Tag: interview

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Stress Test

My nephew just completed the first 90 days of his new career in the high-risk insurance industry. The interesting thing is he almost didn’t have the opportunity to take on this new role after spending six years in real estate. After several interviews at various levels of the company, he met with the founder. Everything went well until he got up to leave.

That’s when the key decision-maker looked him in the eye and said: “Ryan, when I was in your position, I would finish an interview and wonder, ‘Where do I stand?’ So I want to let you know what I’m thinking. To succeed in our business, we need people who are 10s. I see you as a five. That’s not meant to hurt your feelings, just to let you know I’m not sure you’ll make it here.”

Although caught off-guard, Ryan said, “Well, I respectfully disagree and hope you’ll reconsider.” They shook hands and parted. After a few hours, Ryan had time to digest the unexpected ending, so he wrote a polite email to this gentleman outlining why he sees himself as a 10 and exactly what he would do to prove that. The next day he received an offer.

A few weeks after starting at the company, Ryan was sharing this story with a couple of veteran salesmen. They smiled and told him the founder did the same thing after their interviews. “He gave you a five?” one of them said. “All I got was a four.”

Successful salespeople have to be comfortable overcoming deflection and rejection. This veteran leader utilizes a unique interview technique to test candidates. Is there something similar your company could adopt to see who rises to the top and responds appropriately?

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A Look Back In Time

One of the necessary skills for being a sports television producer is having the ability to back-time a broadcast off the air. That means if your designated off-time is 4:58:30 p.m. EDT and it’s 4:55:08, you have to quickly recognize you have 3:22 to conduct an interview with the player of the game or winning coach, get in the last two 60-second commercials, and have the announcers smoothly wrap up as you count down, “5-4-3-2-1-black.”

Having lived that life from 1981-’95, I find those particular talents come in quite handy in the business world. First, I’m seldom late for anything. In sports television, you’re judged on two things: how you got on and off the air, and what the other three hours looked like. It’s pretty much 50/50 on the grading scale, so you learn to be on time and on your game. Second, I break down big projects into small pieces and typically get them done as scheduled. That ability likely comes from knowing that in a football game you had four commercial breaks each quarter, so you learned to think and communicate in terms of ‘here’s what we’ll do during the next segment.’

You don’t have to have worked in television to become more efficient. The key to improvement is to adjust your approach to think in terms of the clock counting down. The moment you walk in the door you’re losing time. So plan your day accordingly… schedule specific tasks and commit to getting them done. Remember, you can never gain back a single minute, so treat each one preciously. You’ll become more adept at moving forward and within no time you’ll be judging yourself as an A+ in productivity.

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