January 28, 2025 • 26 mins
We’re about to wrap up a big month for hiring.
How’s your job search coming?!
I hope you’re getting those interviews and, today, I have a not-so-little something special to help.
I’m covering one of my all-time favorite questions to ask an employer in a job interview…
“What does success look like—exactly?”
If you don’t know what success looks like, how will you know what goals to shoot for?
How would you know whether you’re working toward the right results?
How would you—or THEY—know how to “grade” your performance?
It absolutely amazes me any organization can function, let alone survive, without knowing the answer to this question for every single person it employs.
BUT (you knew this was coming), you and I know this happens frequently.
Now, I already told you the question—which is the main theme for today’s lesson.
But, how could I have possibly spent 26:32 on this ONE question?
Because, THIS question will become the centerpiece of your entire job search.
And (taking a giant deep breath here to say all this all without pausing so please forgive the upcoming run-on sentence)…
THIS question will make you successful if you focus on it from the time you think about what you want to do with your career to writing your resume and cover letters and LinkedIn profile to choosing which companies and people you target, how you get the interviews, what you say to those nice people in the interviews, and…when you finally ask this question in the interview…to confirm you know what success looks like and on you go to the counteroffer.
I’m pretty sure that’s how I lay it out and everything I ultimately cover in this action-packed, highly-education, pivotal lesson.
Get ready to change the way you think about job searching!
If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:
1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums.
2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel.
3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page.
4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook.
5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here!
--Andy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I want to talk to you about one of my favorite questions to ask in a job interview it's not a
mystery ask the employer what does success look like if I was to take this job in a year from
now exactly what will have happened right what specifically will I have done there's so many
reasons why you want to ask this question so I had one of my uh boot campers Amanda had asked
(00:20):
me a couple of weeks ago in one of our sessions and she said Andy I asked this question what
does success look like and I don't always get a good answer sometimes they don't know what it is
sometimes they don't have a great answer what do I do what this what this show really ought
to have been titled is I want you to make this the centerpiece of your whole damn job search
(00:41):
this is what is going to make you successful from the time you think about what you're going to want
to do to the to the way you put your resume your LinkedIn profile your cover letters together who
you target how you get the interviews what you say to them in the interviews and when you ultimately
ask this question to confirm that you know what's ESS looks like and on you go to the counter offer
(01:04):
and that's what this talk is going to be about so I'm going to tell you the philosophy we're
the mindset I'm going to give you the tactics so that I think dare I say in the lore of Andy
lessons this probably minute for minute or pound forp pound is going to be one of the greatest rois
you're ever going to get and if you ask me the question Andy I'm just starting my job search
or if I need to reboot my job search what should I do I will tell you that I want you to ask this
(01:28):
question what does success look like ask it of yourself and what you're looking for ask it of
the employers that you want to Target and know know what success you can bring to them because
employers they buy transformation they hire for a future who they want to be and they want to
know you can help them get there so so what does that really what does this conceptually look like
(01:51):
well the first part is let's use an analogy from my life a big part of being a good coach for you
whether you pay for my programs and or whether you just join me here for the for the free live shows
and videos makes no difference if if I have your attention in any way shape or form I think you
hope that I have something to offer and in doing so I want to help you be successful so I am job
(02:16):
search coach and I'm a career development coach that's what I do and so even though I have not
met you I know that you have goals you have goals right you you you you want to find a great job
hopefully do great work and be appreci app make an impact make good money right maybe have good
work life balance and some other things I know even though I have not met 99% of you actually
(02:38):
in person I would say that you all probably want that in some way shape or form some of you might
say well I just need a job to pay the bills and that's what success looks like okay well that's
a subset of what I just said or I have a job but I want to change careers all right well it's another
job it's still a subset of what I said you want a different career you want a different job you want
a different company I know know that to be the case and I don't even I haven't even met you yet
(03:03):
and I also know that when you encounter these job searches whether it was thrust upon you or whether
you chose to do this yourself is you have problems in achieving those goals right some people don't
know how to Market themselves don't some people are very good at their job but they're not really
great at articulating how they do what they do and how a future how an employer's future will
(03:25):
be better they have storytelling problems I like to say there's a h most of different problems and
regardless of who you are uh the more of those problems that I have solved and the better I
understand the kinds of things you can encounter and develop solutions to do that the greater the
likelihood that you're going to pay attention to me or engage in my work or be successful because
(03:49):
of that I know that I haven't even met you yet and a big part of what we're going to go through today
is you getting that concept and understanding that a big part of your success is knowing how to
appeal to someone else's need to solve their goal or achieve their goal or aspiration or solve their
problems and you need to do that in advance and so what I'm going to do with this talk today is
(04:14):
I'm going to bring you to the interview and then I'm going to talk to you about the question and
then I'm going to bring you all the way back to the beginning of your job search and show you why
this question is so important and how to use it at each stage of the job search to be successful cool
all right I am I am really stoked for this all right so the first thing is what what is what is
