What If You Treated Every Interview Like a Business Pitch? was originally published on Ivy Exec.
Imagine how a business pitch works. You spend time researching your potential investor, familiarising yourself with their strengths, offerings, and challenges. You create a presentation slide that highlights your solutions and explains how you will implement them. And then you round it up with an awe-inspiring projection you hope to achieve if your pitch gets in.
Now, imagine handling your interview the same way again. Looks like overkill, right? Not really. Most candidates focus solely on appearing confident to make a good impression and juggling multiple Q&A interview books written by self-proclaimed interview experts. Joining them in the collar means nothing literally separates you from the audience.
On the other hand, taking the unconventional pitching approach means positioning yourself to stand out, even if your portfolio is not the best. More edge means more chances of getting inside the next interview or receiving your paycheck the next month.
Let’s quickly see how you can do this.
☑ Dig Out Everything About The Company
Anna Zhang, Head of Marketing at U7BUY, says, “You’re not Detective Dee, but you will definitely need his detective skills here. Traditionally, you only need to check out your target company’s website and go hiking with that. But literally every candidate does that. So, that’s outdated. Moreover, it’s not only the company you need to know about—think HR, previous employees, and existing workers or clients.”
To know more about the company:
- Leverage LinkedIn to review the company and posts from the leadership circle. Usually contains their plans, projections, and sometimes, challenges they hope to scale.
- Review sites like YahooFinance or Seeking Alpha for earnings calls and investor reports, if made public.
- Use Google to find recent layoffs, product launches, and leadership coverage.
- Look for reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed. Pay attention to cons in order to gauge leadership qualities, work culture, and company difficulties.
- Conduct competitor research to develop a counter-pitch to address relevant questions. The more you know about competitors, the more you know about your potential company, too.
To dig deeper into HRs:
- Simply review their profile on professional sites like LinkedIn and Twitter.
- Use LinkedIn and filter by “Past company” to find past employees. Network with them to know how their application process went.
- Utilize advanced search with keywords like “worked at [Company Name]” for the same purpose as above.
- Leverage sites like AngelList to access their catalog of old employees, especially for small or recently acquired firms.
Besides past employees, current clients or workers can also provide useful insights. Connect with them on social media to inform your preparation, address questions, discuss the company’s current challenges, and clarify your positioning.
☑ Structure Your Responses Like Mini-Pitches
If you’re expecting straightforward questions like ‘Why do you want to work with us?’, you might be really disappointed – or maybe not. Modern interviews are tailored to test your situational awareness of problems, wit, communication, teamwork, and often, personal shortcomings.
For instance, let’s say you’re applying for the role of a project manager at an enterprise-level company. You should expect situational questions such as:
- You’ve inherited a project with poor documentation and unclear deliverables. What’s your approach?
- You’re given unclear project requirements. What’s your plan to clarify and document them?
Now, the thing is, while these questions are quite simple as well and you can just muddle up a laundry list of what you’ll do, you might leave your employer or interviewer unimpressed.
That’s where the STAR pitch comes in. You structure your response like a pitch, weaving your past experience to demonstrate how you will resolve the problem.
Here’s how.
- Situation: When I joined my previous company as a project manager, I was tasked with taking over a mid-stage internal software rollout that had encountered similar issues and had lost momentum. The previous PM had left abruptly, and I quickly realized that the documentation was disorganized, stakeholder expectations weren’t aligned, and the deliverables weren’t clearly defined.
- Task: My responsibility was to assess the project’s current status, re-establish clear deliverables, and get the project back on track, without disrupting the client’s broader timeline.
- Action: I started by auditing the available documents to identify gaps, then held a discovery session with stakeholders to clarify goals and success metrics. Next, I led focused workshops with the team to rebuild the project scope, define a work breakdown structure, and set realistic milestones. I also introduced a shared document repository with version control for better tracking, and communicated transparently with the client, providing an updated project plan and setting clear expectations for phased deliverables.
- Result: We redefined the scope within one week, brought all stakeholders into alignment, and moved forward with a clear plan. The project hit 100% of its revised milestones and was delivered two weeks ahead of the final deadline. More importantly, the system has since been reused as a template for future rollouts.
