0:35

in this last year and a half really , when the

0:37

pandemic shut the world down , we

0:39

had some time to work on some research . It

0:42

was growing every year and we were

0:44

able to say you know , we've now conducted

0:46

30,000 face-to-face interviews . I

0:49

wonder if we could figure out who the best candidates

0:51

we've ever interviewed are . And

0:53

we were able to do that Like did they get the job

0:55

? Did they stay in it ?

1:12

Hey everyone , and welcome to the Equipped Interview

1:14

Podcast . With a combined 30 plus

1:16

years of being interviewed and interviewing thousands

1:18

of others , we're here to build your confidence

1:20

, help you stand out and get your dream job

1:22

. Your hosts are Joshua Tinkey and

1:24

Linda Commale . Let's get you equipped All

1:28

right . Well , for today we have another

1:30

guest and I'm excited to introduce you

1:32

to William Vanderbloemen

1:34

, and I could share

1:36

a little bit about him , but you know , I think it's always

1:38

best to have everyone introduce him

1:41

or herself . So today we have

1:43

an expert in the industry in a few different

1:45

ways , but William , first of all , welcome

1:47

.

1:48

Thanks so much , man . I appreciate you the chance to

1:50

be on here .

1:51

Absolutely , and our listeners will learn a lot

1:54

from you today and some of your experience . But

1:56

let's just start right at the beginning . Love to hear

1:58

from your perspective what's your background

2:00

and a little bit about your experience and interviewing

2:02

others . Anything else you think we should know from the

2:04

get-go .

2:05

I've got kind of a weird career path

2:07

and I'll try and keep it short . I tell

2:09

people I'm a recovering preacher

2:12

, so I ramble on

2:14

and on , but I spent

2:16

about 15 years serving churches

2:18

as a pastor , mainly as a senior

2:21

pastor , and ended

2:24

up serving a fairly good-sized church

2:26

in Houston , first secretary in Houston

2:28

, then

2:30

went through a divorce and

2:32

then found myself as a single

2:34

dad with four kids and you

2:37

know , just not in any kind of shape to be giving out spiritual

2:39

advice . So

2:42

I went into the corporate world and

2:44

went to work for a Fortune 200

2:47

company . They kind of had me on like a management

2:50

rotation thing where you learn this department

2:52

this year and then we'll move you to this one and then kind

2:54

of teach me the industry . And my

2:56

first year was in the HR

2:58

department , because they're like oh , you know people

3:00

, so we'll start there . Okay , the

3:03

CEO , who had been CEO

3:05

for nine , nine and a half years , which

3:07

is a long time for a Fortune

3:10

200 company , said

3:12

, you know , I think it's probably time to find my

3:14

successor , and they hired

3:17

this thing that I've never seen before called a search

3:19

firm . And because I was on

3:21

the HR team , I was kind of like water boy

3:23

for the process right , didn't really have a key

3:26

part to play , but I got to see everything going on . So

3:29

within 90 days they had their new CEO

3:32

. So back up just a little bit . I'm

3:35

serving at First Presbyterian Church . It's

3:37

within the small

3:39

world of Presbyterianism . It's a pretty

3:42

big deal like kind

3:44

of like being mayor of a big town in Scotland

3:46

, like what difference does that make

3:48

? But it should

3:51

not be a place that's hard to

3:53

recruit to . It took

3:55

them almost three years to find me . I

3:57

was there six . It took almost three years

4:00

to find my successor . So

4:02

they spent 12 years , half

4:04

the time with a pastor , half the time looking . And

4:07

then this oil and gas company that

4:10

I'm sitting here working for gets done in 90

4:12

days . And I just kind of was like

4:14

, wow , there's , there's

4:16

got to be a better solution

4:19

. And I thought maybe we could build something like

4:21

this for churches . And

4:23

I came home and told my wife we

4:26

just got married earlier , that you're blended . Our family

4:28

with six kids , you

4:30

know , just bought a house . And I said you know

4:32

, I think I'm supposed to

4:34

quit my job and start something

4:37

new for churches . And

4:39

she looked at me and she said , oh , that's

4:41

because churches love new ideas

4:43

, right , and

4:46

if you've been

4:48

around churches at all , you know that's yeah and

4:51

oh , josh . The best part

4:53

, it was the fall of 2008 , which was

4:55

just a brilliant time to quit your job and go

4:57

try something new .

