Your Job Interview is Your "Super Bowl"

Super Bowl is here again. It is the pinnacle of a long National Football league (NFL) season where the winning team will walk away with the most coveted trophy in American sports: the Vince Lombardi trophy. The winning team's players will receive their Super Bowl rings and the glory that accompanies winning the big game.

To make it in the NFL, you must have a boatload of talent and willpower. Then to make it to the Super Bowl, you are the best of the best. That's why the game gets so much attention since it has a lot to teach us how to be the best in what we do and what it takes to win the ultimate prize of success.

For us, our equivalent to playing in a "Super Bowl" is a job interview. To get an interview that can lead to getting a job and having a good career requires a lot of work. You need a good education, strong work experience, and marketable skills. When you do well in a job interview, you win a job, get a pay increase, and a path to a good career.

To win a job interview, you have to be talented, experienced, adaptable, well-prepared, and poised. Interviews are highly stressful, and they should be since there is so much riding on them. Both you are the employer have to make a decision on making a big investment. And if it does not work out, it can be devastating for both. This makes interviews very high stakes and high opportunity.

Football payers strive to have an opportunity to prove their worth in the Super Bowl. All NFL players are winners to be playing in the NFL. But they want more. They all have two goals: One, to get in the Super Bowl; second, win it.

Is it just another game? Yes and No. The game does not change. But It is no ordinary game. It is the only game watched by over a hundred million people all around the world. People scrutinize every play on the field, every decision made by coaches, every call made by officials, every commercial aired on TV, and every song sung by the entertainment act during half time.

Similarly, you have to prove your worth in a job interview. You are being judged on what you say and do during a job interview. You have to know what you are up against since there are no second chances. Your real competition is not another candidate but the interviewer. The other candidates can't affect your performance. It is how well you play the interview game against the interviewer to get you the win.

You are probably saying at this point, hey, I thought I was just interviewing for a job, not taking it like I was playing in a so called "Super Bowl." Perhaps you should. Are you working hard to get an interview in the first place? And then, when you do get an interview, are you doing whatever it takes to get the job offer? If the answer to both is yes, then you have the same mindset of an NFL player.

The stakes are very high for the Super Bowl as there is a lot of hype surrounding the game. For your job interviews, you have to raise the stakes.

Unfortunately, many don't.

I am amazed at how ill-prepared candidates often are for job interviews. People don't realize how much work is involved when you are interviewing for a job. Many have done more preparation for their SATs than they do for job interviews. You may get away with this for entry-level positions, but not if you want to get ahead in your career. Your competition will get much more difficult, and you can assume that they are all in it to win it.

Most people can't give a well-thought answer to a simple question, "Tell me something about yourself?" Can you answer that question and score a "touchdown" in the opening question? If you do, your chances of winning the job go up quickly. It is a statement answer for the interviewer. He or she will know that you have not just shown up to play but are ready to stand out and secure an offer.

Having a good career is not an accident, just like winning a Super Bowl is not an accident. Winning a Super Bowl means you worked harder, smarter, better than others both individually, as a team, and as an organization. And probably got some luck along the way too.

Football players don't do it alone. They have had all kinds of coaches from young age to a professional career. You can do the same by having a support group, mentors, and coaches to succeed. Winning is a team sport, whether it's Super Bowl or job interviews. Stakes are very high; thus, rewards are very high. That means you must want it badly and willing to do just about anything to win.

Now go plan, prepare, and play to win like the NFL players will do at this year's Super Bowl.

You can be a winner and get to celebrate your getting a new job with your family and friends and then start planning for your next win.

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I am an author, speaker, career success coach. I guide people thrive on high stakes stage whether it's for a job interview, career advancement, a sales presentation or a high-stakes speech. I am the author of a practical  book on speaking titled Winning Speech Moments: How to Achieve Your Objective with Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere. The main idea of the book is that if you want people to remember your speech and take action, you must create a winning speech moment. Please download the free speech checklist I created that I always use to create a winning speech for any occasion. 

Please contact me if you would like to thrive on  high stakes stage. You can reach me at [email protected] or 732-847-9877. 

Note, if you are an author, executive, podcaster or  very interesting to talk to and would like me to interview with five questions and then publish it as a blog post and promote it on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, please contact me.

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