Many job candidates make a huge mistake in their interviews—and you need to make sure it isn’t happening in yours. RELATED: How To Prepare For A Job Interview Even though qualified, talented job candidates do a great job of preparing for the interview, researching the company, putting a lot of thought and effort into answering interview questions, and all that...at the end of the interview they fail to ask THE key question that could get them the offer.
It’s about closing. Closing is a sales term. Every sales rep must close, or they may very well lose that business—but guess what? The job interview is a sales process. You are selling you to that hiring manager for that job. Closing allows you to gauge what’s happened in that interview, and react accordingly. How many times have you left an interview not knowing how it went? Or thinking it went well—but not getting the job offer? Closing helps you avoid those problems.
These are all closing questions that allow you to gauge where you are in the interview so you can react to it. If they say ‘no,’ you can ask why not and possibly correct a misconception or add more information that would change their mind. You’ll never leave another interview wondering if they liked you enough, or if you said everything you needed to say. If you get a ‘yes’ answer, you know you’ve done well. And, because they’ve said yes, they are more likely to offer you the job.
A lot of people won’t do this. It requires a lot of courage and a lot of determination—but who is worth this effort more than you? Learn to use these closing lines in your interview (this closing podcast will help), because it will really improve your interview performance and make it much more likely that you will get the offer. This post was originally published at an earlier date.