4:59

Slight recession during that time .

5:00

Oh my , gosh , I was so dumb

5:02

and , and you know , my wife should

5:05

have said I love you , love your

5:07

vision , we got children to feed , go back to

5:09

work . And instead she said let's give this a try

5:11

. So she really should get credit for

5:14

starting the company . And

5:16

now you fast forward . And what started

5:18

with ? Could we help churches find a pastor ? Turned

5:20

into ? What about schools

5:23

that need a headmaster ? What about relief organizations

5:25

that need a CEO or a CFO ? What

5:28

about value space businesses that are ? They're

5:30

? They're hiring for people with aligned

5:33

values and not just competencies

5:35

, right ? So 15

5:38

years from when we started our little idea

5:40

, it's blossomed into this multiple

5:43

verticals of people who have a

5:45

set of values , who are looking for really top talent

5:48

and trust us to find the cultural

5:50

and chemistry sort

5:52

of tissue match for them as they try and

5:54

transplant a new leader in . So

5:57

yeah , that's a that's a long way of saying

5:59

. I've done a whole lot of interviews

6:01

in the last 15 years and

6:04

in this , in this last year and a half

6:06

really , when the pandemic shut the world

6:08

down , we had some time to work on some research

6:10

that we've grown every year and

6:13

and we were able to say you know , we've now

6:15

conducted 30,000 face to face interviews

6:17

, I wonder if we could figure out

6:19

who the best candidates we've ever interviewed

6:21

are . And and we were able to do that

6:23

Like , did they get the job , did they stay in

6:25

it ? And then we said I

6:27

wonder , I wonder of

6:30

these best of the best , I

6:32

wonder if they have anything in common . And

6:35

so we start studying and

6:37

turns out they have quite a bit in common

6:39

and the coolest part is the

6:42

things they have in common are easily

6:44

teachable habits

6:47

that are really common among

6:49

the very best candidates I've seen and

6:51

really uncommon among everyone else

6:53

, and they're just not that hard . So

6:56

, you know , our research project has now turned

6:58

into a book where

7:00

we've been able to identify these 12 habits

7:03

that the best seem to show

7:06

and the rest don't , and

7:08

a guidebook for , like , how you can

7:10

adopt those habits . And

7:12

you know , josh , with a good job market

7:14

, it's kind of looking a little wobbly the last six

7:16

months . It's also really crowded , with

7:19

more generations in the workforce

7:21

than ever and and , by the way , we're also

7:23

competing with machines now , right . So

7:27

I'm really hopeful

7:30

that the result of this research

7:32

will help a lot of people out there adopt

7:35

some habits that will cause them to stand out of the

7:37

crowd , kind of just get that little , that

7:40

little half step ahead of the rest of everybody

7:42

else so that you can get seen and noticed

7:44

and hired or promoted

7:46

or whatever the situation

7:49

is . You can stand out .

7:51

Well , those are the words that we use a lot on

7:54

this podcast . Here we talk a lot about how

7:56

do you set yourself apart , how do you do

7:58

that exactly and that's how you

8:00

stand out , so that you can also build your

8:02

confidence and do both of those things , because

8:05

they tend to go hand in hand , and so I'm really intrigued

8:08

about this research , and I know you have a new book

8:10

coming out . I want to get to that specifically

8:12

as well . You also made me super curious about some

8:14

of these things you learned , about those that do , in fact , stand

8:16

out , because we have a process here

8:18

that we talk a lot about over and over again . We have

8:21

something called our seven prep steps , and we

8:23

talk a lot about making sure you're

8:25

incredibly proactive and don't

8:27

make any assumptions that the

8:29

person that interviewing you can connect

8:31

the dots that you want them to . You have to be very

8:34

clear in your communication and know what

8:36

you bring to the table , why you're there and

8:38

say it out loud . Don't make

8:40

any assumptions , in other words . And so , if

8:42

you've done all these interviews over 15

8:45

years and all this data diving

8:47

that you've done , can you go into

8:49

a couple of them ? What are some of the things that do help people stand

8:51

out , that you found .

