0:03 Have you ever wondered how some people
0:06 are just so good at interviewing?
0:08 Maybe you have a friend or an
0:12 acquaintance or someone you know of on
0:15 campus or in your life somewhere who's
0:18 just really, really good at landing
0:22 extremely competitive jobs.
0:24 Today I'm going to share with you
0:27 something that I have learned over the last
0:29 last five
0:31 five
0:34 or more years that has allowed me to
0:38 land multiple roles in very competitive
0:40 industries including investment banking
0:44 in New York on Wall Street, management
0:47 consulting at BCG which is an MBB
0:50 consulting firm and most recently at
0:52 Google in in their internal strategy
0:55 department. I'm going to distill in
0:57 probably a video that's less than 20
1:01 minutes, five plus years of messing up
1:04 left and right and doing probably over a
1:05 hundred interviews at different
1:07 companies. I'm going to give that all
1:10 away to you now in a pretty short video.
1:11 And so, if you're still with me, make
1:14 sure you full screen the video, lock in,
1:17 and give me your attention for just 20
1:20 minutes. I promise it will help you out,
1:22 especially if you're job hunting or if
1:23 you plan to in the future. The way I
1:25 want to break this explanation up though
1:27 is first I want to talk about what most
1:29 people do. And when I say most people,
1:31 I'm talking about your average job
1:33 hunter. And then I want to talk about
1:36 what the elite interviewees are doing.
1:38 The people that are landing these jobs
1:42 that have less than 1% acceptance rates,
1:43 companies like Goldman Sachs or
1:45 McKenzie. Because what you have to
1:47 realize is everyone has the same
1:48 information available to them,
1:51 especially nowadays in the internet age.
1:55 Anyone can Google how to pass the interview.
1:57 interview.
2:00 But then why isn't everyone landing the
2:02 offer? Why isn't everyone landing the
2:06 job, right? It's because there's more to
2:07 interviewing than just what you see
2:10 online. And that information actually
2:14 only gets you so far.
2:15 But without beating around the bush,
2:17 let's just get right into it. So there's
2:20 two main components to answering the
2:23 behavioral interview. And I'm talking
2:24 about the behavioral interview today
2:27 because I'm not going to talk about the
2:29 technical portion of interviewing which
2:31 is specific to the various industries.
2:32 So for example, if you're in investment
2:34 banking, you have to study the finance
2:35 technicals. If you're in consulting, you
2:37 have to study the case interviews. If
2:39 you're going for tech, uh you know,
2:41 sometimes there's actual technical like
2:43 coding interviews that you have to do or
2:45 in my case it was also case interviewing
2:48 for internal strategy roles. I'm not
2:49 going to talk about that. I'm going to
2:52 talk about how to answer these questions
2:54 where you get asked to tell someone
2:56 about a time where you had to
2:58 demonstrate some kind of positive
2:59 quality. Maybe it's tell me about a time
3:02 when you had to demonstrate leadership
3:04 or tell me about a time when you had to
3:07 demonstrate that you were a team player
3:09 or that you were persuasive or that you
3:11 had integrity when you were put in a
3:14 moral or ethical uh conflict. Those
3:17 kinds of questions come up in 99% of
3:18 interviews regardless of what industry
3:20 they are. And for good reason because
3:23 oftentimes your interviewer companies
3:26 are looking to test a certain set of
3:28 core qualities that are universally
3:31 sought after for employees. Now what
3:33 does the average person do though when
3:34 they hear from the recruiter? Oh yeah,
3:36 you should prepare for these behavioral
3:38 type questions. Well, you're probably
3:41 googling online or you're probably going
3:43 onto YouTube and you know before you
3:44 find my videos, you're probably looking
3:47 at other career advice videos and you're
3:50 hearing things like, "Oh yeah, use the
3:52 STAR method." Make sure to write out and
3:54 list out in bullet points maybe or in a
3:56 paragraph format what you're going to
3:59 actually say or end the story with, oh
4:01 yeah, everyone was happy, everyone was
4:03 pleased, it was a success. And make sure
4:05 that you're professional in your
4:07 delivery, right? So, don't be vulnerable
4:09 or don't speak casually because it's a
4:10 professional interview, right? And you
4:11 want to demonstrate that you can be a
4:13 professional person. That's what most
4:15 people do. Now, there's nothing
4:18 inherently bad about any of this, right?
