William Vanderbloemen - The Right Way to Answer "Tell Me About Yourself," Salary Negotiation, How to Share Weaknesses to Win & Be The "Unicorn"

If you were interviewing me and I were interviewing for the director of marketing position and you said to me, "Tell me about yourself." Here's one way I think you could answer that would go from icebreaker to game changer. Okay? Oh, Matthew, I'm so glad you asked me that. I mean, there's a lot I could say that here's what I'd like to focus on. I don't know if about myself to know that the kind of person you're looking for probably matches by personality. Now, that's probably sounds arrogant. But here's the thing, your company grew over 20% last year and you're targeting 36% next year. And that sounds fun and wonderful until you've been in it. And you know that it's a total rocket ride and it's messy and they're smart people that hate that. I love it. Talk more about what you know about yourself and what you're good at and what you're not good at. And if you don't know what you're not good at, think of it this way. What is your greatest strength? Okay, most people's biggest weakness is the shadow side of their greatest strength or their greatest strength unguarded. How many job interviews have you been in? Five 25 55. How many job interviews have you conducted? For some of you, that might be one, two, ten, maybe more. If I had to guess, I've probably done maybe eight to 10,000. What turns out that's not a lot compared to our guests today. I'm a former executive recruiter search from owner, director of town acquisition. And today your host of the job interview experience William Vanderblueman is the CEO and founder of the executive search firm Vanderblueman search group. William has conducted over 30,000 interviews and he's here to share insight from his experience on what you can do to stand out and conduct successful interviews during your job search. William is also the author of the book, Be the Unicorn 12 data driven habits that separate the best leaders from the rest where he combines the results of his career long study as a guide for anybody to stand out in a job interview or in their career by incorporating 12 teachable traits in their professional repertoire. William, welcome to the job interview experience. Oh, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Matthew, I'm looking forward to learning from you and love what you're doing to help people through this really kind of anxiety ridden journey, no matter how long or short a job thing takes. It's it's got anxiety. And I think what you're doing is helping. Oh, thank you. And I think it'll get a little better for him after listening to your input. I'm curious, how did you get started in the career industry and what led you to where you are today? Yeah, great question. And we don't have enough podcast time for that. I'm a recovering preacher, which means I ramble on it on. So I'll try and keep it short. But it was a pastor at a very large church here in Houston, old historic church, great place, went through a divorce, which I would not recommend not the best thing. Hours was not a story that the tabloids would have even paid attention to. It wasn't exciting or anything, but long story short, I ended up single dad with four kids and really no idea what to do went into an oil and gas company, the head of friend that was helping run it. What it becomes a large company fortune 200 and they're going to be management rotation track for me to this year, one year, this another year will help you learn the business. And first stop was HR and in that year that I was there, the CEO said, I've been CEO nine years, which I didn't realize, but that's a lifetime for a company that size the time to find my successor. They hired this thing called a search firm. Never heard of this. And 90 days later, they had their next CEO. Now in the church world, even the best churches take a year or two years or even three years to find their best people. I was at an oldest church in the city of Houston. It's the place Sam Houston went to church. It's where a whole lot of community leadership goes. Fantastic opportunity. It took them three years to find me. I was there six and then it took them three years to find the next person. So 12 years span. Half the time they're looking half the time they're with somebody and I look at all that and I go, wow, why have we not figured out a better way. The business world has this figured out I remember coming home from my job and saying to Adrian, my wife, we just got married, blended our family. It's six kids brand new house. We could barely afford and I said, you know, I think I'm supposed to quit my job and start something new for churches. And she looked at me and just as calm as could be and said, oh, that's because churches love new ideas, right? Okay, no one in the history of ever has said that. So if you're not familiar with that world, very slow to change. And it was the fall of 2008, which if you are not old enough to remember that economy, just Google 2008 economy. And you'll see what a stupid idea it was for me to jump into this world. When I did, you fast forward 15 years, we started helping churches find a pastor and then it branched into education with schools and colleges universities, then nonprofits and now the values based businesses of the world, like the chick fillets for a lack of an easier way to say it. And it's been a wild ride and when I wouldn't trade, I. Every story I hear from a candidate