(04:35):
what is this question and why do you want to ask it so the first thing is that if you are going to
do anything in your life and you don't know what success is or you have the wrong success metrics
you're either going to be unhappy or you're going to fail or you're going to quit or if somebody
else is gauging your level of success they may not think that you're doing a great job if you
are not crystal clear on what success looks like when you get into an organiz ation how are you
(05:00):
going to know if you're doing the right things if you're achieving the right levels of of stages of
success along the way to get to the ultimate goal how will you be sure that you're clear on
how you're being evaluated whether you'll get your promotions and all the other stuff that
go serve the customers all the other stuff that goes along with this so the so I want everybody
(05:21):
who gets into a job interview to ask this question it's probably the first question I would ask and
I wouldn't necessarily ask it right to the HR person but definitely when I get to the higher
officials and and the management team and people of that ilk I would definitely want it to come out
so one of the things that I want to do is I want to turn to specifically what I want you to do in
the interview I want you to ask this question and what does success look like and you could
(05:44):
be more specific if you'd like like in a year from now what do the metrics look like and all
that good stuff but generally speaking and I'm actually going to go through this part pretty
quickly is what you're looking for is you're looking for the area of focus specifically what
your responsibilities or activities will be in order to achieve the goals so the first part of
(06:07):
this of what you're looking for is you're looking for something specific about what they're trying
to accomplish so I often use the example about my marketing right every marketing department in the
world wants to build their brand and generate more leads okay well if I get if I have three
leads a day does success look like six leads that could be or maybe 60 leads what level of
(06:29):
growth are you looking for um is there anything along the way that you're looking for to help
build a big a good infrastructure well not only do I want the 60 leads I also want you to build
me a dashboard because a system that can help me understand immediately whether we're generating
the right leads or those leads are converting to to customers that's helpful or I want to be able
(06:51):
to track the cost per lead and so on and so forth okay that's a system that you're going to build
while building the system isn't your ultimate goal it's certainly a requirement in order to attain
the number of leads so how you want to define success is is is okay with me if you want to talk
in numbers or you want to talk in deliverables or you want to talk in whatever I just want to
(07:13):
make sure that you know what success looks like and there will be Su levels of success and then
additionally if you can you want to get the key performance measurements and why do you want to do
this it's because you you want to know well Andy you know if there's no way in heck I'm going to be
able to get you 60 leads you told me you don't have any budget for this we're not going to be
(07:33):
able to run ads I'm just going to have to manually circulate social media copy right so you want to
understand what are the specific metrics what's important to me and what are the resources I'm
going to commit you want me to implement that it project by October so we can turn on a new system
if I'm the only one doing it there it's going to be October the next year you get the idea right
(07:56):
so you are when you're looking for success and information regarding success this is what you're
looking for and why do you want to know that why is this so important well not only do you want to
make sure that you're walking into something that you can actually do and number two you want to get
information from them because you still want to be able to explain to them well how is it that I'm
(08:20):
actually going to be able to achieve that because much of the time an employer is going to like as I
said they buy transformation they don't buy your features or your skills what the big mistake job
candidates make is they want to talk about all the things that they've done and all the skills
that they've built I do not care about those I care about your application of your work history
(08:41):
in my environment and what's going to happen to me what's happened to you is history and I don't
care about that may in an extreme case what you need to do in an interview with me is you need
to show me how my life's going to change well if I tell you what success is like and I say I want
60 leads then you can regil me with the formula for how exactly you're going to do that and how
(09:02):
you know it's going to work because you've done it in the past for other career coaches or whatever
it is so this gives you a great great great great insight to sell yourself into their future because
they're looking for their their transformation and so you want to make sure that you do that now what
Amanda was asking me is she said well Andy I get in these interviews I ask them this question and
(09:24):
they can't tell me what it is now the first thing I want you to do is I want you to run because
if you're getting into an organization that doesn't know what success looks like and they're
just hiring somebody because they think they need somebody to do this or they're not sure
what success looks like and I'll tell you when I see it or they're constantly moving the goal
post on you or Worse they're constantly changing your responsibilities or the expectations that's
(09:50):
really really bad it's the biggest red flag you could ever see in an interview If an employer
does not know exactly what they want out of hiring you they need to be able to relay that
to you you need to be able to to to to relay back to me or them how you're going to make
that happen so I know you're not going to R I know you're not going to run because I need to
(10:11):
arm you for every contingency because I know you're going to want to pursue this and just
because they don't know or they don't have all the details of success sometimes they might be
in a position to say well we need you to come in and build a strategy and help us
understand what the budgets and the plans look like well okay then success looks like I build
you a strategy that has this this this and this deliverables fine that's fine but I want some
(10:35):
level of concreteness and you have to have that now if they don't know then what I want you to do
is really sell yourself by doing some homework before you get into the interview process and
this is homework that you should have done before you built your resume now here's where I get into
okay we're in the interview I want to go back to the beginning so from the time you start your job