4:19 The STAR method, for those of you who
4:22 maybe aren't familiar, means situation,
4:26 task, action, and result. It is a very
4:28 good way to structure your stories
4:30 because it ensures that you actually
4:33 talk about what the situation was, what
4:34 actions you specifically took, and what
4:37 actually ended up happening, but it
4:39 should only serve as a guardrail. And
4:40 I'll talk a little bit more about this
4:42 later. But secondly, listing out what
4:46 you did isn't inherently bad either, but
4:49 it's only to guide you again and to give
4:50 you a sense of structure as you talk
4:52 through the story. with these last two
4:54 as well. I'm going to touch on these in
4:56 just a second, but what you're going to
4:59 see is that these things that most
5:02 people do that 90% of people are doing
5:05 are not necessarily bad, but there's
5:08 actually a ton of nuance with giving
5:11 behavioral interview questions. Now,
5:12 let's talk about what that nuance is.
5:14 But before I get into it, actually I
5:19 want to give you two stories,
5:21 exact same facts, but told in two
5:23 completely different ways. And I want
5:24 you to imagine that say you're
5:27 interviewing me, for example, you're the
5:30 interviewer, and there are two
5:33 candidates backtoback, same exact facts
5:36 to their story, same exact outcome, but
5:38 told in completely different ways. Let's
5:40 start with candidate one. So let's say
5:42 that the question being asked is, "Hey,
5:44 tell me about a time when you had to
5:49 convince leadership of your position."
5:53 Yeah, happy to. So my freshman summer of
5:56 college, I interned at a startup. It was
5:58 a tech startup. We were selling software
6:01 and I was a sales intern. Now the
6:03 company was based in Silicon Valley and
6:05 most of its customers were based in the
6:07 US as a result.
6:10 And at one point in the summer, the
6:12 founder of the company came to me and
6:13 said, "Hey, Matt, we're doing really
6:15 well in the US, but we actually want to
6:18 explore expanding into the British
6:22 market. You know, I think that because
6:24 the people in the UK are also English
6:25 speakers that they'll also like our
6:28 software." And so being the sales
6:31 intern, I went out and I started talking
6:32 to people and I realized pretty quickly
6:34 that there actually is quite a few
6:36 nuances between the US and the UK
6:39 market. And the people in the UK market
6:41 actually weren't as interested in our
6:45 product. And so I went back to my boss
6:47 um and actually before I did that, I did
6:49 a little bit of my own research and I
6:50 discovered that maybe the German market
6:52 would be a better place to start,
6:53 especially if we were going to expand
6:56 into the the European space. And I went
6:58 to him and I said, "Hey man, I think
7:01 that we actually shouldn't go into the
7:03 UK market. I think that we should go
7:04 after Germany because it's more
7:06 attractive." And he completely disagreed
7:08 with me and he basically shot down my
7:12 idea and I was really upset. But a week
7:14 later, I came back to him with a better
7:15 proposal. This time I had done a little
7:18 bit more research and he was totally
7:20 impressed when he saw all the work that
7:23 I had done. And ultimately we ended up
7:25 going through with that approach.
7:27 Expanded into the German market. Company
7:29 made a ton of money and everything was a success.
7:32 success.
7:36 Okay, I'm going to stop there. Now,
7:38 candidate number two, tell me about a
7:41 time when you had to convince leadership
7:44 of your opinion.
7:47 Sure, absolutely. So during my freshman
7:49 summer of college, I interned as a sales
7:53 intern at a fast growing tech startup in
7:55 San Francisco and we were telling we
7:57 were selling software to other
7:59 businesses in the US primarily. And at
8:01 one point the founder came to me and
8:04 said, "Hey Matt, I think that we should
8:07 try to expand our footprint into the UK
8:10 market." And the reason why I think this
8:13 is because they're also English speakers
8:15 and I think that the value prop is also
8:17 very clear to business owners and so it
8:20 feels like the right place for us to
8:23 start our international expansion. Now
8:26 as a sales intern basically smiling and
8:28 dialing all summer talking to tons of
8:29 customers getting a ton of rejections
8:31 but also learning a lot and getting all
8:34 those reps in. And so, you know, the
8:35 first thing I did was I went and I
8:37 talked to like 10 customers, potential
8:39 customers in the UK market. And very
8:42 quickly I realized that actually there
8:44 is quite a bit of nuance between the UK
8:46 and the US market. For example, the
8:49 regulations are very different,
8:50 especially for the type of software that
8:53 we were selling. There were some serious
8:55 privacy concerns. And so because the
8:57 difference in privacy regulations, a lot
8:58 of these business owners were actually
9:01 quite hesitant to adopt our product even
9:03 though they saw the value prop.
