Let’s face it.  Whether you are looking to become the next VP of Marketing at Thecompany.com, or the newest programmer at your dream computer company, interviewing for any new job pretty much stinks.  Sure, it can be an exciting time, but the actual interview itself is stressful, awkward and usually something you would rather just avoid.

We all approach looking for work with a weird mix of excitement and anxiety. It is a challenge that leaves us feeling not quite in control of the result. Why, because we’re not in control because ultimately the decision to hire is in the hands of others. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t have some control as well.

There are certain truths about every interview. First, you will always be the novice in an interview. The person doing the interview may come off as a “good old boy” who isn’t very good at these “interview things”, but rest assured they know more about how to interview you than you do about how to be interviewed.

Second, recent research on over 40,000 workers reveals that you are naturally at a disadvantage in the interview process.  According to a 2004-2005 study, the average person is only 59% accurate at assessing their own strengths and weaknesses but is 89% accurate when it comes to understanding the abilities of others.

Finally, a recent poll of 1,300 hiring managers showed that level or preparation for the actual interview is now just as significant as are your history, resume and experience combined. What constitutes preparation, however, has changed.  It doesn’t just mean a clean resume and well pressed suit anymore.  As companies become more sophisticated in their hiring techniques more emphasis is being placed on qualifying a candidate’s “soft skills” (e.g., thinking styles, natural talents, attitudes, etc.).  If today’s employers are paying more attention to your soft skills, you should be too.

Behavioral Interviewing 101

One of those important soft skills is understanding how to communicate with the interviewer. How you present information may completely resonate with certain styles and completely alienate others. The trick is to be able to understand which kind of behavioral style your interviewer has, then tailor your communications to that style.

According to one of the most accepted behavioral theory in the world, created by Harvard researcher William Marston, there are four primary types of behavior: Dominance, Influencing, Steadiness and Compliance. This DISC Behavioral theory argues that each of us has all four of these dimensions, but we also each develop our own unique preference for using them – our own behavioral style.

Here’s a short course on how to identify the behavioral style of your interviewer and how that affects your interview with them.

For the full story go here (Behavioral Interviewing Guide Genius File #6)

Question for you. If three frogs are sitting on a log and one decides to jump off, how many frogs are left? The answer is; three, because deciding to jump and actually jumping are two totally different things. From time to time I run into a client who has taken the first step (in their head) of deciding to change their lives in one way or another, but one of the hardest things for some people to do is actually take real action.  It’s one thing to decide to do something, but quite another to actually do it.

In order to unleash your Genius you must take action. You must leave your comfort zone and you must change your role to make it more authentic to your natural talents.

Tom Peters has a great quote that goes something like, “There’s a great strategic plan – it’s called DO SOMETHING.”

Go do something about becoming more authentic!

Previously I’ve talked a lot about the negative effects of a workplace filled with outdated beliefs about how best to manage people. My argument has been that a great deal of these beliefs are legacies left over from the industrial era, where most people were manual workers, not the knowledge workers we find occupying most offices today.

There is a whole host of problems associated with such outdated management beliefs, the most immediate being decreased performance and job satisfaction. The more disconcerting part of being mismanaged like this, however, is what it does to the individual beyond just limiting performance.

The stress caused by these workplaces starts with a lack of performance and on top of that you can add: self-doubt, job insecurity, uncertainty, lack of faith in leadership and reduced passion and enjoyment for the work.

Overall, being mismanaged is stressful, and I don’t mean healthy stress (eustress). I mean harmful stress (distress). And when you look at what modern medicine is just now learning about the impact of stress on the human body (let alone psyche), the effects are startling. Go here to read the whole starling truth (Genius file #8)

There exists a myth about strengths and weaknesses, one which states that we all naturally possess them. In reality, we don’t. What we do possess are natural talents and non-talents, but these are not the same as strengths and weaknesses.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those that thinks it is too negative to tell someone they have a weakness and wants to call it “an opportunity for development”. I actually hate this term because more often than not it supports the incorrect view that I can fix a weakness by developing a new natural talent. If one of my clients is suffering from a weakness I tell them so straight up, but the key is that this weakness isn’t natural, it is manufactured.