What if you don’t have past experience to reference? Then your STAR responses will be in the present tense:
- Situation: The problem is this and that. And it can result in…
- Task: My task is to…
- Action: I will do this and that…
- Result: I hope to achieve…in a week’s time
This approach ensures your responses are not verbal spaghetti and you’re left second-guessing what to say next.
☑ Use Storytelling To Illustrate Your Past Successes
Peter Čuček, Owner at Tuuli, says, “Typical interviews are heavy with Q&A sessions, giving you barely any time to express yourself. But this script might play differently in your next interview.”
“Even if it doesn’t, you can ask your interviewer for a chance to present your mini-pitch or past business successes and how you plan to onboard the same value or more. You barely have up to five minutes for this in most cases. And this works even more if you’re overqualified for the job“, Peter continues.
To make the most of this opportunity:
- You can design an illustrative slide that effectively passes your message and reinforces you as an authority in your proposed role or designates you a master of your craft.
- Or create a 1–2 minute video walkthrough with visuals and a natural-sounding voiceover using voice AI that clearly and confidently explains your past achievements.
The advantage of slide presentation or verbal walkthrough is that you can show exactly what you did, quickly imprint your value on the interviewer’s mind, and demonstrate your preparation. At the end of your story, ensure you highlight how these successes make you a good fit for the spot.
☑ Anticipate Objections Or Concerns And Address Them Proactively
Lacey Jarvis, COO at AAA State of Play, says, “Like every business pitch, you will always face some whys, what, when, and hows. For instance, an interviewer might ask why you left your last role, how you plan to deliver results quickly, or what makes you confident you can handle their specific challenges.”
These are seemingly simple but trap questions. Depending on how you answer them, you might receive a call for another discussion or be mailed: Thank you for applying to XYZ, but we’ve decided to move on with another,“ Lacey continues.
And that’s why you should anticipate such objections or concerns before your interview.
- Leverage your interaction with past employees, current workers, industry leaders, other job candidates in sync, and your personal research to draft a list of questions
- Use AI tools like ChatGPT to process the data about the company and create variations of several ‘what-ifs’
- Craft concise and value-led answers to as many questions as possible
You’re likely to find yourself facing one of these questions. And even if you don’t, there will be questions taking a similar approach. Your proactive preparation gives you quick feet to think outside the box and provide a unique response.
☑ Showcase Your Unique Value Proposition Compared To Other Candidates
Thanks to rapid technological advancements and AI, which are offsetting many roles, modern interviews are no longer a battle of well-designed CVs or resumes. A significant number of candidates have what it takes to create an impact – of course, some of the things we’ve discussed here will set you apart.
To truly gain a solid edge, you need to show what they’re not showing. This starts by knowing who your candidates are. Realistically, that’s impossible except you have insider info.
However, you can do what’s called retrospective candidate analysis.
- Find people currently working in the same role. They were once a candidate like you, and that makes them a retrospective competitor.
- Analyze their social media profile and date back posts to before they started working with the company.
- Some have active websites. Go through their offerings, style and designs, past works and clients, achievements, and distinctions.
- Note their strengths, based on tone, records, and messaging. Not much, but a single LinkedIn post can show how sturdy someone’s portfolio is.
- Fast-track the analysis to the current time and see what they’re doing after they clinched the post. Sprinkle that insight into your interview preparation, and it’ll make the interviewer go, “Oh great, he’s thinking like a team member already, not an applicant.”
Other things to consider: think like the hiring manager. “If I’m asked A, what responses will the interviewer be expecting?”
Mix in your results, not to boast, but to demonstrate that you have the background to keep the wheel rolling – and faster. Additionally, project a work style or mindset that aligns with the intent or culture of your target company.
Wrapping Up
You don’t have to attend a hundred interviews before landing your dream role. You can do it in fewer, shorter calls if you start treating every interview like a business pitch. In summary, be familiar with everything about the company, its culture, employees, hiring manager, and challenges before each interview.
Structure your response with mini-pitch strategies, such as STAR, and use storytelling via video clips or slides to illustrate your past successes. Proactively anticipate and address potential objections or concerns from the interviewer. Lastly, distinguish yourself from other candidates by conducting a retrospective competitor analysis and showcasing your unique value propositions.
