You’ve done your resume, you’ve updated LinkedIn, you have 15 – 20 accomplishments statements memorized. Are you ready for interviews? Not quite yet. There’s one more thing you need that will be the connective tissue that brings everything together during the interview process. You need an interview brand, I call this an interview brand as opposed to your general employee brand as this one is specifically crafted for the interview process.
The interview brand is like a ‘meta-resume’, its 3 or 4 lines long, its what you use to answer the ‘tell me about yourself’ question and its also what you use to continually ‘match’ yourself to the requirements of the role. Your interview brand should have 4 key elements.
- Unique – Something about your background experience that’s a little unusual or a little unique. This should instantly pique the curiosity of the interviewer.
- Holistic – A description of all of your past experience in one sentence, crafted in such a way that you demonstrate how you’ve cultivated the relevant skills and knowledge over time.
- Therefore I can…. – A combination of elements 1 and 2 means you bring a specific and unique value proposition to the table. It should be easy to imagine how this value proposition can be used.
- This is useful for…. – This involves flipping element 3 from ‘what you bring to the table’ to ‘this would be useful for companies looking to….’
My interview brand
I have a background in Engineering and HR, both in education and experience. (Now isn’t that a little unusual!)
I have worked for global, hi-tech Canadian companies for the past 26 years. (See the theme?)
I am able to accelerate strategy with effective HR (combination of 1 and 2)
This is of particular use for small to medium Canadian hi-tech companies looking to expand, scale and grow and are interested in learning from my experience.
Send me your drafts and I’ll be glad to give you my feedback.
Engineering Peak Performance 