7 Tricks to Make Your Interviewer Love You (DF#87)

Hannah: Welcome back.

Hannah: Welcome back to the podcast.

Hannah: We are stoked to have you with us as always. And if you want to get a job degree free, no degree needed, you are gonna wanna run not walk over to degreefree.co/newsletter. That's degreefree.co/newsletter to sign up for our free weekly newsletter that is gonna help you get hired. 

Ryan: I am really excited about today's episode because we've literally had this on our like task board or con bond board, I guess.

Ryan: Yeah, our idea board. Our vision board.

Hannah: Our vision board, we're very organized over here, but Ryan has a tight shift. 

Ryan: We've had this topic on our vision board for like four months, and I was like, yeah, let's talk about it today and so this is gonna be seven ways to trick your interviewer into loving You. 

Hannah: Ooh. 

Ryan: Yes.

Hannah: Careful. You might fall in love with me. 

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. When you first walk in . Okay, so obviously there are like interview questions and prep and everything that you have to do for the interviews, right? Like you have to be ready for the generic questions. Tell me about yourself, do you, 

Hannah: why do you want this job?

Ryan: Yeah. Right? Do you have any questions? Why do you wanna work for this company? 

Hannah: How did you find this job? 

Ryan: Yeah, we're not gonna be talking about that today. 

Hannah: That's boring. 

Ryan: Right, exactly. There are a bunch of things that you can do for that, and we will try to make some resources for everybody. We offer interview help in our career crash course.

Ryan: If you guys want to learn more about that degreefree.co/career change, you guys can learn all about that. But these seven things, we've personally used all seven of them and they do work. 

Hannah: They are very effective.

Ryan: Yeah. And I even use these today with the people that I'm interviewing. 

Hannah: Ah, that, you know what, that makes sense cuz you are interviewing, you are interviewing them so yeah. 

Ryan: I'm interviewing people and I still do these things and I mean, I don't know. Nobody's said they hated me so far, so they must love me. 

Hannah: We gotta check those reviews. 

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. Once again, everybody review listen to the last week.

Hannah: Do not leave us an honest review. Tell us how you love us. 

Ryan: You'll know why. 

Hannah: We're fragile.

Ryan: Yeah. if you can leave us, review wherever we get your podcast, that would be great. No honest reviews, just five stars. 

Hannah: Thank you. 

Ryan: Please. 

Hannah: Without further ado, into topic number one.

Ryan: Topic number one, smile. Right. Oh, so smiling goes a long way, right? Like at the very beginning when you meet your interviewer, this is gonna help you make a really good first impression when you first see somebody smile.

Ryan: You can't help but just smile back. 

Hannah: Yep. 

Ryan: Exactly. And then-

Hannah: it's mirroring. 

Ryan: Right? You mirror them and then all of a sudden you are in a better mood. Right? Like that person themselves is in a better mood because they're smiling and they're receiving that good energy that you're getting out. It seems really, really simple, but honestly, it's something that I personally did not do before because I was worried or I was focused either way. Both on what I was trying to prepare for. Right? And like the way that I interview is, or the way that I prepare for an interview and practice. I spend hours, hours and hours and hours and hours. You and I are completely different people. I've seen you practice.

Hannah: Ryan is a crazy person.

Hannah: I don't know how you go into interview. The way that you do because you do very little bit of, I mean, you do prepare. 

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. 

Hannah: I am doing fingerprints for people that can't see. 

Hannah: Yeah. Different strokes for different folks, right? Yeah. But like I practice a lot and so before they get into the room or whatever's happening, like I'm always like brooding and I'm always like, oh God, what am I gonna see again?

Hannah: What am I gonna say? What am I gonna say? Can you tell me about yourself? Okay, here's what I'm gonna say, and I'm worried about it, but what's so interesting. If you just smile, it really loosens up the room. It loosens you up as well as it warms the other person up as well.

Hannah: Very much so. That always works and another thing you can use with this is you can use their name.

Hannah: Oh my gosh. Use people's names. This is really just a cheat code to life. This is, Dale Carnegie 101.. Use people's names. If you haven't read that, Ryan will link it in the show notes. But it is, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Everybody should read that book, but just remember their freaking name and just use it and you don't have to use a lot.

Hannah: Don't use it a creepy amount actually, cuz I could see this advice back for her. Yes. Kate? Yes, Kate. Absolutely. Kate. I would love to do that. Kate. And now Kate is freaked out and she does, definitely does not wanna hire you, but just use their name, especially when you first get on a call, especially if it's a remote interview.

Hannah: Hi, so-and-so. I am so excited to be here, right? Just use your name. 

