Yet I heard the other day on the radio that it took Kate Bush two and a half years to agree to have her song featured in the hit series. Metallica agreed straight away.
🤪 🤯 ????
I can imagine how the conversation would go.
ST Producers: “We’re setting this hit series in the 80s, and we’re looking to use your amazing song to feature in it. The royalties from thousands of extra downloads, the crazy word of mouth, and increased fan base will collectively make you even richer than your fee to let us use it.”
Kate Bush: “Um….. [two years pass] …. OK”
I’m sure she had her reasons, but imagine if she’d have said yes sooner?
OK, so I’m sure she’s not short of a few quid (and although Metallica have had their dose of financial woes, they’re not hard up) but taking action could’ve gained her access to a whole new fanbase sooner.
Anyhoo.
I had a testimonial the other day. Or a “Recommendation” as LinkedIn prefer to call it.
In it, my client told me he wished he’d spoken to me two years ago.
Earlier in the summer, he booked a series of interview coaching sessions with me.
He’d been considering moving for some time, and though he’s interviewed others plenty, he was sure he would be a bit rusty on the other side of the desk.
This is a very senior guy. Has had some big jobs. Working out all manner of complex stuff.
But like most people, he really struggled to express himself in the right way, get a compelling story across.
And then he would beat himself up afterwards for not being as great as he hoped he would be.
Over these sessions we did lots of practice.
The idea of role play used to scare the crap out of me in a training or interviewing environment - but really this is like an interview without the fright factor.
More like interviewing with a huge safety net.
👆Philippe Petit didn’t have a safety net, but interviewing can feel like walking a tight rope.
How does it work?
I ask interview questions relevant to the job, then you answer.
I provide feedback on the answer, and help you with the details you haven’t given me. The story arc, the wording, the ideas.
I probe further than an interviewer might be bothered to, have time for, or be capable of - to unlock the juicy stuff that you really need to get across to impress.
Then, we re-practice, focusing on the important things, and losing the irrelevant guff.
We do this through a range of STAR (Situation, Task, Actions, Results) style questions, and a bunch of what are typically known as the “HR questions”.
These sessions aren’t just back and forth practice.
I’ll critique, help reframe unhelpful mindsets, challenge - and I’ll tell you if I don’t think the example you’re giving me is “big” enough.
As an interviewer in organisations from Merlin Entertainments to Amazon, there’d always be the candidates who didn’t get through because the scale or scope of their examples was just too small, not weighty enough, for the role we were hiring for.
Equally, there are those examples (like running huge, complex programmes) that are so large that the candidate struggles to focus on the important stuff, and gets lost in the story.
So I help you paint the big picture and zoom in on what’s relevant.
But the message is deeper than that.
You can be the biggest of big shots, the nicest of nice guys, but you’re still fallible.
But you won’t know where you let yourself down until you let someone in to uncover it all.
Then you can do something about it.
Even if you’re one of those people who doesn’t think they need support because “I just need to get in front of the interviewers”.
So, don’t leave it two years.
Don’t find you’ve been interviewing here and there and not being successful, miss out on great roles and pay increases, and then regret not doing something sooner.
I’ve been out of the loop for a couple of weeks on hols, but here’s a few bits that may help you out or put a smile on your face.
First, don’t be fooled by “fast-paced environment”. If the job ad says it is, ask what that really means. If it means you get great chunks of work thrown at you at short notice with a Monday 9am deadline, be wary.