8:52

Yeah , you know , here's the really cool

8:54

thing the 12 commonalities

8:56

that we identified among these best

8:58

of the best . It was not oh

9:00

, they're all six feet tall , or

9:03

oh , they have great hair

9:05

and great teeth . You know , it's

9:08

not even they

9:10

all went to an Ivy League school

9:13

or they all speak

9:15

well in public . It's simple things Like

9:18

maybe the most uncommon

9:20

habit among the general population

9:23

that was very common among

9:25

the best of the best was a

9:27

very high

9:29

responsiveness . They got

9:32

back to people really , really quickly

9:34

and like uncanny

9:36

quickly and you think , well , let's

9:38

see , I get back to people quickly . Everybody thinks

9:40

they get back to people quickly . We surveyed

9:42

a quarter million people around these 12 habits

9:45

. This is hilarious , and I

9:47

think it was like 71%

9:50

of everyone surveyed said

9:53

that they are better than average

9:55

at getting back to people . So , first

9:57

of all , the math doesn't work right .

9:59

Yeah right .

10:00

No , but secondly , you know we

10:02

used SurveyMonkey

10:05

and so we talked

10:07

to the people at SurveyMonkey and we said so

10:09

we're asking people , if they're fast , what is

10:11

a fast response time for SurveyMonkey ? And

10:13

they gave me the stats on all of their surveys

10:16

. They're like you can expect most

10:18

people are going to reply within three days

10:20

. The outliers will be later than that . Okay

10:23

, fine . So we went and looked at what was

10:25

the average response time of the quarter

10:27

million people we surveyed . It was five days . So

10:32

the average of our quarter million

10:34

people is slower than normal at

10:36

SurveyMonkey .

10:38

And they identify themselves as fast .

10:40

And they identify themselves as fast . Everybody thinks they're

10:42

faster , but it's uncanny . I don't

10:44

know if you've ever done this . If you just like sent

10:46

somebody an email and you hear back from them within

10:48

a minute , I mean it's like weird , like wow , absolutely

10:51

. If you can train yourself

10:54

to get back to people with

10:56

ridiculous responsiveness , you

10:59

will stand out of the crowd . Now

11:02

that can become tyrannical if you're not

11:04

careful when you're . You know , like at our office we

11:07

have different inquiries

11:09

require different rate

11:11

of response , and if we're just

11:14

emailing each other at work , like

11:16

if I send an email out now it's after hours

11:18

, the office is closed . People

11:20

know to look at it in the morning , right

11:22

?

11:23

And if I send a ?

11:23

yeah , if I send a slack out now after hours

11:26

, whoever has slack will get back to me

11:28

and if I text them , they will call

11:30

me right away . That's kind of our like DEF

11:33

CON 321

11:36

, you know .

11:37

So there's just pressure to be on email all day

11:39

. That's right .

11:40

That's right , but but it's not just

11:42

email , it's

11:44

get an answer , it's

11:46

get back to people quickly , it's

11:49

responsiveness . I mean like

11:51

even on dating

11:53

sites where you've got two

11:55

people who are paying someone money

11:57

to try and help them figure

11:59

out who they can match up with , the response

12:02

time is slow . When there's an inquiry

12:04

, people

12:06

just don't get back to . You

12:09

know our interviews , hiring

12:12

agencies hire us , whether it's a school

12:14

or a church or a cause

12:16

or a company , and they're like go find

12:19

our next unicorn Right . And

12:21

we've been very fortunate to work with some of the very

12:24

best organizations that are high , high

12:26

reputation , and

12:28

so you would think when we reach out to people

12:30

about the possibility of interviewing

12:32

for one of these jobs , they would get back to us right away

12:35

. They don't ? It still totally

12:37

turns my head if I get a text back

12:39

right away from somebody . So

12:42

that's just one and it's simple

12:44

. It sounds like , oh , I'll start doing

12:46

that . And then

12:48

, before you know it , you started procrastinating

12:50

, which I , I , I had forgotten

12:53

until we were writing the book . I took a bunch of Latin

12:55

in school . The word in Latin

12:57

, that's tomorrow , is

13:00

the word crastina . So you procrastinate

13:02

Literally , I'll just get to it

13:04

tomorrow , and that's what most everybody does

13:07

. You want to stand out , get

13:09

back to people right away .