Ryan: The thing that you can do, and I do this to this day when I'm interviewing people. Like I said, I use most of this on a day-to-day basis when I'm doing my interviews is I will have a notepad down and this is especially applicable in today's virtual interview world, right?

Ryan: Like where as soon as that person says their name, it's much more relevant when you are actually interviewing for a job, because a lot of times you don't know who you're gonna be interviewing with. Like maybe they don't tell you that you're gonna be interviewing Michael. I always know who I'm gonna be having on as a guest, so I just, but I'll write their name at the very top of my paper that I have to write notes on, on my notepad and if you are interviewing for jobs and you don't have a notepad, start bringing a notepad. 

Hannah: Yeah, you should always have something to take notes on. It makes you, it also makes you look very thorough, right? And you're gonna forget stuff also.

Ryan: As soon as that person walks into the room or into that virtual conference with you and that person says their name. Just write it down at the top of the page. And if you don't want to make it, look, I know this is getting granular, but if you don't wanna make it look like you're not paying attention to them anymore, then you just, right before the interview starts, you pick up your pen and hover it right over the place that you want it to, and then as soon just keep looking in the camera and then write their name down.

Ryan: Yep. Without looking at it. You know we've all written enough to write down a one word. Right here. 

Ryan: Nice to meet you, Scott. Boom, 

Hannah: various text. 

Ryan: And so that, that is definitely one thing. The other thing that I've used, obviously what you said is really good too, which is, that's the common advice, which is like, use their name multiple times but for me, I just really try to listen, just be in the room. Like be, you're already in there physically, you're not doing anything else. , like you might as well be there fully 100% mentally too. 

Hannah: Something I've started to do actually. That's a struggle. I'm very absent minded. I have a lot of racing thoughts I think a lot of people do these days, but something I've been recently practicing to that's really helped with this and being in the moment.

Hannah: Ryan's good at this and I'm not, so I'm trying to get better at it. in my head, I will say, I'm sitting here at this desk, I'm about to interview for this job with this person. That is what I am doing. I think that to myself, and it helps to just pull me into the moment and just two seconds.

Hannah: Just take a, take a beat, and just go. I'm sitting here doing this. so you know where you are, what you're doing, and why you're trying to do it. 

Ryan: The third thing is gonna be make them laugh. 

Hannah: This is tough. 

Ryan: Be funny, 

Hannah: can be, 

Hannah: can be.

Ryan: When you're laughing with somebody, you are completely in sync.

Ryan: Like I know that, I mean, personally, I haven't really thought about this too much, but it's true if you think about it, like you and that person are on the same wave. and you guys are having a shared experience and laughing literally about the same thing. 

Hannah: So you both think it's funny.

Ryan: Exactly. 

Hannah: Yeah. You have a moment of understanding.

Ryan: Yes. And people wanna laugh. 

Hannah: Yes. especially when you have a long, boring day of interviews. 

Ryan: Exactly. That's what I was literally, exactly what I was just about to say. Because like you never know what this person is experiencing, right? Like especially like if you've been to one of those like, I don't know what else to call it, but like stable interviews where you have like the 1130 spot.

Ryan: Oh, and they're doing 'em all day and Yeah. Yeah. You have like the 1130 spot and then you'll go, you'll get there at 11. and then there's like a big lobby of people waiting for it, right? Like waiting to get interviewed and then if you see that, then you know that the people that are interviewing you are interviewing everybody all day.

Hannah: And so that's their whole day and no one, maybe no one made them laugh all day and they had a whole day that was just boring and humorless. 

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. They want to break up the monotony of just tell me about yourself. Why are you think you'd be a good fit for this? yada, yada, yada. Right? They want to break that monotony, but then secondly, like they want to know that they can get along with you.

Ryan: These, 

Hannah: so they might work with you. 

Ryan: They're going to, if they hire you, they're going to work with you. Yep. They want to know that, like, okay, I can get along with this person. You know what I mean? Like him and I, or her and I we're going to get along and laughing. Showing them instead of like telling them is a much better way of doing that.

Ryan: It's funny because I remember when I was interviewing for to be a firefighter, right? And so I was a firefighter in Honolulu, one of the biggest departments in the nation and there's a lot of people they interview, right? And not only that, it's just because they only open the application once every three years, and so there's like 6,000 people that apply or whatever, and then it gets whittled down.

Ryan: By the time that you get to the interview, after all your tests and everything like that, by the time that you get to the interview, there's like four to 500 people, two to 500 people interviewing for less than 50 spots. Right? And so I went to the interview and I knew that it was a stable interview, right?