9:07 And so before I went back to my boss, I
9:08 decided to do a little bit of my own due
9:10 diligence. And I started thinking about
9:13 other countries in Europe that might be
9:14 open to this. And I realized through my
9:16 research that the German market actually
9:19 has very similar uh privacy regulations
9:21 as the US. And so I went right back to
9:24 my boss and I said, "Hey man, look, I
9:26 know you're super excited about the UK
9:27 market, but I actually think we should
9:29 go look into the German market because
9:31 I've talked to customers in the UK
9:32 market and they're honestly not that
9:35 interested." And he came back at me and
9:37 said, "Really, man? Look, I've been
9:39 thinking about this idea for months and
9:42 I hear you, but at the same time, we are
9:43 a startup and we have limited resources
9:46 and so I don't think we can just go
9:47 after some completely different market
9:49 just because of a hunch that you have.
9:51 And in that moment, you know, I'll be
9:53 honest, I was pretty upset because it
9:55 felt like he was just writing me off.
9:58 But I knew that I had to persist. And so
9:59 what I did was I said, "Hey, you know
10:01 what? Look, I totally hear you. Let me
10:02 get back to you. I'm going to do a
10:03 little bit more digging so that we can
10:06 have more confidence in this idea." And
10:08 for the next week, I basically talked to
10:10 10 15 more potential customers in the
10:13 German market. And I compiled and
10:15 synthesized all those findings. is I
10:17 also did a bunch of research on my own
10:18 reading through a lot of the regulations
10:21 and the legal requirements for this
10:23 market and ultimately compiled it into a
10:25 presentation a tightlyknit concise
10:28 presentation and went back to my boss
10:30 and said hey look I know we had this
10:33 conversation last week but since then
10:36 I've talked to 15 more customers I've
10:37 analyzed very closely the German
10:41 regulations and I've done a lot more
10:43 research and I have a much higher degree
10:45 of conviction now that this still the
10:47 right place for us to focus our efforts.
10:49 And I know and I hear you that the UK
10:50 market is very promising. I do still
10:52 think there is a lot of opportunity
10:55 there, but I just wanted to bring this
10:57 to you as a follow-up to our previous
10:59 conversation. And when he saw that I
11:02 genuinely wanted to help his company
11:04 succeed and that I wasn't just trying to
11:06 push my agenda around, but I genuinely
11:10 wanted to help him and his company. I
11:14 think something switched inside and he
11:16 was suddenly very open to this new idea
11:18 and he took a look at the analysis and
11:20 he saw that I had put in hours of work
11:22 into talking to all these customers and
11:24 really um being boots on the ground
11:26 doing a lot of due diligence and
11:28 ultimately what actually ended up
11:30 happening was we ended up expanding into
11:33 the German and the UK market but we just
11:35 had to slightly adjust our approach in
11:37 the UK market to work around those
11:39 regulations and the learning for the
11:41 company was that every time we expand
11:43 into the international markets, we have
11:45 to be very thoughtful about how we
11:47 approach the legal and regulatory side
11:49 of things because of the nature of our
11:51 product. And another big thing that I
11:52 took away from that experience was that
11:56 look, sometimes if you get told no once,
11:57 that doesn't necessarily mean it's the
12:00 end of that. And if it's an idea or
12:01 something that you really have
12:02 conviction in because you are the
12:05 closest to the the data then you
12:08 shouldn't be afraid to come back again
12:10 with an improved version of your
12:13 original uh product or idea. And I know
12:14 at McKenzie for example, there are going
12:16 to be many situations where you have to
12:19 deal with senior folks as a junior
12:21 consultant, whether it's your client or
12:23 whether it's your senior partner. And
12:26 many times they may disagree with me on
12:28 certain things, but as the BA, as the
12:30 junior analyst, oftentimes you're
12:32 closest to the data and you're closest
12:34 to the conversations with the customers.
12:36 And so it's actually in your best
12:39 interest to share your honest thoughts
12:41 based on what you're seeing. And so that
12:43 mindset I really see myself bringing
12:45 into a management consulting role at McKenzie.
12:48 McKenzie.
12:50 All right, I'm going to stop there. So
12:52 that was a little bit of a longer winded
12:54 story, but the reason why I kept it a
12:56 little bit longer is I wanted to really
13:00 show you how I tie in that detail and
13:04 that storytelling into the second story.