13:11

So that's the process , that's one of the things that you

13:13

can do and then find a way to just

13:15

stand out from the crowd there . What about during an interview

13:17

itself ? One of the things that we talk

13:20

a lot about here and I I

13:22

have very strong feelings around what's to do

13:24

and what not to do during the kind of your opening

13:26

pitch during an interview , around

13:28

the tell me about yourself question , what's your background

13:30

, that type of thing .

13:31

Yeah .

13:32

Have you found any any ways

13:34

that candidates stand out in that area ?

13:37

Yeah , to come to mind immediately

13:39

. Okay , so the first one

13:42

is the whole tell me about

13:44

yourself question . I mean , that's like the

13:46

number one question in interviews , right ? So

13:49

what do you say ? Well , if

13:51

I see that you are

13:53

self aware right

13:55

and have done your homework with the job that

13:57

you're interviewing for , you immediately

14:00

stand out . What does that look like ? Hey

14:02

, Joshua , you're interviewing me for

14:04

this job in marketing and

14:06

I love your company . I love that it's new

14:08

, I love that it's growing fast , I

14:11

love that . You know you guys are kind

14:13

of figuring it out as you go and

14:16

you know what I'm learning about myself . I'm

14:19

like a seven on the enneagram

14:21

, Like I love the

14:23

next new thing . And if you come to me

14:25

and say you know , I

14:27

know we hired you for this , but the job shift and change

14:29

. We've got other duties as needed . I'm

14:32

going to thrive in that . If you need

14:34

somebody to do the same action

14:36

over and over and over , all day

14:38

long , on a very predictable schedule

14:41

, I'm not going to be happy in that . You're

14:43

not going to be happy with my work . I know me well enough

14:45

to know I like the next new adventure

14:47

and the job you're hiring me for

14:49

. That we're talking about right now is exactly

14:52

that , and let me show you three

14:54

different places in my career where I had the same

14:56

sort of environment . I really thrived . So

14:58

you see what's happened there . You've

15:01

told me you're self aware , right ? You've

15:03

also preempted the worst

15:05

question in interviewing , which is tell me your

15:08

greatest weakness , you know like

15:10

. I never asked for a raise

15:12

. I worked too many hours , yeah

15:14

, exactly . But if you can show self

15:17

awareness , I know I like

15:19

the next new thing . I

15:21

can do detail work . I've done it before

15:23

and I can show you five places where I had to do all

15:26

the details myself . But I do better

15:28

with big ideas and

15:30

if that's what you're hiring for , this could be a match

15:32

to be a lot of fun . That has just

15:34

showed me an unusual

15:36

self awareness . You

15:38

can even take it a step further . If

15:41

you were hiring me to be your chief compliance

15:43

officer , I would be terrible . You don't want me

15:45

doing that . That is measure

15:47

eight times , cut once . That's compliance

15:50

, or oriented things , that's

15:53

. I'm more of a creative . I'm not going

15:55

to do well at just

15:57

sort of the brushing and flossing , which is

15:59

a great job , but not a job I would . I

16:02

would flourish in .