Ryan: Like, and I was like, this sucks. 

Ryan: You know what I mean? 

Ryan: Yeah. It's, yeah. It sucked for me and I only had to do one of 'em. Right it sucked for me. And I could just imagine being them. Having to sit there all day and just listening to the same people just drove on and drove on about like, you know, whatever, this is why I can be a firefighter.

Ryan: The, the fact of the matter is, unless you were like a firefighter, like nobody has experience, so it's like I don't know. Like it's just a much of a gamble on you than it was on anybody else. You know what I mean? And so I went through that interview and at the end of it, or during it, I was able to make them laugh.

Ryan: I was able to like break that exterior. I know there's a panel interview, there's four people, right? But I was able to make one of them laugh, and when I was able to make one of them laugh, they all started laughing. 

Hannah: Because they're just, they people want to 

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. They wanted to laugh and because it was a nice break of the monotony.

Ryan: Yeah. Right. Which is funny because it was a really stuck up event, I guess. Like I had to wear a suit to the interview. 

Hannah: Oh, that's right.

Ryan: Which is like crazy cause it's Hawaii. Yeah. You don't wear suits for anything. Yeah. Weddings. Yeah. So why did I wear a suit for that? But everybody wore suits. Yeah.

Ryan: Everybody's like, it's a stuffy room. Because like, they're serious guys. I mean, for the most part, they're kind of idiots once you get to know 'em but they're serious about the job because the job is serious and they're serious about who they led into the department and things like that.

Ryan: But you know, they wanted to laugh. And anyway, long story short, once I got into recruit class, I did learn that out of all those people that I interviewed with, I was one of the top two. And I'm telling you, it's because I made that laugh. 

Hannah: Yeah. It's cuz you made 'em laugh. 

Ryan: Exactly.

Ryan: They were able to remember me. 

Hannah: Then They had a good feeling when they thought about you.

Ryan: Exactly. 

Hannah: Because they laughed.

Ryan: Yes. 

Hannah: That is a good story. Good lesson. The next one would be excited and show it to them. Same reason, because interviews are boring and especially if there's multiples of them.

Hannah: Be excited to be there, right? Don't make it a chore that you're sitting there and don't make it a chore to talk to you either, right? Like, how is this so not fun to talk to somebody who is not excited to be speaking to you? Right? When someone seems bored speaking to you, wow, it just sucks all the air out of the room, you know?

Hannah: So you really just wanna feel enthusiastic and a good way to feel enthusiasm if you don't feel it is to say, I am so excited to be here. You're welcome. 

Hannah: That's it. That's the cheat code.

Hannah: It sounds stupid. It works. So just do it in your next interview. Hi so and so. I am so excited to be here.

Hannah: And then, and then you'll meet it. 

Ryan: Yep, absolutely. 

Ryan: This is huge. I use this all the time to this day. You know.

Hannah: I've always done that in interviews.

Ryan: I've never done that in interviews. We have a lot of meetings now and we have all, and I do a lot of interviews as well, and I do this all the time. And the way that you can do this for those people listening, if you are on, like, especially a virtual conferencing, especially virtual conferencing, when you get there, you're gonna arrive, you know, five to two, you know, two to five minutes early, especially on a virtual conference.

Ryan: You don't have to arrive that early but if you're sitting there and you're just facing a black screen, okay, there's two things that you can do. You can either sit there and smile and just wait till they get there, or you can kind of mute your mic, block out your camera, and when that person comes on immediately, you just unmute, unblock your mic, and or unblock a camera and you just smile and say, Oh,

Hannah: Hey. So excited, 

Ryan: Jen. I'm so excited to be here. Wow. Thank you so much for taking the opportunity and you know, taking your time outta your day. I really stoked at what you guys are doing at Acme Company. And it was like, oh, right on. Perfect. Awesome. 

Hannah: Yeah, Like make them feel like you're happy to see them, cuz you should be too.

Hannah: Right? If you're having an interview, be like, be excited to talk to this person. They're there because you wanna talk to them. Just something to think about, you know? 

Ryan: Yeah. And it totally, totally makes a difference because now instead of starting the conversation, letting them kind of steer the conversation or like not be you're, otherwise, you're letting it be predicated by their proceeding mood, if that makes any sense.

Hannah: Yeah. So if they came off of a call and they were late off the call, or they're tired, or their cat just knocked something over or whatever, you know? 

Ryan: Exactly. And the same thing goes for in person too, right? As soon as that person walks into the room, stand up and shake their hand, and like, oh, Matt, I'm so excited to be here.

Hannah: Yeah, thank you so much.