13:06 And you can really see and notice the
13:08 difference between the two stories even
13:11 though the facts are completely
13:14 identical. And so if two people walk
13:16 into an interview with the same exact
13:19 background and the same exact stories,
13:21 but one person tells the stories in a
13:23 more effective way, which I'm going to
13:24 talk about how to do that in just a
13:26 second, that second person is going to
13:29 win nine times out of 10. with that one
13:32 time being if like the first person's
13:33 dad works at the firm as a senior
13:35 partner or something like that. Uh no
13:37 shade being thrown. But now let's talk
13:40 about what you need to actually do and
13:43 what you can actually implement to turn
13:47 your stories into the type that land top
13:49 1% roles at companies where the
13:50 acceptance rate is literally less than
13:53 getting into Harvard. So step one is you
13:56 got to show don't tell. And this is
13:57 easier said than done. When I say show
13:59 don't tell, I mean you need to actually
14:02 immerse and engage the listener in your
14:04 story. You're not just doing a
14:06 regurgitation of facts. You're not just
14:08 doing a restatement of facts. And this
14:09 is why if you list out everything you're
14:11 going to do in a sequential order,
14:13 that's not a bad thing, but it's going
14:15 to automatically cause you to start
14:16 thinking in a sequential way. And if you
14:18 just think of your story as like a set
14:20 of facts and things that you need to
14:21 cover, and you're like, "Okay, I'm going
14:22 to say this, and then I'm going to say
14:24 that, and then am I going to say this,
14:25 and then finally I'm going to end the
14:27 story like that?" What you're doing is
14:29 you're actually going to make yourself
14:30 tell the interviewer what happened
14:33 without actually showing them. And so
14:36 how do you actually show them? Well, the
14:37 easiest way to do this is actually to
14:41 just talk about more of your raw
14:44 unfiltered thoughts. So talk about what
14:46 you're actually thinking in the moment
14:48 of certain parts of the story. For
14:52 example, when the founder of the company
14:55 disagreed with my proposal that we
14:56 should go look into the German market
14:59 instead of the UK market, what did I say
15:00 in the second story? Well, I said,
15:02 "Yeah, you know, no, in that moment, I
15:04 was I was really upset. Like I was I was
15:06 gutted. I felt like he just wrote me
15:08 off. Those are my raw unfiltered
15:11 thoughts." And the reason why this is so
15:14 effective is because you cannot filter
15:15 your thoughts. You can filter what you
15:17 say, but you cannot filter your
15:19 thoughts. And so therefore, by talking
15:20 about your thoughts, you're actually
15:21 being a little bit more vulnerable and a
15:24 little bit more authentic by admitting,
15:26 okay, this was my gut reaction. Now,
15:27 some of you might be thinking, okay, but
15:29 doesn't that potentially paint me in a
15:34 bad light? Well, not if you don't stop
15:36 there. After you've given your initial
15:37 raw thoughts, then you need to
15:39 transition into like, okay, what was
15:41 your actual response? So, even though I
15:43 felt gutted and I felt like he just
15:44 wrote me off and I was like, what the
15:47 heck? I also knew that look, I have a
15:49 lot of conviction in this idea and good
15:51 things come to people who persist. And
15:54 so I'm gonna go out and instead of just
15:56 taking the L and calling it quits and
15:58 curling up into a ball in a corner and
16:00 just crying, I'm going to actually go
16:03 out there and talk to like 10 or 15
16:05 other people in the German market. I'm
16:06 going to do a bunch of analysis and
16:09 research. I'm going to show the founder
16:11 that I actually believe in this idea and
16:14 it's not just some random
16:15 spur-of-the- moment idea that I had one
16:17 day and I just wanted to throw it at him
16:19 and and get my way, right? I'm actually
16:20 serious about this and I'm willing to
16:23 invest serious time and effort into
16:26 proving that my idea is valid. Whether
16:28 or not he decides to take it is a whole
16:29 another matter, but it's all about
16:32 showing that you actually care. But
16:34 what's the other thing I did? I ended
16:36 not just by talking about you know what
16:39 I learned or just saying oh everyone was
16:41 pleased and it was a success and you
16:43 know the company ended up doing it and
16:45 and everything went well right which is
16:46 kind of what I said in the first story
16:49 instead I talked about how okay I
16:51 learned that being persistent is really
16:53 important and oftentimes convincing or
16:55 changing someone's mind requires you to
16:57 maybe be okay with taking no at first
17:01 but not giving up and so at McKenzie I
17:03 know that there are going to be many
17:04 situations where you're working on a
17:06 high pressure case. As a junior
17:08 consultant, you have to deal with people
17:09 who are a lot older than you, like
17:11 senior partners. You need to deal with
17:13 clients who don't want to listen to you.
