That moment I realized I was ruining my interviews by talking too much about my skills instead of my results

After bombing a third interview for a manager role at a local credit union last month, the HR lady flat out told me they didn't care I knew 6 software programs, they wanted to hear how I actually used them to save the company money.

2 comments

2 Comments

garcia.charles14d ago

My buddy Dave went through the exact same thing last year. He was interviewing for a branch manager gig and kept rattling off all these certifications he had. The hiring manager eventually cut him off and asked him flat out "okay but how did any of that help your last branch make more money?" He froze up because he never thought about it that way. Now he practices telling stories about specific times he turned things around... like when he cut overtime costs by reorganizing the schedule. Since he started talking about real results instead of just skills he's gotten way more callbacks.

ivan87312d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah, that's the thing nobody tells you. You can have all the paper in the world but if you can't point to a time you actually fixed something or made money, it's just noise. Once you start talking in dollars and cents instead of certificates, people actually listen.