(10:58):
search I want you thinking in these terms the first thing is as I opened up with my little
story about being able to help you with your job search ask yourself well what are my top
three goals right now what are your top three goals you do whatever you do you account the
(11:19):
books you you you build the semiconductors you you hire uh you're on the recruitment team you
hire people uh you're a a marketer you generate the leads whatever it is what are your top three
goals what are my team's goals right so maybe my goal is to write the social media copy that
(11:42):
that that the poster or the scheduler is going to go and schedule on social but my team is really
looking to what get leads my job to help them get the lead is to write good social media copy
and come up with good imagery and good videos or whatever okay maybe write good blog posts
um if I'm interviewing or even if I'm not interviewing let's say I'm going to go out
(12:05):
and I want to be a social media copywriter but I don't yet have an interview we go look at all the
job descriptions of the social media writers and see what their goals are and you might say well
Andy they don't job descriptions are generally poorly written they tell me what I'm responsible
for and what my requirements are right but if they say you're responsible for writing
the social media copy it's a good indication that you're writing the copy for a reason what's that
(12:30):
reason you can use your nuggets okay and if you have absolutely no idea I'm going to show you how
to overcome this all right and or you can use um an online or AI tool or Google or chat GPT or if
you are one of the very fortunate people who has Andy aai you can use that so now I want you to I
(12:51):
want you to think about this going back to my story I know I know when I I'm I'm Andy I have
zero customers I want to be a job search coach I know people want to find good jobs all right
that's a goal I could start there and I know that in order to find the right job and thrive
(13:14):
in it they need to know what makes them happy they need to know how to Market themselves and
put a resume together and build a LinkedIn profile and they need to know how to network they need to
know how to bring thems to Market and Target the right companies they need to know how to interview
they need to know how to negotiate there's about 28 skills they need most of which they don't have
(13:35):
right they're paid to do something else so I think about this so what I do is I say okay
well these are their goals and then what are all their problems I want you to think about
the problems because an employer wants to hire somebody who can help them achieve their goals
except that the person who can help them achiev their goals by already having overcome the same
(13:58):
problems they have is the person that they cannot possibly hire fast enough so what what does that
look like well I know you want jobs I know you want a good job May or maybe you want to change
careers but well what about well Andy that's great that you you you you've recruited a lot
of people or you've helped a lot of people find jobs as a job search coach but I'm a 44 year old
(14:18):
female in Australia who's single who works for the government already solved that problem I
already know what the formula is for that or I'm a middle-age white dude and Germany been there
or 30-year-old South African or somebody in South Korea or a woman in Amsterdam or somebody in the
UK or we have different resume styles I already have solved all those problems why do you think
(14:44):
I created a job search doppelganger page there's a page that I have that you could go see and I
illustrate the problems that they have so you can identify with that and you can learn from
those case studies that's my resume because I'm already thinking forward as to not only what the
goals are but well if Andy wants more leads what's Andy's problems he might have a brand awareness
(15:09):
problem nobody might know him he might have uh he doesn't know how to put a video together problem
he doesn't know how to write social media copy he doesn't really have a good product to sell or he
has all those things but he has no money to pay for advertis all of these are problems there's
a whole bunch of problems but when I'm talking to you if you've already solved these problems and I
(15:31):
I want leads remember I want leads because that's going to transform my business have you solved
the problems so now you're thinking about all of this in advance this is what goes on your resume
because this is going to show them whether it's your career profile or your career highlights the
(15:52):
top half of the first page that you've achieved these goals by solving these problems this is
going to get eyeballs on you this is what's going to entice them to talk to you and give you the
interview it's the stuff that's going to go in the cover letter right if I'm if if you're going
to reach out to me about my marketing position you want to talk to me about how you've already
(16:12):
helped coaches achieve Success Through expansion of their brand and their leads you want to show
me those highlights and when you get into the interviews what do what do I call those for those
of you that go to the Andy School interviewing we call them power stories right so when you're
talking about about these kinds of things these top goals think in terms of in the future what
(16:35):
do they need and I'm going to get to what to say to the interviewers when they don't give you good
answers but this is the homework that you need to have done in order to respond or reut correctly so
that's the first part and if you don't know this you could use AI to come up with some information
even if you do know this you can use AI to come up with this information so you can ask it questions
(17:00):
like just very quickly well what are the top three goals of any marketing professional something like
that can you tell me the biggest challenges or problems companies have in achieving those
marketing goals I work in the marketing department as a social media copywriter Who develops social
text to attract leads to attract customers can you tell me what my three biggest goals should be
(17:23):
to perform well in this job what are the biggest challenges or problems a social media copywriter
uh has or or needs to overcome to help his team now I know I went through that very quickly but
don't you worry because the replay is going to live on in YouTube land forever but you get the
idea you can prompt the tools to give you this information and why is this information so helpful
(17:47):
well when you get into the interviewing process if you are armed with this information you're going
to be in a much better position to help facilitate the the poor response of the success question by
giving them multiple choice information so what might that look like all right let's give you
an example and for those of you that are that are fortunate enough to have Andy AI yesterday I went