17:15 And you have to basically convince them
17:17 of your way. And so I can definitely see
17:20 myself taking the experiences that I've
17:22 learned from the startup to a consulting
17:24 role where I know I will run into these
17:27 situations, but I am empowered to handle
17:30 them in a way that is grounded in my own
17:32 convictions knowing that as a junior
17:33 person at a company, you are typically
17:37 the closest to the data or the analysis.
17:38 You are the boots on the ground and so
17:40 you're actually closer than your senior
17:42 managing partner who's like 10,000 feet
17:44 in the air. And so what I'm actually
17:46 doing there is I'm not ending the story
17:48 here. I'm ending by talking about what
17:50 it would be like if I actually worked
17:52 for them. I'm extrapolating. I'm doing
17:54 what's called future pacing where
17:56 essentially you make them think about
17:58 what it would be like if you were
18:00 literally working for them right now.
18:02 Forget all of this stuff, right? All
18:04 this interview prep advice. The only
18:06 thing that really matters in an
18:08 interview, well, I guess besides the
18:09 technical portion, which is probably
18:10 like 10% importance as long as you can
18:13 pass that, is can you convince them and
18:16 make them see you working for them? Can
18:18 they envision you working for them?
18:21 Especially if it's a very competitive,
18:22 high-powered job like consulting or
18:24 investment banking where you're going to
18:28 be spending like 80, 70, 80 hours a week
18:31 in the office with these people. They
18:35 100% have to see you in the office with
18:36 them. They have to be able to envision
18:38 it. If they can't, then too bad. Doesn't
18:41 matter how interesting your story is or
18:42 how good you are with the technical
18:44 portion of the interview. You're just
18:45 not going to get the job because you
18:47 have to convince them that they're not
18:49 going to make a a big mistake by hiring
18:51 you and they're not going to regret it
18:53 when it's like 10 p.m. in the office on
18:55 a Tuesday night and you're just like
18:58 being super annoying or a net negative
19:00 to the team. And so by extrapolating
19:02 into the future, talking about
19:04 everything that you learned and then
19:06 talking about how you will apply it in
19:07 the literal role that you are applying
19:09 for, you are essentially doing like an
19:11 inception play where if you've seen that
19:12 movie, basically the whole premise of
19:15 the movie is Leonardo DiCaprio goes into
19:19 people's uh dreams and plants a seed of
19:21 an idea so deep down that they don't
19:23 they don't even know that it is their
19:25 idea. That's essentially what you're
19:27 doing here too is you're doing you're
19:30 like incepting the idea that oh this is
19:31 what it would be like if Matt was
19:34 working for me. Oh wow he would yeah
19:35 like he would demonstrate he would be a
19:37 leader. He would be super proactive.
19:39 He'd be such a hard worker. Like I know
19:42 I could depend on him. That's what
19:44 you're trying to do. And so honestly, if
19:45 you don't take anything else from this
19:47 video today, I want you to just take
19:50 this one thing away, which is that at
19:51 the there are just a few things that you
19:53 need to accomplish with answering
19:55 behavioral interview questions. One is
19:57 obviously you do need to demonstrate the
19:58 quality that's being tested. So for
20:01 example, leadership or integrity, but
20:03 most people stop there. The other thing
20:04 that you need to do is with your
20:05 delivery, you need to make the story
20:07 engaging by really opening up and being
20:08 a little bit more vulnerable and
20:10 authentic about talking about your inner
20:12 thoughts a little bit more. And you need
20:14 to tie all those experiences together to
20:16 obviously demonstrate that you were
20:18 effective in that situation, but also
20:21 future pace it so that they can envision
20:24 you applying those same qualities on
20:25 their team in that job that you're
20:27 literally interviewing for right now.
20:29 And I guarantee that if you internalize
20:31 all of this that I've just told you
20:33 today, information which has taken me
20:35 probably more than 5 years of just
20:38 messing up to learn and you apply that
20:39 information, you don't just click off
20:40 the video and forget about it. If you
20:42 actually apply this information in your
20:44 interviews, you're going to see just a
20:47 step function increase in your job