is just fascinating. People are endlessly interesting. So that's more than you want to hear, but that's the quick version of a 15 year history. And for listeners who maybe aren't as familiar with the term like search firm, what does your firm do today? What's their main mission? What does the day to day look like? Yeah. So an executive search firm, basically very high end recruiting. So the C suite of a company, C E O CFO, COO, if you need one of those or even a senior vice president, then you would hire an executive search firm and you would pay them to go help identify the people that might be that right candidate and then walk with the client as they get it down to their last person is it's this is going to run the risk of sounding area with white glove service. It's not a. I'll send you some resumes and then maybe it is a much different deal like we get paid, whether the job gets filled or not. It's a very strange little world. But one that I'm deeply thankful for because when you inflate a leader in a senior leadership position in an organization, it can make a huge difference for listeners. I've seen this question come up a little bit over the last six months or so, especially on some of our social media pages, whether you are entry level or one of the executives that Williams talking about when a company works with the search firm, they aren't paid out of your salary. I've never seen that happen if it does it's a complete scam. So you're going to make $50,000 a year, and you work with the search firm that does not mean that you'll make 30. The company is taking that money from their funds and paying the firm and just to clarify that for listeners. And they're probably one place you could get confused. They're probably justifying the cost of the search firm by saying, well, we've got this spot on our team empty. We're not spending the money. We have budgeted for salary. So until we find the person will use what is budgeted for their salary to pay for the search. And that doesn't affect you as an employee at all. But it is the rationale that a lot of people use 100% when I own my firm. I never got the easy role. So it was never, hey, we know a bunch of people that are going to apply for this job, but we want to add you because we like you. So typically people work with a firm. A couple of different reasons. One could be just to close the time frame, make it get a bunch of good candidates from a firm that can source them or knows them within 30 60 days. The other thing is all times they just know it's going to be tough for me. I would do a lot of very unique software development skills. This was a little over a decade ago. Oh, really popular. The time it was not fun. Or sometimes you I had clients that this I had done great work for them. So they just would bring me on makes it for a small growing company. With usually a small leadership team instead of having to post this job online and receive resumes and deal with all that they just worth it to them to pay the for me. It was a percentage fee. Just to bring them someone and not have to deal with much more than that. So there's a lot of different reasons to do it. But typically it's not for the easy roles. It's for the challenging ones or the very niche ones that I'm sure you work on a lot. Yeah, we get the niche requests. The interesting thing is we interview clients like what do you think you're going to get out of hiring us and that the back end we interview them. What was the highest value we brought. And you would think it's all you're going to introduce me to people. I don't know you're going to find candidates or whatever. That's really not the case. The highest value there. They're like, it's the process was helping us discern once we got to a short list of plus isn't so we're more like a a shirt. Going up the mountain with somebody, then we are a giant roll of X or arsenal of resumes and the higher in jobs. They're more people that want them, but they're harder to feel because they're only a few people that can actually pull them off. It's a weird little equation. But man, people are endlessly interesting. Aren't they? I couldn't agree more. And what's great about having you here is I know now you work more on the executive, the C suite side, but I'm sure throughout your career. And probably early on you worked with a lot of people that were coming up in their career and you've interviewed people of all talent levels. And listeners really struggle with the tell me about yourself question. Oh, I see a lot of candidates when they are asked that question. They just start reciting their resume. It's like, I know this is piece of papers in front of you, but I'm just going to read it for you now that you've asked me that question. Exactly. What's a better way to answer that question? Well, that's so good. The only one I dislike more is tell me your greatest weakness. What are you supposed to say? I never ask for a raise. I work too many hours, all that kind of, no. But the tell me about yourself is one that nearly everybody's gonna get asked in an interview and I don't even know why people ask. I don't know that interviewers know that they know why they're asking it. It's just the icebreaker, right? But I've found that if you know how to answer that question, it can go from icebreaker to game changer. Okay, so here's a quick little career hack. If that's okay, tell me about yourself. Well, a lot of people do exactly what you said. They just read the resume or they get