16:03

Right . I love that specific

16:05

example . Not only does it show self

16:07

awareness , it shows something that we talk a lot

16:10

about here in a couple of different ways . One is hearing

16:12

your kind of sample response . There you focused on your

16:14

skills . You showed an awareness of what the role

16:16

might entail and how your skills match up with

16:18

that or don't match up with it . Two

16:21

, what I really liked about it we talk a lot about here

16:23

is adding some credibility to your

16:25

own opinion of yourself by bringing in an outside

16:28

objective source like the anagram test

16:30

or the strengths finder test or other assessments

16:33

that basically give a somewhat

16:35

third party perspective or an objective

16:37

view on what you're saying . Kind of add some credibility

16:39

to some of the commentary

16:41

that you're providing . So I really like that . And

16:43

one thing that I'm just pointing out to just drive

16:45

home for some of my regular listeners is that one

16:48

thing you didn't do , which is exactly exactly

16:50

how I coach people , and that's you didn't

16:52

just walk through your chronological

16:54

background of your history . Well , first I was here

16:56

and did this , first I had this job , and then I had

16:59

this job and then I did that job . I know it's

17:01

just a short example you gave

17:03

, but the way you approached it I just want

17:05

to call that out it was very skills

17:07

focused and focusing on

17:10

what your strengths are and your awareness

17:12

of the job and how they match together , more

17:15

so than just saying , okay , here's who I am , and walking

17:17

through your history , because it gets boring pretty

17:19

quick for the interviewer if you just walk through your resume

17:21

.

17:22

Oh , it's like watching paint dry . Let me tell you

17:24

, I've been

17:27

through it thousands of times to get somebody

17:29

who is on a journey of self discovery . You

17:32

know there's very little

17:34

we have that is directly

17:37

quoted from Socrates . It's

17:39

all just sort of verbal tradition

17:41

. One of the few things we have that was written

17:43

down is the one sentence that he's

17:46

most famous for , where he says know

17:48

yourself , we're

17:50

the smartest guys to ever live . What's the beginning with

17:52

know your ? You know , like you think about Jesus

17:55

saying if you see somebody doing wrong

17:57

, don't worry about the splinter in

17:59

your eye . In there , I get the big old stick

18:01

out of your own I . I don't think he was fussing

18:03

at people . I think he was saying , hey , you need to know yourself

18:05

first and , if

18:08

you can , to me and

18:10

I'm probably just telling you guys things

18:12

that you're already discussing , but

18:14

to me the clearest predictor

18:17

of future job performance

18:19

is previous job performance

18:21

. So if you can show me some

18:23

self-awareness and I'm really good

18:25

at other duties as necessary , it's

18:27

like when I worked in a startup where

18:30

we had to figure it out as we went . We had hockey

18:32

stick growth , my job Title change

18:34

15 times , but I grew

18:36

the email list 350%

18:38

in nine months and I had a lot

18:41

of help there and a lot of teammates . But , like I

18:43

love working in that kind of crazy environment

18:45

, that would make a lot of other people uncomfortable

18:47

.

18:49

It's a very practical data-driven

18:51

type of response and something like that it's

18:53

, and it really paints a picture for the

18:55

interviewer . Speaking of dad , I know

18:57

we touched on it earlier but love to hear

18:59

a little bit more about I know you have a new

19:01

book coming out and that is data-driven . Tell

19:04

us a little bit about , a little bit more about

19:06

that book and you know who did you decide to write

19:08

that for ?