(18:13):
into Andy Ai and if you don't know what Andy AI is just very quickly think chat GPT except
Andy built it okay so this has my brain So for anybody who has access to this who's in my job
search coaching program or is a lifetime member of my leadership coaching program you have access to
this so what I just showed you on the slide see this thing up at the top what are the top three
(18:36):
goals of any marketing professional well I've been tuning Andy Ai and Andy AI apparently answered me
in a in a paragraphic form so I said uh hang on thank you can you please answer the question in a
bullet format like one two three so it's easy for me to see so Andy a I came back with the things
real Andy would say increase brand awareness so I know that one of the the top goals of a marketer
(19:00):
is to increase brand awareness Drive customer acquisition and enhance customer engagement and
retention you want to continue to Market to your customers to make sure even if you're not trying
to sell them anything you want to make sure that they're using your products or services to the
best of their ability so that they're successful and so you can go in and ask at this now I know
(19:22):
I know that every job I interview for I know these are going to be the three top goals or
dang near dear near the top then I go on and say can you tell me the biggest challenges or problems
company will have in achieving those marketing goals again give me the numbered format okay
so here's what Andy AI said which just like real Andy would say brand awareness right they struggle
(19:45):
to get their name out there customer acquisition the cost it can be expensive right especially when
you're tuning it what if you miss Target um what about digital marketing campaigns there's there's
they're evolving the Technologies are changing the damn Facebook ads are changing on me all the time
content overload people are saturated when Andy puts his LinkedIn post out not everybody sees that
(20:07):
they can get the hiring prophecies right now right data use how are you analyzing are you keeping
your customers what about your competitors you get the idea okay now let's drill down I work in the
marketing department as a social media copywriter who developed social media post to attract
new customers can you tell me what my three biggest goals should be to perform well great
(20:28):
boost engagement well of course we want to boost engagement right we want people talking about our
stuff we want to drive tra traffic in leads we want to build the brand voice right we want it
to be consistent awesome what are the biggest challenges I'm going to have well let's see
right maintaining engagement aligning the brand voice consistently so on and so forth you get the
(20:49):
idea so whether you know this or not you can use these tools and when you do something like this
I'm telling you I'm telling you when you go back to the beginning this will get your job
search armed in the right direction this will get you job this is this is being prepared to
(21:12):
get job interviews this is being prepared to tell the right stories in a job interview and this is
what's going to help you when you ask questions like what do success look like to be fully armed
for any response so what will you do so you ask the question what does success look like
and they say I don't know and you say well seeing as how I'm being interviewed for a social media
(21:36):
copywriter position I would imagine that the top level goals for the Department are increase the
brand voice boom boom boom would you say those are your top goals what can you tell me about
those what challenges have you encountered right you're now going in you're now interviewing them
with your responses to tell them how smart you are this is being prepared this is being congruent
(22:03):
across your entire search this is what's going to help you at each phase so that when you get into
the situation I just showed you on this on this browser screen although you don't even have to
have access to my my tool although it is you know it's my tool so it's my favorite but you know what
to tell them how about this how about this how about this does that sound like that would be
(22:26):
success what level of leads do you get a day right now what would be your Nirvana what would be your
stretch goal what would make you do backflips just tell me right so do you see do you see
what's going to happen they are they will not be a they will not even want to finish the interview
(22:49):
they'll want to drop the job offer if you're doing that and you want to ask this question early why
because you want to get all this information as early as possible again again if if you ask the
recruiter I might not ask recruiter what does success look like exactly in this position or
you could say to the recruiter hey I want to understand what success would look like in this
(23:11):
position but if you don't have all the details what are the traits of the person that would be
successful in this position based on some of the biggest problems that your hiring official shared
with you as you move into the tech screen or whatever teammate screen how are you judged what
are your top goals what are your biggest problems get to the hiring official what the success look
(23:37):
like who's tracking who's got access to Andy AI who thanks me every day and kisses up on their
lucky stars for stuff like that you get where I'm going with this so just to recap very quickly when
you when you get into the when you get into the interviewing process you want to make sure that
(24:00):
you are thinking in terms of what success looks like ask yourself from a job searching standpoint
what does success look like for me those are what are the types of companies that I want to work at
what are their top goals and then lay this out you can do this All in advance and then what you're
(24:21):
doing in the interviewing is you're interviewing process you're listening the specific information
that they have and then just ask yourself just do it with a pen and paper just from just from your
brain don't turn this thing off up here just cuz you have Andy AI right what are my top three goals
you want to think through all of those so that when you ask when you ask the interviewer the
(24:46):
question you will be able to in the event they are not Crystal Clear you'll be able to facilitate let
me give you one step better before we cap this off and go to questions how about any of you
are any of you in a situation where you're crafting your own role or maybe they're asking
you to come in and draw your own job description or any of that well what I just showed you should
(25:12):
be the centerpiece for you to do that because based on the areas that are going to be under
your purview or what you can contribute you can identify what you'll do how you'll be successful
the value it will it will uh produce and it will be much clear clear for you to start for you and
them when you're communicating once you've drawn a blueprint together all right now one