too exhaustive and well, I started walking at 12 months and then it's forever and ever. The better thing is to focus on the employer that you're going to work for. And then to say something about yourself that shows why who you are matches what they need. I give you a real time example. Let's say Matthew, you're running my company and I'm William, not named Vanderbluen, right? And we just wrapped up a search for a new director of marketing. Okay, so if you were interviewing me and I were interviewing for the director of marketing position and you said to me, tell me about yourself. Here's one way I think you could answer that would go from icebreaker to game changer. Okay, oh Matthew, I'm so glad you asked me that. I mean, there's a lot I could say but here's what I'd like to focus on. Now that probably sounds arrogant, but here's the thing. Your company grew over 20% last year and you're targeting 36% next year. And that sounds fun and wonderful until you've been in it and you know that it's a total rocket ride and it's messy and it's not. They're smart people that hate that. I love it. You know what? I'm a seven on the Eniagram. I love the next social engagement. I love the next party. And everywhere that I've flourished in my career going forward, it's been in that kind of environment. The first company I worked for, I was in a little startup. I had to build their email list. We didn't even have an email list. So I had to go learn Emma and MailChimp and constant contact. All these little duct tape paperclip ways of getting our email list up there. We grew it 4,000% and it was a lot of fun. I could even go back to like high school jobs where the places I flourished or where it's problems I've never seen before and need to figure it out or growth that happens and we have to adjust and pivot. I love that. If you, Matthew, if you put me, if you interview me to be your bookkeeper and you want me to show up nine to five and do the same thing every single day, you'd probably fire me in a month. That's just not how I'm wired. But I love a new challenge. I love it when the landscape changes and that's where I've flourished in my career. And that is why I think I might be somebody that's worth considering and it's why I'm so energized to get to visit with you today. I wish we could afford you. That's all I'll say. - That's interesting. - But you soon, I'm trying to do that though. - Yeah. And I have now headed off at the past to tell you about your greatest weakness. - Well, I don't do well when it's the same thing over and over. I mean, I did get fired from a house painting job 'cause I just never could finish the wall. I wanted to go to the next wall. So if you can find a way to identify the person you're interviewing with and where they match up with concrete evidence of where you flourish, not just I think I would like. And maybe a little concrete self-knowledge of on the Myers-Briggs on this, on the disc on that, on the ennagram on this. If you can say, I know myself well enough to know that I do better when there's a new challenge and your company's growing, so it's gonna be, so that's what I'm learning about that question and it does really move the needle from just breaking the ice to, oh wow, now I'm excited. I'm leaning in. I'm very interested in you. - Quick favor, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, we're only a couple hundred reviews away from 1000, which is an enormous milestone for the show. If you've gotten value from these episodes and you have the Apple Podcast app, it takes 10 seconds just to tap the five stars and hit submit, or I'd love to hear your experience and how this has helped you in the review. These stories mean everything to me. Let's hit that 1000 mark together and thank you so much in advance. - For listeners, I'd just rewind and listen back through that. And one of the things I know So William did is I almost think of a skier going down a slope and he wove back and forth between himself and the employer and himself and he connected the dots. It's a little bit about his skills and he suddenly showed he said, grew 20% last year, targeting 36% next year. Maybe he learned that from the recruiter on the first call or I wind up with what your goals are. I know what they are, right? I know to the percentage point and I'm the kind of guy that when this rocket ship goes off, not only can I hold on, I'll hold on with a big smile on my face. So there's both of us together. This isn't gonna be easy. It's gonna get a little messy and that's how we're gonna figure out two years from now what that percentage number is gonna be and how we're gonna do it together. - Really masterful response is template, I think for listeners to use it and not every company is focused on growth. Maybe they're focused on a number of people they serve. Within five blocks of their location could be a lot of different things. - I know there are people out there that are just wondering when am I gonna find a job? - Yeah. - And beggars can't be choosy. I get that, I totally understand. And sometimes you gotta do what you don't wanna do so you can do what you wanna do later. So if you're just struggling and looking to find something, I guarantee you there are some very easy ways to excel in whatever job you have. Even if it's not one this total your strength zone and you just need to take it to make ends meet, 100%. If you get to the place where that's no longer your thing and you're looking for where I can flourish and look forward