19:10

Yeah , well , you know , during the pandemic

19:12

and the shutdown , our

19:14

sectors of work mainly

19:16

services industries Really

19:19

didn't have any service going on , right

19:21

. We just you know , it wasn't like zoom

19:23

that was hiring people left and right . So

19:26

we get to drop back and do some research and say , you

19:28

know , we've been doing this a long time . Anytime

19:31

we do any search , we'll have

19:33

Maybe a thousand people that

19:36

we take a look at for this one position and

19:38

then that quickly turns into a hundred

19:40

. And then you know , you do some phone

19:43

screens and some zooms and then

19:45

you're getting down to like the best of the best

19:47

and and when you get down to that final

19:49

Call it , six to ten candidates

19:52

, they all get a long format

19:54

, face-to-face in person interview

19:56

with us . Okay , and we

19:58

have done those 30,000

20:01

of those long format interviews now . Wow

20:03

, so , so that's 30,000

20:06

with really talented people , and

20:08

we're Kind of maniacal

20:11

about keeping our records . I would say that

20:13

my team is OCD , but they get mad

20:16

because that's not alphabetical , they'd rather be

20:18

called CDO , and

20:21

We've just been able to say , okay , let's

20:23

go look at all these interviews , let's look for commonalities

20:26

, and that's that's when we were able to see

20:28

there are some markers and

20:30

we whittled it down to 12 that

20:34

are clearly

20:36

achievable habits , that

20:39

these best of the best exemplified

20:42

and they're normal

20:44

, for the best of the best , and very abnormal

20:47

and uncommon among the rest of everybody else

20:49

. And I , you know , I just the

20:51

other thing in an interview , you want to really stand

20:54

out in the crowd . I talked about the

20:56

. Tell me about yourself . You know

20:58

where I've been doing this long enough

21:00

now where many times in

21:02

an interview , by the time they get to me , they've already

21:04

been interviewed many times over by our

21:06

staff , right ? So I'm like you know

21:08

, uh , joshua , you don't need to tell me your life

21:11

story and all that . I team's done a great

21:13

job . How about we do this ? I think the

21:15

best way to spend our time together is for me

21:17

to answer questions you have about this job

21:19

. You know how much I learn

21:21

based on how intelligent the questions

21:23

are that people ask . It's , it's amazing

21:26

and and that comes

21:28

down to one of the 12 habits was kind

21:30

of an insatiable curiosity , like

21:33

why are we doing that ? How are

21:35

you doing this ? And and if you , if

21:37

you have done active research on the

21:39

job you're interviewing for , hey , I see

21:41

your company has a big , bold

21:43

expansion initiative that's rolling

21:45

out over the next 12 months . Tell me more about

21:48

that . What drove the decision for the expansion

21:50

? How are you funding it Like ? Teach

21:53

me that kind of curiosity

21:55

. I learned way more about

21:57

a candidate based on the questions they ask

21:59

me than the answers that they give me .

22:02

And the type of question that you just gave

22:05

us an example is more of a conversation

22:07

starter than it is just Q&A . We're

22:09

, there's , they're throwing they're not throw away questions

22:11

, um , and that that's a really important

22:13

part of the interview process . I

22:16

won't go into the whole the whole process

22:18

now , but we we teach something very similar to what

22:20

you just said called the show method

22:22

SHOW to to try

22:24

to kickstart , to

22:26

yourself up for a conversation

22:29

at the end of the interview , cause you might , you

22:31

might be given like the way you just

22:33

set it up there , you might be giving someone

22:35

half an hour of time to just

22:37

ask you questions and if you're not prepared for that

22:39

, it's going to be a long , long 30

22:41

minutes , or it's going to be really , really quick and

22:44

you're going to , not the candidate

22:46

selected , and so the way the show

22:48

that we talk about is S stands for . Just share

22:50

something that you hopefully have researched about the

22:52

company or that you've read or you've watched , whether it's a Ted

22:54

talk , book , an article . Share something

22:57

that you know about that's relevant to

22:59

the role , the organization , the industry have

23:01

an opinion about it , to demonstrate

23:03

that you've thought it . That's the agent show . Have an opinion

23:05

about it , um , and then , and for

23:08

the next opinion , get their opinion on your opinion you

23:10

might have a differing opinion in . There is great that

23:12

. That is especially a set up a

23:14

conversation . And then the

23:17

W is to to wonder . It's kind of a you

23:19

mentioned the word be curious , the

23:21

phrase we talk a lot about that here and be wonder or

23:23

be curious about their opinion , to keep

23:25

the conversation going and don't let just don't just

23:27

get their response and say that's great

23:29

. Here's my next question . It's have

23:32

an actual conversation so you can show that

23:34

you've done your research , that you understand the

23:36

role , talk more about your skills if you

23:38

need to , but just give

23:41

yourself a chance to , to share what

23:44

you've learned and hopefully a lot of the research

23:46

that you've done ahead of time , and more so

23:48

than just what's the job like . What are you looking for

23:50

? That's right , we all have our pet pee

23:52

questions and some of .

