Planning for an interview

Grant Leboff: So, Michael, one of the things that you talk about in the book, which I think is very important, is planning for an interview, and just finding out what’s going to be asked or what’s going on beforehand. I think one of the things people struggle with is, if you know you’re going to be interviewed, it could be a radio station, television, newspaper journalist, it doesn’t matter, what do you ask?

Michael Dodd: The preliminary chat, before you’re on, is really important. Often a journalist, or a producer who’s invited you on the program, doesn’t necessarily want to tell you that much, particularly if it’s a story that’s a bit controversial. They don’t want to fire off all their ammunition in advance. What you don’t do, typically, is “Oh, what are the questions?” Because you’re telegraphing a message there, that you’re really worried about it, and that can feed into their perception of you and the story.

But, there is a way of basically asking what are the questions without saying those words. Typically, it’s what do you need from me? If it’s a running story, which it often is, where your company is potentially involved, or seen to be involved by the media, a really good question is, “What’s your understanding of the story?” Don’t just assume that they’re going by what’s been in the papers or what’s on radio, they may have something in particular. If you ask those kind of questions, what do you need from me, who else is on the program, is often a really good give away. If they say, “Yes, we’ve got your arch-enemy and he says that you’ve done this, this, and this.” You kind of know what the questions are, as a result of that, without asking the question.

But it is, whatever the context, whether it’s a media interview or whether it’s the boss calling up saying, “I need to speak to you in 10 minutes, urgently.” Even then, or if the PA is ringing up on behalf of the boss saying that, just sound them out a little bit, so that you can do a tiny bit of preparation. There’s a formula in the book about preparing. You can prepare amazingly quickly. The difference between doing three minutes preparation and no minutes preparation is huge. So, think about it, in advance, when you’ve got an idea of what’s in the person’s head, and then you’re in a much better position to deliver those great answers.

Grant Leboff: Once you’ve done that, you know who’s going to be on the show, you’ve got an inkling, they probably won’t tell you everything, but you’ve got at least an inkling what the story’s going to be, or the angle’s going to be, how do you best take that and then use it, in a sensible way, assuming you don’t know what the exact questions are going to be, to prepare yourself further?

Michael Dodd: Well, there is a simple formula in the book. It’s called AMEN, which to some people suggests you should go and pray about it. But, it’s basically, A is audience. Think about the audience, the kind of thing we just discussed. M is message, because typically, great answers are about getting across a message, which is specifically targeted to that particular audience. So, think about the message. If it’s a job interview, it might be I’m just what you need for this job because of this, this, and this. E is example, so you always want to make sure that you’ve got a treasure chest of examples available to you to back up what you’re doing, by giving real life stories. The N is negatives. Think in advance about the negatives. If you know you’re going for a really high powered job, then you will know that they want to test you out. They’ll be wanting to ask you questions, they’ll probably look at your LinkedIn profile, and do a bit of digging around, and they’ll probably find a potential weak spot. It doesn’t mean that they’re true believers in that weak spot, that you’ve got nothing to offer, they wouldn’t invite you to interview. But, if you think about, if I were in their position, what are the potential negatives they could be asking me and you think about the positives to go with that, then your answers in the interview will be so much better.

There may be small changes to the spoken word in this transcript in order make it more readable.