to work, then I'd say as you're looking for positions and trying to consider whether or not to interview, look at yourself and where you flourish the best and look at the employer and see if there's a tissue match, right? Didn't have to be for everybody. There are times where you just gotta do what you gotta do. But in a perfect world, I was coming to you interviewing because you're high growth and I work well in high growth. I've not come to you because you're a government employer and you grow one percent a year and you like I would suffocate and die or get fired from that. You don't always get the luxury of matching the job to exactly who you are, but I think if you work hard wherever you are, you will have that opportunity sooner or later. - I'd like to get your take based on your answer and I please feel free to disagree with me on this. So I put out an episode that'll be a couple weeks or months ago now and the premise of my episode is and the title is to stop being a job apple can't be a solution. I won't repeat the entire episode, but I talk about doing what you do in the interviews. But you mentioned something after you gave that perfect response of sometimes it's just hard to get the interview. So I would say to listeners, if you capture part of that response and you're having trouble getting interviews, put the foundation of what William said, put that in your cover letter. Keep it short, but instead of saying, hey, I really wanna work at your company 'cause I would love to relocate to Los Angeles and that's where my friends are and I also love surfing on the side and all this stuff. Keep the cover letter short and say, hey, I see you're growing 20% and you're targeting 36% or whatever it is. This is what I've done in the past to reach similar goals. Then here's a three point plan I wanna share with you at our interview on how I think we can do that. And so as great as William's response is, if you're having trouble for listeners, I know you're having trouble just getting an interview. That's a way to make a really intriguing cover letter that they might even show to the hiring manager. The recruiter might say, hey, I know that you're not really looking at this stuff yet, but this person had three ideas that, I think maybe your team just might wanna see whether you think this person's crazy or not. - If you're just scrapping to find a job, some of this is not your luxury. Just do what you have to do to get the job. But backing out two clicks from a fabulous idea for a cover letter 'cause cover letters can be a huge difference maker. If you can show congruence in your custom cover letter and your resume and I might add your LinkedIn profile, but if there's an echo chamber going off when somebody reads all these things, it doesn't have to say I would love to move to Orange County. If that's for your LinkedIn, you just say instead of, I mean, go read 50 LinkedIn profiles right now if people they're open to work. They all say the same thing. Problem solver thinks outside the box, proven ability to, what if you just said any Graham seven who loves new challenges and flourish with new challenges every time they're offered? And then all of your career experiences, a bullet point of had to figure out the email list, da da da da. Newspaper boy, I had to figure out how to get the, like whatever the thing is, if you can show congruence between that cover letter, the little bit of intro for your LinkedIn profile and just make it different than everybody else. And your job experience and what you have done in your job, not what you would like to do, that will catch eyes real fast. I would add to that, if you're not putting data, on your LinkedIn page or your resume as far as results, you're probably a little bit behind other applicants. If you're not putting that in there, you're probably just behind the curve from people that are using KPIs or okay ours for themselves or that are professional enough to even know how to tie that into their work. You could be a dishwasher and time yourself at day one, week three, whatever, and then try and improve that. And if you can put it in there, Prove it by 10 seconds. That might be a 6% increase or increase in time. You can get creative with it too. I was dishwasher and I was the morning shift and eggs stick to plates. And I figured out how to be faster than the guys at the lunch shift where there's nothing sticky like that. But if you don't have data, I'll be meaner than you Matthew. If you don't have results in your LinkedIn profile, I'm not reading it. I don't care. The single, as a recruiter, okay? The single biggest predictor of your future performance is your past performance. So show me what you've done and it'll help me see what you can do. On my own personal resume, I added some spice to one of my data points too. But my last job as Director of Townaclision, I shortened the time to hire by 10 days. I put on my resume. I didn't think it should get much shorter. I think any shorter and we would have started making mistakes. That's my take, that's my personality and say that humbly. But I don't think you want to hire people in five days. I don't want you to think you want to close a job in three days. That's right. That's our definition. I would tread very gently on something like that. Approach that carefully. You want to be professional. But you can add your professional opinion to things like that. Not that's what the resume is. But you don't just want 12% increase in this. You can