Transcript:
So you don't like doing interviews Well that is just too bad because if you're going to be successful on a pork you're going to be doing a lot of interviews but don't worry if you fall the instructions that I'm about to give you you'll knock most of these interviews right out of the park and you'll have no problem landing jobs. So interviews on up work can range from being very informal and easy to more formal and requiring a bit more preparation so up or considers you to be interviewing quote unquote for a job if a potential client sends you a message using their messenger platform sometimes it's as simple as getting a message that says I really like your proposal and profile you look like the best fit for the job so here's the offer please let me know the next steps and that message will actually come with the offer after that all you have to do is communicate with the client about expectations and next steps and then get the work done other times it's a little bit more formal example you might get a message that says Hi I received your proposal and I'd like to set up a Skype call my Skype username is blah blah blah and I will be available tomorrow at three does that time still work for you now the reason they're going to ask does that time still work for you is because you took my recommendation and you gave them your availability for a Skype call in this case you want to reply as soon as possible and then add them to Skype is soon as possible now the key in knocking this thing out of the park is all in preparation just like the Little League coach taught us so I usually like to sit down at my computer about a half an hour before the Skype interview and do some more research on the client and the job so for example I recently had a client that was a motivational speaker and she wanted to start a podcast supported her profession so I googled her name found her website and just found out more about her and her profession and this is important because during the interview you can mention something that you saw on their website. Right and prove that you actually care about doing a good job trust me this will make a good impression and this will put you head in shoulders above most of your competition next I want to think about my elevator pitch why should this client hire me what can I bring to the table that will set me apart from my competition now me share something with you in a moment that will put you even further ahead of your competition but you still need to have an elevator pitch deck so I like to prepare a list of questions that need to be answered by the potential client and these are all designed to get the potential client thinking about actually hiring me so going back to the example of the motivational podcast I might ask how soon do you want to launch this podcast do you have a checklist of everything that needs to be done prior to launch If not I have one that I've designed that I will send you do you have your podcast cover art completed Do you have interviews or audio recording yet and so on now in question two I offered to send the potential client a podcast checklist and this is going to be a huge help to her and is really going to solidified me is the front running candidate for the job I mean who else will provide that kind of value before even being hired for the job so the point is you need to find a way to provide real value before they even hire you just send them something relevant that will actually help them in my experience if I do this one thing I more than triple my odds of laying in the job and it really helps to start off on the right foot so now you approach for the scape interview and it's show time so here's the way I like to run my interviews minute zero through two is just introductions making small talk introducing myself talking about local weather or whatever happens to come to mind ministry through four I give my elevator pitch why should they hire me. For through nine I ask the client if they have any questions and then I confidently answer these questions many. Ten through fifteen then I ask if it's OK if I ask them some questions and we go back to that list that I mentioned earlier and offer to send them something of value before they even hire me and then minutes fifteen to seventeen I clearly defined the next steps and when those steps will be completed and this is absolutely crucial Now if you've done anything right probably fifty sixty percent of the time they'll hire you on the spot they'll say you know what you seem like the perfect fit Let's go ahead and move forward I'm going to hire you for this in that case Great lay out the next steps what do you need from them what do they need from you again just make sure you clearly define the next steps and make sure that you both are very clear about when those steps will be completed now could be they have other interviews set up and they want to get to those other interviews before hiring somebody so even if they're extremely impressed need everything right they still don't know for a fact they want to hire you so in that case just ask them when a decision we made and asked them politely to let you know either way this will make it much much harder for them to turn you down so that is really it if you hit everything on this list you will have an extremely high success rate. Now just to show you a little proof of that here is a report that is available on work and it shows how often I was hired compared to the average freelancer now I really wish they would give this info to me in a percentage but as you can see I am far far more likely to be hired for a job than the average freelancer in my field so full of these steps that I just laid out and you will be too. Now sometimes the very hardest part is just getting that first interview before you have any job history so in this next lesson I'm going to be talking about some tactics for getting those first crucial interviews before you have any up or job history at all.