The two aren’t always the same thing, and a hiring manager only has time for one.
Remember Our Car Salesperson?
Maybe that sports car really does have 375 horsepower. Maybe it’s spectacular.
It still doesn’t hold three kids, two dogs, and a weekend’s worth of camping gear.
The best salespeople don’t begin by pitching whatever they happen to have on the lot. They first understand what the customer needs, and then they determine whether they have something that fits.
Approach your next interview the same way. Research deeply enough to form hypotheses about what the company needs. Read between the lines of the job description. Listen for what’s underneath the interviewer’s questions. Ask questions that help you understand the situation more clearly. Then share the parts of your experience that demonstrate how you can help.
In other words, stop asking:
“What do I want them to know about me?”
Start asking:
“What do they need to know about me?”
That shift from me to you is one of the foundational principles I teach in Nail Job Interviews because once you make it, nearly everything about how you prepare for and participate in an interview changes.
And suddenly, you’re not the salesperson shouting about horsepower anymore.
You’re the person who bothered to ask where they wanted to go.
Want Help Learning How to Approach Your Next Interview This Way?
I’m Kyla Duffy. Learn more about Nail Job Interviews and working with me at kyladuffy.com. You can find more strategies like this one on the blog.