say 12% increase in this. That was accomplished by not eating soup instead of washing dishes like everybody else. Or whatever that might be. And don't be afraid to add a little personal flavor. I mean, I don't want to hear your personal drama but proven ability to multitask, witnessed by the fact that I have seven kids. Like that's fun. And I'm like, actually, zone defense. (laughing) You know how to play when there are more others than there are you. So don't be afraid of that. You said that you hate the weakness of this question. And I also am not a huge fan. When I wrote my own interview questions, the way I worded it, I like digging into ego. And humility and self-realization. So I do think it's important to ask. I would ask if you could change one thing about yourself, what would you improve? And I was always scared off by people who would say, oh, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. And I think we're good. I've asked people, what is a job that you wouldn't take because you're afraid you'd get fired from? Interesting. And it makes it more abstract where people aren't talking about whatever wound they're carrying or shortcoming they have. I was like, oh my gosh. Do not give me a job where I am sitting on an assembly line doing the same widget every single day. Some people love that. I would go crazy and you would fire me. For our listeners, you wouldn't ask them the weakness is question, but they're probably going to be asked it. Whether it's a bad question or not. What do you share when you're asked the weakness is that? Yeah, I think the short answer Matthew is, I try and show some measure of self-awareness. Okay, don't go with something, Cadi, like I just did have not learned how to say no to my boss. Like, come on, that's not fair. Okay, most people's biggest weakness is the shadow side of their greatest strength or their greatest strength, unguarded. 100%. So for me, as a seven in your gram, loving the new party, loving marketing and sales, the shadow side of that is steady, repeatable, quality control kind of jobs. That is not where I'm naturally wired. Doesn't mean I don't have to work on it, but I'm just not naturally wired. And I think what I'm listening for as recruiter when I ask that kind of question is some measure of self-awareness. You don't have to be perfect. I just want you to know enough about yourself that you'll put yourself in a place where you can win and not in a place where everyone's frustrated. Listeners write into me and ask about that question. And I always add, I think it's good to answer with a weakness that you're working to fix and you say the solution. I think the misunderstanding is that the recruiters are expecting someone to come in that's perfect. It doesn't have weaknesses and doesn't say, "I'm in like during their interview." They're not looking for that. I've never seen a job description that says, "You can't say like and um at this job." Everyone has weaknesses, but there are very few people that first of all realize them. And then second, that takes steps to fix it. So if you can say in your interview, I have this, I quote, when I watch a movie with friends, I start quoting Blue's Brothers, line for a line. Well, okay, that's not a big deal. Well, what I've done to fix that is I learned to shut up or I watch it by myself. And maybe that's a bad example, but something that you do, and it could be in the professional world, I tap my pen on the desk and I think it really started to bother my coworkers and for good reason. So before meetings, I have an exercise band for my hand that I get that extra energy out with. I found out that helps me relax and I'm not bothering people in distracting from important leadership meetings. Something like that. - That's right. And one way that I've coached people to get to this answer to this question ahead of time, you should be ready for an answer for that kind of question. It's a very common question. If you're not ready, you're gonna feel under-prepared, you're gonna get anxious. If you're me, you get a little beat to sweat, and then it's a problem. You just, you can't even say your name after that. Oh, think about this. What advice would you give a younger version of you? Okay, just go and think about that a little bit. You'll find your answer to this question. William, what's your greatest weakness? Oh man, let me tell you what, as a younger version of me, I just kept hiring people like me and not people who compliment me. And the biggest danger to our firm is that I will outsell what we can deliver. And I've learned over the years, I'm a sales marketing expansionist. I got a higher quality control people around me, or I'm gonna blow the place up. So I'm still working on that. I'm still trying to figure that out. But like, I wish I could look at a younger version of me saying, don't try and be everything, figure out what you are, and hire people that compliment that. - I'm sorry to ask you so many interview questions, but these answers, and you're input so good. And I know this is another, like number one question for listeners. What's the best way for a candidate to either naturally bring up or respond to the salary question? If that bridge hasn't been crossed, how do you eventually find out to know whether you're still interested? Or I guess this is two questions. If you're asked, what are your salary expectations? How do you navigate that? - That's so difficult. And it's gotten on the one hand a little easier, and on the other hand, a little more difficult in the last five years. They're like 18 states where you have to post the salary range if you post the job if you're an employer. Now, nearly every one of those posted ranges is low-balled. It just is. So the intent was to give some transparency. The reality is it's just another layer of fabrication. But you should be able with all of the open source information that's out there. You should be able to figure out a pretty good idea what the salary range is before you ever walk into the job. Whether it's glass door or indeed, I would encourage you to get your mind around that first. And if it's not a salary that works for you and you have other options, just don't even go down that road. 