By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
The more experienced you are, the more a firm will want you to express your leadership experience in your interviews. Here’s what they are trying to hear and see from you.
00:00 Introduction
01:01 What they want to hear and see
03:14 For those of you in senior leadership
04:28 Use the language of leadership
05:02 Project confidence
05:22 Outro
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Today I’m going to be talking with you about how to showcase leadership in a job interview. I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. People hire me for no BS job search advice and coaching globally, because I make the process so much easier for people related to the search and a lot of other things. So welcome. I’m going to be talking with you about how firms evaluate for leadership in the course of an interview, and how you should weave into your stories and into your 
answers some of the variables that firms are going to be looking for. I say, weave into it, because it’s not like they’re going to ask you, so are you a good leader? Yes, I’m a good leader, that was the right answer. Excellent. They’re going to want to hear certain terms and words that are going to signal to them that you have a clear grasp of leadership.
So understand that leadership is an important skill for many jobs. And you have to show potential employers that you have what it takes to lead, and what is it that they’re looking for. They want to get an idea of you clearly communicating. Being able to communicate effectively with a team, with its members, both in writing and verbally, is the launch point for everything. Then from there, there’s always problems. So be prepared with problem-solving stories. You have to be able to proactively identify and solve problems well, and thus, critical thinking, creativity, things along those lines, serve the organization and serve the team.
Decision-making. You have to be able to make decisions quickly, confidently, in an informed manner. So being able to identify issues, get information, make a decision, and act confidently becomes something that they want to hear about.
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Your motivation and inspiration for team members. Now, I’m going to define inspiration here first, and say no, let me back up for a second. As Coach Lance Secretan says motivation is lighting a fire underneath someone. Inspiration is lighting a fire within someone. The preference is always to inspire people. But sometimes you also have to motivate. And thus, creating an environment where people want to do excellent work becomes important.
With that, your ability to delegate helps to be a part of this, because recognizing stretch opportunities for your people, as well as their ability to succeed, foster teamwork, and such becomes an important part of your role as a leader. And they want to hear about this in the course of your stories.
And for those of you who are in senior leadership, it’s the ability to set a clear vision for the future, and be able to articulate it to the people beneath you, so they can go out and inspire people to achieve that vision. So in understanding what leadership means to you, and then translating it to employers, you’ve got to understand that they’re going to ask you certain questions, where they’re going to be trying to find specific examples where you’ve demonstrated your leadership in the past. And thus, you’re weaving this into your stories, to highlight your ability to inspire and motivate others, solve problems, and make decisions is important for you when you walk in.
Your personal vision becomes important to you and you have to be prepared to see how this firm can be congruent with your vision for your future. And also with this, comes your body language, your communication style, making eye contact, speaking clearly and confidently becomes very important.
So in answering questions in an interview, use the language of leadership now. There are terms that you can use like– led, inspired, achieved–This will help them see you in that kind of a role, and be specific about your experiences, the challenges you faced, the results of your actions, because the more specific you can be, the more impressed they will be. with your leadership skills.
Project confidence. This again comes back to body language and your manner, not necessarily your hard skills and what you’ve achieved, but it’s your behavioral characteristics as conveyed in the conversation with them that’s going to distinguish you as a leader from others.
I hope you found this helpful. I’m Jeff Altman. Visit my website, TheBigGameHunter.us. There’s a ton in the blog that can help you. Plus, you can schedule time for a free introductory call with me that I call a discovery call, schedule time for coaching. If you’ve got questions, schedule time for Trusted Advisor Services, where I answer your questions, find out about my video courses, books and guides. There’s just a lot there to help.
Also, I want to mention connect with me on Linkedin at linkedin.com/in/TheBigGameHunter. My Network tends to be a lot larger than most of yours so connecting with me will expand your reach on LinkedIn dramatically.
Have a terrific day and most importantly, be great!
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
People hire Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter to provide No BS Career Advice globally because he makes many things in peoples’ careers easier. Those
things can involve job search, hiring more effectively, managing and leading better, career transition, as well as advice about resolving workplace issues.
Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2600 episodes.
Website: https://www.TheBigGameHunter.us (schedule a paid coaching session, a free discovery call or ask questions using my Trusted Adviser Services)
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Books and Guides: https://www.TheBigGameHunter.us/books
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