(25:34):
last thing you might have noticed this at the top of the slides I do have an interview webinar that
talks about some of this stuff in more detail it's called the job interview Playbook webinar
Cara can drop that in the chat and uh I think that will go a long way in in Flushing out even more of
this because I do talk about the success question and some more questions uh and and all of these
(25:58):
Concepts in there and it's um I believe it's an 80 minute teaching it's 80 minutes of teaching that's
full teaching that's no not sales that's full teaching webinar regarding these topics all right
I hope you enjoyed this if you did make sure to smash that like button share this because people
need help and please make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel because it literally hurts me
(26:19):
when you do not get my videos on Tuesdays or my live shows on Thursdays or all my shorts Monday
Wednesday Friday Saturday and Sunday all right love y'all happy job searching we'll see you soon
I want to talk to you about one of my favorite questions to ask in a job interview it's not a
mystery ask the employer what does success look like if I was to take this job in a year from
now exactly what will have happened right what specifically will I have done there's so many
reasons why you want to ask this question so I had one of my uh boot campers Amanda had asked
(00:20):
me a couple of weeks ago in one of our sessions and she said Andy I asked this question what
does success look like and I don't always get a good answer sometimes they don't know what it is
sometimes they don't have a great answer what do I do what this what this show really ought
to have been titled is I want you to make this the centerpiece of your whole damn job search
(00:41):
this is what is going to make you successful from the time you think about what you're going to want
to do to the to the way you put your resume your LinkedIn profile your cover letters together who
you target how you get the interviews what you say to them in the interviews and when you ultimately
ask this question to confirm that you know what's ESS looks like and on you go to the counter offer
(01:04):
and that's what this talk is going to be about so I'm going to tell you the philosophy we're
the mindset I'm going to give you the tactics so that I think dare I say in the lore of Andy
lessons this probably minute for minute or pound forp pound is going to be one of the greatest rois
you're ever going to get and if you ask me the question Andy I'm just starting my job search
or if I need to reboot my job search what should I do I will tell you that I want you to ask this
(01:28):
question what does success look like ask it of yourself and what you're looking for ask it of
the employers that you want to Target and know know what success you can bring to them because
employers they buy transformation they hire for a future who they want to be and they want to
know you can help them get there so so what does that really what does this conceptually look like
(01:51):
well the first part is let's use an analogy from my life a big part of being a good coach for you
whether you pay for my programs and or whether you just join me here for the for the free live shows
and videos makes no difference if if I have your attention in any way shape or form I think you
hope that I have something to offer and in doing so I want to help you be successful so I am job
(02:16):
search coach and I'm a career development coach that's what I do and so even though I have not
met you I know that you have goals you have goals right you you you you want to find a great job
hopefully do great work and be appreci app make an impact make good money right maybe have good
work life balance and some other things I know even though I have not met 99% of you actually
(02:38):
in person I would say that you all probably want that in some way shape or form some of you might
say well I just need a job to pay the bills and that's what success looks like okay well that's
a subset of what I just said or I have a job but I want to change careers all right well it's another
job it's still a subset of what I said you want a different career you want a different job you want
a different company I know know that to be the case and I don't even I haven't even met you yet
(03:03):
and I also know that when you encounter these job searches whether it was thrust upon you or whether
you chose to do this yourself is you have problems in achieving those goals right some people don't
know how to Market themselves don't some people are very good at their job but they're not really
great at articulating how they do what they do and how a future how an employer's future will
(03:25):
be better they have storytelling problems I like to say there's a h most of different problems and
regardless of who you are uh the more of those problems that I have solved and the better I
understand the kinds of things you can encounter and develop solutions to do that the greater the
likelihood that you're going to pay attention to me or engage in my work or be successful because
(03:49):
of that I know that I haven't even met you yet and a big part of what we're going to go through today
is you getting that concept and understanding that a big part of your success is knowing how to
appeal to someone else's need to solve their goal or achieve their goal or aspiration or solve their
problems and you need to do that in advance and so what I'm going to do with this talk today is
(04:14):
I'm going to bring you to the interview and then I'm going to talk to you about the question and
then I'm going to bring you all the way back to the beginning of your job search and show you why
this question is so important and how to use it at each stage of the job search to be successful cool
all right I am I am really stoked for this all right so the first thing is what what is what is
(04:35):
what is this question and why do you want to ask it so the first thing is that if you are going to
do anything in your life and you don't know what success is or you have the wrong success metrics
you're either going to be unhappy or you're going to fail or you're going to quit or if somebody
else is gauging your level of success they may not think that you're doing a great job if you
are not crystal clear on what success looks like when you get into an organiz ation how are you
(05:00):
going to know if you're doing the right things if you're achieving the right levels of of stages of
success along the way to get to the ultimate goal how will you be sure that you're clear on
how you're being evaluated whether you'll get your promotions and all the other stuff that
go serve the customers all the other stuff that goes along with this so the so I want everybody
(05:21):
who gets into a job interview to ask this question it's probably the first question I would ask and
I wouldn't necessarily ask it right to the HR person but definitely when I get to the higher