Weaknesses and strengths don’t exist naturally, only talents and non-talents exist naturally. It is only when I rely on a non-talent that I create a weakness for myself. Likewise, if I don’t rely on my talents, they never become strengths.

In other words, you are ultimately in control of your strengths and weaknesses. You may be born with talents and non-talents, but you are in charge of whether or not those talents and non-talents are used to become strengths or weaknesses. When you allow your success to depend on your talents, you create strengths. When you allow your success to depend on your non-talents, you create weaknesses.

To read the full story, download Genius File #5 here (the Genius Files)

The workbook is up. I don’t quite have all the tools and features on there just yet, but the free self-assessment is there so check it out. The Problem Self-Assessment is designed to help you evaluate your level of success and happiness in life and determine key areas where you may want to make some change. Just go here to create your own free account, then take the assessment (the problem self-assessment).

The Genius Files is a collection of writings and thoughts about the research behind  the book, the findings of the study and the impact it has had on individuals. Each “short” document addresses one specific aspect of the book or its findings. They are now ready for you to view and benefit from – just go here to find out more (The Genius Files Downloads). Thanks and I hope you enjoy them!

To quote the late great Dr. Robert Hartman, “Stop trying to put in what God left out and instead work with what he put in!” That’s hard enough, and that’s what the geniuses we studied do every day. Do you know what your natural mental talents are? If you would like some help feel free to take the same free profile the study participants used to identify theirs. Just go here to get your own free genius profile. When your email window opens just use “genius profile” in the subject line and a link will be emailed to you where you can complete it for free.

Welcome. This site is all about you, your genius and how you can leverage your natural talents to achieve greater performance, satisfaction and success. My name is Jay Niblick and I’ve spent the last eight years conducting a study of hundreds of thousands of individuals across twenty-three countries. The results of this research has helped us to better understand some of the key differences between those who achieve significant success and those who struggle. The exciting results of this work are the lessons each of us can learn from these hyper-successful people; lessons that are straightforward, understandable and surprisingly counter to the conventional wisdom on how can improve. As a matter of fact, the most successful people do very much the exact opposite of what must of us have been taught when it comes to finding success and personal satisfaction.  Enjoy this site and don’t forget to pre-register for the book that shares these lessons with you (coming out late May 2009).

Thanks!  J.

In the research we measured people against five different levels of performance: poor, average, above average, excellent and genius. My use of the term “genius” doesn’t mean a person’s IQ, rather it is a title that grew out of the study and it represents the highest level of performance we measured. As we interviewed the very best people, again and again those we talked with would make statements like, “You should see Tom, he is a genius at what he does”, or “Mary is an absolute genius it when it comes to this work.” So, our use of genius in the study simply means someone who has consistently achieved the highest level of performance possible, regardless of field, level of title. In this sense of the word, anyone can learn to become a genius at something. The question is, “at what?” What’s Your Genius asks the simple question, “What are your natural talents, and how can you leverage them to become better at whatever you do?” I think you’ll like the answer too.

In the study two key differences emerged between the top and bottom performers. The first key difference is that 5th level performers all have much higher levels of self-awareness. Self-awareness is all about really knowing what your natural talents are – and are not. The natural talents I’m talking about btw are your mental talents for things like: complex problem-solving, creativity, empathy, big-picture thinking, competitiveness, attention to detail, organizational thinking, persistence and a host of other cognitive abilities as measured in the study. The second key difference is that 5th level performers are significantly more authentic. They make sure that whatever roles they fill are as dependent as possible on the mental talents or abilities they naturally possess, not their ability to try and acquire new ones. Authenticity means filling a role that is true to who you are, not spending all of your time trying to develop new natural talents. The reason this is so important is because according to everything we know about how the human mind works, we can’t develop new thinking talents. Unfortunately, this is what most 1st through 4th level performers try to do. In other words, those who struggle to achieve significant success spend a lot of time trying – in vein – to change the core of who they are while those who succeed choose to focus their energy on better maximizing that which they already are. As the elder statesman of management theory, Peter Drucker, once said, “The key is to make weaknesses irrelevant.” Notice he didn’t say, “fix them.” Making them irrelevant means filling a role where they simply aren’t important or needed.  That’s authenticity!