23:53

That's right , so that's all so

23:56

good . That is really good . And you

23:58

know what I've found ? Um , I

24:00

had one stop in my career where

24:03

I was regularly interfacing with , frankly

24:06

, just world beaters . I mean , there were captains

24:09

of their industry , you

24:11

name it . They were either the first good or the best at

24:13

doing it , or what . And I noticed over

24:16

time that the more successful

24:19

a person was , the

24:21

less they talked about themselves and

24:23

the more they asked me about me

24:25

. I just think it's uncanny

24:28

, and so I've thought about that through an interviewing perspective

24:30

. How does that translate ? How do you ? How do you ? Well

24:33

, it's like hey , Joshua , you know

24:35

everything looks great

24:37

. I'm so excited about this

24:39

opportunity and really appreciate you making time

24:41

. Tell me this Why'd you come

24:44

work at this company and why have you stayed

24:46

this long ? I mean , what tell me about you

24:48

and your journey with the company ? Well

24:50

, nobody's going to turn down that question . And

24:52

then you can hear you know , well

24:55

, they have an amazing PTO schedule

24:57

, or you know we're

24:59

building literacy centers with a small

25:02

part of our profits , or whatever the great

25:04

things about the company are . And you've shown

25:06

curiosity .

25:07

Really really good . Interesting to learn

25:09

that that's part of the data that you have , all those surveys

25:12

. You had the research you did for a long time .

25:16

And I will say on that curiosity

25:18

piece , I can't tell you how many

25:20

times who got the job

25:22

boiled down to who asked the

25:25

best questions . Not had the best answers

25:27

, but asked the best questions .

25:28

I hope you're listening

25:30

. That's a really , really valuable statement

25:33

. So if you were multitasking while you're listening

25:35

, come back and you repeat that one more time , William , because

25:37

I think that's really important .

25:38

Yeah , I'm just . I don't know if I'll

25:40

get it verbatim , but I'm amazed

25:42

how many times who

25:45

got the job in a search boiled

25:47

down to who asked the

25:50

best questions not who gave the best answers

25:52

. Love it .

25:53

That can be . it's a can be make or break , so

25:55

it really really is important to

25:58

to focus ahead of time and do your research

26:00

and know what you're going to ask and start

26:02

set yourself up for conversation , more so than

26:05

just hope that you run out of time

26:07

before they get to their questions , because that's not

26:09

a that's not a winning strategy . So I'm

26:11

glad that came out of research . Well , this

26:13

the time's going faster than I expected , so let's do

26:15

this . I have a few more questions I was going

26:17

to ask , but let's just end it with this and

26:19

we can wrap things up here . But I'd

26:22

love to hear if you think , think about your thousands

26:24

of , tens of thousands of interviews . Love

26:26

to hear what you think is one of your favorite moments

26:28

and interview , whether it was a good moment , funny

26:31

moment , learning moment

26:33

, moment . Love to hear what was one of your favorite

26:35

moments interviewing others .

26:37

Well , I probably shouldn't tell this . It's

26:39

a little just . You will probably not have

26:41

me back on the pile . You can cut this out if it's not good . Oh

26:44

we were . You

26:46

know we started in the 08 , which is when social

26:49

media took off , so that's a big part of our growth

26:51

. So we're trying to figure out how to drive engagement

26:53

in very early days , and

26:55

so one of our newer

26:58

team members put a poll

27:00

out there on I think it was on Facebook

27:02

that said this is

27:04

before Instagram and the

27:07

poll said what's the most awkward

27:09

interview question you've

27:11

been asked and that

27:14

sounds like a fun thing to put out there . Well , like

27:16

the third answer is somebody wrote boxers

27:19

or briefs and I'm

27:21

like , oh my gosh , forget to pull , this is gonna

27:23

go bad and before we can pull it down . Somebody

27:25

replied to that response and said depends

27:28

depends .

27:30

Oh , I love it so bad

27:35

.