officials and and the management team and people of that ilk I would definitely want it to come out
so one of the things that I want to do is I want to turn to specifically what I want you to do in
the interview I want you to ask this question and what does success look like and you could
(05:44):
be more specific if you'd like like in a year from now what do the metrics look like and all
that good stuff but generally speaking and I'm actually going to go through this part pretty
quickly is what you're looking for is you're looking for the area of focus specifically what
your responsibilities or activities will be in order to achieve the goals so the first part of
(06:07):
this of what you're looking for is you're looking for something specific about what they're trying
to accomplish so I often use the example about my marketing right every marketing department in the
world wants to build their brand and generate more leads okay well if I get if I have three
leads a day does success look like six leads that could be or maybe 60 leads what level of
(06:29):
growth are you looking for um is there anything along the way that you're looking for to help
build a big a good infrastructure well not only do I want the 60 leads I also want you to build
me a dashboard because a system that can help me understand immediately whether we're generating
the right leads or those leads are converting to to customers that's helpful or I want to be able
(06:51):
to track the cost per lead and so on and so forth okay that's a system that you're going to build
while building the system isn't your ultimate goal it's certainly a requirement in order to attain
the number of leads so how you want to define success is is is okay with me if you want to talk
in numbers or you want to talk in deliverables or you want to talk in whatever I just want to
(07:13):
make sure that you know what success looks like and there will be Su levels of success and then
additionally if you can you want to get the key performance measurements and why do you want to do
this it's because you you want to know well Andy you know if there's no way in heck I'm going to be
able to get you 60 leads you told me you don't have any budget for this we're not going to be
(07:33):
able to run ads I'm just going to have to manually circulate social media copy right so you want to
understand what are the specific metrics what's important to me and what are the resources I'm
going to commit you want me to implement that it project by October so we can turn on a new system
if I'm the only one doing it there it's going to be October the next year you get the idea right
(07:56):
so you are when you're looking for success and information regarding success this is what you're
looking for and why do you want to know that why is this so important well not only do you want to
make sure that you're walking into something that you can actually do and number two you want to get
information from them because you still want to be able to explain to them well how is it that I'm
(08:20):
actually going to be able to achieve that because much of the time an employer is going to like as I
said they buy transformation they don't buy your features or your skills what the big mistake job
candidates make is they want to talk about all the things that they've done and all the skills
that they've built I do not care about those I care about your application of your work history
(08:41):
in my environment and what's going to happen to me what's happened to you is history and I don't
care about that may in an extreme case what you need to do in an interview with me is you need
to show me how my life's going to change well if I tell you what success is like and I say I want
60 leads then you can regil me with the formula for how exactly you're going to do that and how
(09:02):
you know it's going to work because you've done it in the past for other career coaches or whatever
it is so this gives you a great great great great insight to sell yourself into their future because
they're looking for their their transformation and so you want to make sure that you do that now what
Amanda was asking me is she said well Andy I get in these interviews I ask them this question and
(09:24):
they can't tell me what it is now the first thing I want you to do is I want you to run because
if you're getting into an organization that doesn't know what success looks like and they're
just hiring somebody because they think they need somebody to do this or they're not sure
what success looks like and I'll tell you when I see it or they're constantly moving the goal
post on you or Worse they're constantly changing your responsibilities or the expectations that's
(09:50):
really really bad it's the biggest red flag you could ever see in an interview If an employer
does not know exactly what they want out of hiring you they need to be able to relay that
to you you need to be able to to to to relay back to me or them how you're going to make
that happen so I know you're not going to R I know you're not going to run because I need to
(10:11):
arm you for every contingency because I know you're going to want to pursue this and just
because they don't know or they don't have all the details of success sometimes they might be
in a position to say well we need you to come in and build a strategy and help us
understand what the budgets and the plans look like well okay then success looks like I build
you a strategy that has this this this and this deliverables fine that's fine but I want some
(10:35):
level of concreteness and you have to have that now if they don't know then what I want you to do
is really sell yourself by doing some homework before you get into the interview process and
this is homework that you should have done before you built your resume now here's where I get into
okay we're in the interview I want to go back to the beginning so from the time you start your job
(10:58):
search I want you thinking in these terms the first thing is as I opened up with my little
story about being able to help you with your job search ask yourself well what are my top
three goals right now what are your top three goals you do whatever you do you account the
(11:19):
books you you you build the semiconductors you you hire uh you're on the recruitment team you
hire people uh you're a a marketer you generate the leads whatever it is what are your top three
goals what are my team's goals right so maybe my goal is to write the social media copy that
(11:42):
that that the poster or the scheduler is going to go and schedule on social but my team is really
looking to what get leads my job to help them get the lead is to write good social media copy
and come up with good imagery and good videos or whatever okay maybe write good blog posts
um if I'm interviewing or even if I'm not interviewing let's say I'm going to go out
(12:05):
and I want to be a social media copywriter but I don't yet have an interview we go look at all the