Ryan: Yeah, thank you so much. Whatever. Whatever, whatever. 

Hannah: Yeah, be grateful. Be excited. 

Ryan: Yeah. And then the fifth thing is ask personalized questions, right? So people love to talk about themselves. 

Hannah: They do. 

Ryan: They love it. And what you're gonna do is you're gonna find common ground, that's the key to getting somebody to talk about themselves.

Hannah: I usually try to, A challenge I do when I'm interviewing is I try to find out as much information as possible about that person. I will find out what they're watching on Netflix. I will find out what their kids' names are. I will find out what their mom's Chihuahua's name is and when it died, I will find out all the things cuz the goal is for you to actually keep them talking more than you talk.

Ryan: And you must be peeking because that is number six. You skipped ahead, which is do research about them. But that's, no, no. Perfect. Because that's exactly how I was gonna say to do it too. The other way is if you didn't do research about them, I'll just touch on it really quickly is to just ask questions like, right.

Ryan: Questions are the shovel that you're going to use to dig deeper. Right. And you just ask questions. Ask questions, ask questions, right? Like one of the normal things you could talk about is just like, do you have any kids or family, right? Like right at the very beginning, right? While you're still chit chatting, while you're still doing small talk, which serves the purpose of like finding common ground.

Ryan: And then you just ask about them. And then like I said, that just gives you the power to steer the conversation if you did research already for them then you kind of already know that you can steer the conversation toward, towards them. And the way that I think about it is kind of just like playing like a card game or something, right?

Ryan: Like you have your hand and you're playing against the other person. You can see what's in your hand, they can't see what's in yours, and you're just putting it down. You're saying these certain things where it might sound novel to them, or it might sound coincidental to them, but you did your research and so you're bringing up, I don't know, snowboarding or something like that. They love to snowboard and you're like, oh, perfect. You know? Wow. That's crazy. 

Hannah: Yeah. 

Hannah: Or you saw them posting about how they're doing caffeine free February and so you say, oh, I'm drinking my soda water cuz I'm doing caffeine free February, whatever you gotta do. Whatever you gotta do. 

Ryan: Exactly.

Hannah: And the last one that Ryan says, this one is controversial. I think it's interesting and that is wear a blue shirt if you can. Science says a blue shirt makes you seem more trustworthy and that if you wear a blue shirt, it will help you get hired. 

Ryan: I think this is idiotic. He thinks it's stupid. 

Ryan: I think this is dumb. 

Hannah: I think it's fun. If you wanna wear a blue shirt, why not? 

Hannah: Yeah, I mean,

Hannah: well, brand colors, brand, brand colors matter though. Brand colors make people feel certain things. 

Ryan: No, no, no. I'm not saying, I'm not saying.

Hannah: Ryan doesn't believe in color science guys. He's a color science denier.

Hannah: Okay. 

Ryan: No. What? No, I'm just saying. This is dumb. I dunno. that's all I'm saying.

Ryan: That's literally all I'm saying. Okay. 

Hannah: If you wore a blue shirt and you got hired, I would like you to let Ryan know. Let him know that your blue shirt got you hired and just let him know that that's the reason. Doesn't matter if you did other things, if you were wearing a blue shirt when you got hired.

Hannah: We're gonna decide right now that was cuz of the shirt. 

Ryan: Yeah.

Hannah: Let him know. 

Ryan: If you're right before you interview and you're wearing a blue shirt, like take a selfie message me on LinkedIn or tag us on TikTok and tell me that I'm wrong. 

Hannah: Yeah. Yep. 

Ryan: Like, I don't know. I don't, I don't know. I just feel like

Hannah: if it can help why wouldn't you do it?

Ryan: Because it just says clashes with my skin color. 

Hannah: Yeah. He thinks science is idiotic. Guys, just take note. So wear your blue shirt. 

Ryan: Yeah. And so that is

Ryan: How

Hannah: to make your interviewer fall in love with you.

Ryan: That's it. 

Hannah: This is how to trick your interviewer into falling in love with you.

Ryan: Seven things. Smile, username, make them laugh, be excited and show it, five, ask personalized questions. Six, do your research about, 

Hannah: and seven, wear a blue shirt, 

Ryan: That's it. 

Hannah: Thank you so much . 

Hannah: Thank you for sticking with us folks and also if you want to get hired, degree free, no degree. Head on over to degreefree.co/newsletter and sign up to get a newsletter about getting hired.

Ryan: Yes, and if you guys wanted to work with us, you can go to degreefree.co/careerchange and learn all about our four week career change crash course. We are super excited about it and we hope to see you in there. Until next time, guys.

Ryan: Aloha.