Interview Strategy – Giving It All Away
Let’s say you are in a job interview and you are asked for your biggest idea for innovation within the company. Do you give away your best thinking, knowing you may or may not be hired? Or do you hang on to it, hoping for credit once you are in the door and part of the company?
This dilemma faces job seekers regularly as they interview. Job applicants are asked for ideas, presentations, plans, suggestions and insights. In almost every case, the hiring company certainly could take the input and run with it, leaving the job seeker out. Yet there is a strong case for giving it all away and not worrying about where it ends up.
- If you share an idea that is truly unique, it will likely make you a front runner for the job. The company would love to see you come up with even more ideas like this to solve more problems and create more improvements.
- If other candidates are asked the same question and openly share similar ideas, but you hold back, you will be at a disadvantaged.
- Idea or credit hogging is not a good work ethic. You want to work for a place and for people who share ideas freely and build successes as a team.
- Most likely your brilliant ideas are only valuable if they can be put into use. This means they are valuable to the company, but not necessary to you as an individual. At least not today. You don’t know what the situation will be when you are actually ready to put your idea to use. Market conditions might have completely changed. Other people might also have come up with the same idea.
- Giving your best makes you memorable. Even if you don’t get this job, you will be remembered as someone with great ideas who was open which may lead to opportunities down the line.
- Sharing your best ideas and insights, demonstrates that you put the company’s interest before your own. When you give them the best solution you can think of, it’s a good sign from the employer point of view.
What do you think? Do you freely give away your insights, ideas and best thinking at job interviews, or hold back hoping to be hired? Why?
What about doing a bunch of work to get an interview? For example, they give you a design or marketing problem and you create a presentation for it. It could be hours and hours of creation with no job offer.
It’s fine for companies to give out a small hypothetical assignment to learn more about how you work and problem solve. If that’s the case, give it your all. If the request would truly require hours of work, you may have to let the hiring manager or recruiter know you feel the request is unrealistically large. In that communication discuss the approach you would take to solving the problem and give examples of successes you’ve had in similar situations. Be positive and professional in your reply and express a willingness to meet and talk further.
Here is a New York Times article – “I Asserted Myself, and Got the Job“- on how a job seeker advanced his candidacy by sharing his ideas.