job descriptions of the social media writers and see what their goals are and you might say well
Andy they don't job descriptions are generally poorly written they tell me what I'm responsible
for and what my requirements are right but if they say you're responsible for writing
the social media copy it's a good indication that you're writing the copy for a reason what's that
(12:30):
reason you can use your nuggets okay and if you have absolutely no idea I'm going to show you how
to overcome this all right and or you can use um an online or AI tool or Google or chat GPT or if
you are one of the very fortunate people who has Andy aai you can use that so now I want you to I
(12:51):
want you to think about this going back to my story I know I know when I I'm I'm Andy I have
zero customers I want to be a job search coach I know people want to find good jobs all right
that's a goal I could start there and I know that in order to find the right job and thrive
(13:14):
in it they need to know what makes them happy they need to know how to Market themselves and
put a resume together and build a LinkedIn profile and they need to know how to network they need to
know how to bring thems to Market and Target the right companies they need to know how to interview
they need to know how to negotiate there's about 28 skills they need most of which they don't have
(13:35):
right they're paid to do something else so I think about this so what I do is I say okay
well these are their goals and then what are all their problems I want you to think about
the problems because an employer wants to hire somebody who can help them achieve their goals
except that the person who can help them achiev their goals by already having overcome the same
(13:58):
problems they have is the person that they cannot possibly hire fast enough so what what does that
look like well I know you want jobs I know you want a good job May or maybe you want to change
careers but well what about well Andy that's great that you you you you've recruited a lot
of people or you've helped a lot of people find jobs as a job search coach but I'm a 44 year old
(14:18):
female in Australia who's single who works for the government already solved that problem I
already know what the formula is for that or I'm a middle-age white dude and Germany been there
or 30-year-old South African or somebody in South Korea or a woman in Amsterdam or somebody in the
UK or we have different resume styles I already have solved all those problems why do you think
(14:44):
I created a job search doppelganger page there's a page that I have that you could go see and I
illustrate the problems that they have so you can identify with that and you can learn from
those case studies that's my resume because I'm already thinking forward as to not only what the
goals are but well if Andy wants more leads what's Andy's problems he might have a brand awareness
(15:09):
problem nobody might know him he might have uh he doesn't know how to put a video together problem
he doesn't know how to write social media copy he doesn't really have a good product to sell or he
has all those things but he has no money to pay for advertis all of these are problems there's
a whole bunch of problems but when I'm talking to you if you've already solved these problems and I
(15:31):
I want leads remember I want leads because that's going to transform my business have you solved
the problems so now you're thinking about all of this in advance this is what goes on your resume
because this is going to show them whether it's your career profile or your career highlights the
(15:52):
top half of the first page that you've achieved these goals by solving these problems this is
going to get eyeballs on you this is what's going to entice them to talk to you and give you the
interview it's the stuff that's going to go in the cover letter right if I'm if if you're going
to reach out to me about my marketing position you want to talk to me about how you've already
(16:12):
helped coaches achieve Success Through expansion of their brand and their leads you want to show
me those highlights and when you get into the interviews what do what do I call those for those
of you that go to the Andy School interviewing we call them power stories right so when you're
talking about about these kinds of things these top goals think in terms of in the future what
(16:35):
do they need and I'm going to get to what to say to the interviewers when they don't give you good
answers but this is the homework that you need to have done in order to respond or reut correctly so
that's the first part and if you don't know this you could use AI to come up with some information
even if you do know this you can use AI to come up with this information so you can ask it questions
(17:00):
like just very quickly well what are the top three goals of any marketing professional something like
that can you tell me the biggest challenges or problems companies have in achieving those
marketing goals I work in the marketing department as a social media copywriter Who develops social
text to attract leads to attract customers can you tell me what my three biggest goals should be
(17:23):
to perform well in this job what are the biggest challenges or problems a social media copywriter
uh has or or needs to overcome to help his team now I know I went through that very quickly but
don't you worry because the replay is going to live on in YouTube land forever but you get the
idea you can prompt the tools to give you this information and why is this information so helpful
(17:47):
well when you get into the interviewing process if you are armed with this information you're going
to be in a much better position to help facilitate the the poor response of the success question by
giving them multiple choice information so what might that look like all right let's give you
an example and for those of you that are that are fortunate enough to have Andy AI yesterday I went
(18:13):
into Andy Ai and if you don't know what Andy AI is just very quickly think chat GPT except
Andy built it okay so this has my brain So for anybody who has access to this who's in my job
search coaching program or is a lifetime member of my leadership coaching program you have access to
this so what I just showed you on the slide see this thing up at the top what are the top three
(18:36):
goals of any marketing professional well I've been tuning Andy Ai and Andy AI apparently answered me
in a in a paragraphic form so I said uh hang on thank you can you please answer the question in a
bullet format like one two three so it's easy for me to see so Andy a I came back with the things
real Andy would say increase brand awareness so I know that one of the the top goals of a marketer
(19:00):
is to increase brand awareness Drive customer acquisition and enhance customer engagement and
retention you want to continue to Market to your customers to make sure even if you're not trying
to sell them anything you want to make sure that they're using your products or services to the