27:35

No I you know , I think I

27:38

really appreciate when I

27:40

hear interviews , I mean

27:42

you are showcasing yourself , your marketing

27:45

yourself , right , so it's okay to talk about yourself

27:47

. But , man , when you can , you

27:49

watch a great NFL quarterback after

27:52

a game . He's taken all the blame

27:54

and given away all the credit . And

27:56

when you start hearing that , you start hearing

27:58

a leader . And that

28:01

didn't mean you have to belittle yourself or speak poorly

28:03

of yourself , but I some of

28:05

the strongest moments In

28:08

interviewing that I've had is

28:10

when people said you

28:13

know , I'm pretty good at my job , but I wouldn't get at this

28:15

part if it weren't for the team and the way they pitched

28:17

in . We all work together . You know you've shown

28:20

some vulnerability there and you're

28:22

not just trying to be , you know , super

28:24

plastic with every answer . So

28:27

if vulnerability and giving

28:29

away credit and taking on blame , those

28:31

are , those are powerful lessons . So

28:34

and I'm guessing that if

28:36

a guy who gets beaten up by three hundred

28:38

pound defensive players all week can

28:40

come up with those words , every one of your listeners can

28:42

come up with something along that

28:44

line .

28:45

I would . I would tend to agree . I can't

28:47

imagine not all right . Well , william

28:50

, there's a lot of insight . They're really appreciated

28:52

. I know there's a lot more we could talk

28:54

about , but for the interest of time , will what

28:56

is move on from there and love to hear where

28:58

can our listeners go to learn about you

29:01

, your firm ? Where should they check it out

29:03

.

29:05

Well , so two easy ways . First

29:07

of all , the unicorn book dot

29:09

com . The unicorn book dot com . That'll

29:11

take you to the hub with all resources

29:14

and everything that you can imagine . The other

29:16

thing you can do is just try

29:18

spelling Vanderbluen any way you want into Google

29:20

and it will lead to us . And

29:24

there are thirty five hundred

29:26

free resources on our website that

29:29

you know blog post , podcasting

29:31

, photographs about either interviewing

29:33

or being interviewed . You'll find a lot of free help here . You'll

29:38

also find your way to the book , and this

29:40

is the first interview I've done where I've mentioned this

29:42

. So this is kind of you get in a sneak

29:44

peek . But we've actually taken those twelve

29:46

habits that we identified in B the unicorn and

29:50

we built , we hired some

29:53

counselors and some data

29:55

driven people to say how can we build

29:57

a self assessment tool like the string finders

29:59

, to find out of those twelve

30:02

, where my three best and what am I ? And it's

30:04

going to be a super cool personal inventory to figure out what

30:06

am I already good at and what what's a blind spot . We're

30:10

also turning it into . You can take it individually

30:13

, but it's also going to be a three sixty tool for teams at work and

30:15

then you can use it as a tool to help you get into the book , and then you

30:17

as a team can see where you go and where your

30:19

blind spots , and how the individual

30:21

perceptions differ from what's

30:23

the previous , or subordinates might say

30:26

. It's gonna be really cool all that is great

30:28

at Vanderbluen dot com . Yeah

30:30

, we've already gotten ten thousand people

30:32

that have gone through it . So it's it . There's

30:35

a lot of good data points . You'll be able to measure

30:37

yourself against .

30:39

Excellent , yeah , I'm excited for that to come out and

30:41

I'll don't worry , we'll make sure to leave

30:43

some links in our show notes For

30:45

right to your website , so if someone gets

30:47

the name wrong , they'll be able to find you know they won't get

30:49

it wrong .

30:50

It's the only reason we named the company . What we did , searching

30:53

the search engine guys were like dude . Your last

30:55

name is so messed up we need to

30:57

use .

30:58

It has to be what they're looking for . Yeah

31:02

, exactly thanks so much , william

31:04

, for joining us and sharing some of

31:06

your Years of wisdom with our audience and

31:08

making sure that they can stand out a little bit more , hopefully

31:10

next time they go to the interview . Really appreciate it .

31:13

Thanks , joshua , appreciate you having me on . Very much got

31:15

it .