best of their ability so that they're successful and so you can go in and ask at this now I know
(19:22):
I know that every job I interview for I know these are going to be the three top goals or
dang near dear near the top then I go on and say can you tell me the biggest challenges or problems
company will have in achieving those marketing goals again give me the numbered format okay
so here's what Andy AI said which just like real Andy would say brand awareness right they struggle
(19:45):
to get their name out there customer acquisition the cost it can be expensive right especially when
you're tuning it what if you miss Target um what about digital marketing campaigns there's there's
they're evolving the Technologies are changing the damn Facebook ads are changing on me all the time
content overload people are saturated when Andy puts his LinkedIn post out not everybody sees that
(20:07):
they can get the hiring prophecies right now right data use how are you analyzing are you keeping
your customers what about your competitors you get the idea okay now let's drill down I work in the
marketing department as a social media copywriter who developed social media post to attract
new customers can you tell me what my three biggest goals should be to perform well great
(20:28):
boost engagement well of course we want to boost engagement right we want people talking about our
stuff we want to drive tra traffic in leads we want to build the brand voice right we want it
to be consistent awesome what are the biggest challenges I'm going to have well let's see
right maintaining engagement aligning the brand voice consistently so on and so forth you get the
(20:49):
idea so whether you know this or not you can use these tools and when you do something like this
I'm telling you I'm telling you when you go back to the beginning this will get your job
search armed in the right direction this will get you job this is this is being prepared to
(21:12):
get job interviews this is being prepared to tell the right stories in a job interview and this is
what's going to help you when you ask questions like what do success look like to be fully armed
for any response so what will you do so you ask the question what does success look like
and they say I don't know and you say well seeing as how I'm being interviewed for a social media
(21:36):
copywriter position I would imagine that the top level goals for the Department are increase the
brand voice boom boom boom would you say those are your top goals what can you tell me about
those what challenges have you encountered right you're now going in you're now interviewing them
with your responses to tell them how smart you are this is being prepared this is being congruent
(22:03):
across your entire search this is what's going to help you at each phase so that when you get into
the situation I just showed you on this on this browser screen although you don't even have to
have access to my my tool although it is you know it's my tool so it's my favorite but you know what
to tell them how about this how about this how about this does that sound like that would be
(22:26):
success what level of leads do you get a day right now what would be your Nirvana what would be your
stretch goal what would make you do backflips just tell me right so do you see do you see
what's going to happen they are they will not be a they will not even want to finish the interview
(22:49):
they'll want to drop the job offer if you're doing that and you want to ask this question early why
because you want to get all this information as early as possible again again if if you ask the
recruiter I might not ask recruiter what does success look like exactly in this position or
you could say to the recruiter hey I want to understand what success would look like in this
(23:11):
position but if you don't have all the details what are the traits of the person that would be
successful in this position based on some of the biggest problems that your hiring official shared
with you as you move into the tech screen or whatever teammate screen how are you judged what
are your top goals what are your biggest problems get to the hiring official what the success look
(23:37):
like who's tracking who's got access to Andy AI who thanks me every day and kisses up on their
lucky stars for stuff like that you get where I'm going with this so just to recap very quickly when
you when you get into the when you get into the interviewing process you want to make sure that
(24:00):
you are thinking in terms of what success looks like ask yourself from a job searching standpoint
what does success look like for me those are what are the types of companies that I want to work at
what are their top goals and then lay this out you can do this All in advance and then what you're
(24:21):
doing in the interviewing is you're interviewing process you're listening the specific information
that they have and then just ask yourself just do it with a pen and paper just from just from your
brain don't turn this thing off up here just cuz you have Andy AI right what are my top three goals
you want to think through all of those so that when you ask when you ask the interviewer the
(24:46):
question you will be able to in the event they are not Crystal Clear you'll be able to facilitate let
me give you one step better before we cap this off and go to questions how about any of you
are any of you in a situation where you're crafting your own role or maybe they're asking
you to come in and draw your own job description or any of that well what I just showed you should
(25:12):
be the centerpiece for you to do that because based on the areas that are going to be under
your purview or what you can contribute you can identify what you'll do how you'll be successful
the value it will it will uh produce and it will be much clear clear for you to start for you and
them when you're communicating once you've drawn a blueprint together all right now one
(25:34):
last thing you might have noticed this at the top of the slides I do have an interview webinar that
talks about some of this stuff in more detail it's called the job interview Playbook webinar
Cara can drop that in the chat and uh I think that will go a long way in in Flushing out even more of
this because I do talk about the success question and some more questions uh and and all of these
(25:58):
Concepts in there and it's um I believe it's an 80 minute teaching it's 80 minutes of teaching that's
full teaching that's no not sales that's full teaching webinar regarding these topics all right
I hope you enjoyed this if you did make sure to smash that like button share this because people
need help and please make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel because it literally hurts me
(26:19):
when you do not get my videos on Tuesdays or my live shows on Thursdays or all my shorts Monday
Wednesday Friday Saturday and Sunday all right love y'all happy job searching we'll see you soon
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com