'Cause what you don't want is to get to the point where you like them, they like you, but the pay is nowhere near enough to provide for your family. And people have to look out for their family first. I'm sorry, that's the way it is. So I would suggest you do the homework. And then I would suggest you not bring it up. Yeah, I agree. Don't bring it. And now I'm just gonna sound like a dinosaur Matthew. You're gonna hang up, never invite me back. But I would say as I love millennials and Gen Z's, I have children in both those generations. The bulk of my team out here is in those generations. One place I wish I could just take those generations by the shoulders and shake them real hard and say, don't do that. Is don't start counter offering. So many times, you're like, well, I appreciate your offer, but I'm gonna need to work from home four days a week. And I'm gonna need this and I'm gonna need this. And you think it's like having this open, honest conversation, but to anyone not in your generation, it does not come off that way. It comes off as entitled. It comes off as, if I'm hiring and you tell me what to do now, what's it gonna be like once you're in the office? So just be really careful with that. I think it's a generational communication gap. I don't think you're wrong or bad for thinking those things. I just think you don't realize the ripples it creates with older generations. And so I would learn as much as you can ahead of time. I would avoid asking about it. And I would be very careful when it comes to any kind of counter offer. When I own my search firm at pattern, I recognize, I had some really great candidates that my clients really wanted to hire. When we broke down and the break started getting pumped really hard during the offer phase, it just never worked out. And there's negotiation, especially with executive recruiting, you're pulling someone out of somewhere and instead of them applying to the job. So there's some of that. But when people start to get really particular and all of a sudden, they're best friends and all of a sudden, it's what you said, well, can I, I'm exaggerating. Can I have Mondays and Fridays off? Well, you buy me a car for my kid. Whenever that starts to get really complicated, it just changes the employer. And I've had this with hiring too. It's like none of these things came up as requirements during our conversation. We just wanted to bring in and get you to work. And now this is getting really complicated. Can you pay me on Wednesdays instead of Fridays? Whatever it is that just makes life harder for everyone. It's like you're no longer trying to line with us so we can work together at this organization. that's existed for a long time, trying to rework things for yourself. Oh, I'm with what you're saying. And I think people don't realize, particularly people that are, they had an entry-level job or a middle-management job. You're interviewing, you think, "Well, I'm just asking because this would help me. I didn't realize as a younger professional, when you get into a larger organization where there are 50 people with the same job you have, there has to be some homogeneity between how everyone's compensated. Otherwise, you're just going to have a toxic culture." So, asking people to go outside the band that they've already defined is asking for a special deal. And I have not ever seen that work for a candidate. You don't want to be the special deal, because then you're that special person on the team. So, I would avoid the drama just echoing what you said. My turn to say, just rewind and listen to Matthew. Along with what you said, "If the company intends to hire you, they will eventually bring up salary. They have to. They're just at least going to be in an offer water." So, people feel a lot of anxiety around this because it's a solution to, for a lot of listeners, getting to the car payment or getting to the rent that's doing a couple of weeks. I know that you want to know, and I think that's 100% fine. I wouldn't stress too much about whether it's going to be brought up because if they intend to send you an offer or if they even just want to explore getting to the offer stage with you, they'll bring it up. You're not going to start working there without knowing. That's another great reason to keep your options open too, and not get hyper focused on one job. Because when you feel like your options are open, you're not just pending on this one offer. And if it doesn't go through, you've got a six week or three month or six month time line to get another job. So, that's why it's important to keep applying. And in my experience, it's the weirdest thing in the world. When one company is interested in you, five companies are interested in you. It's just, it's just as weird. I don't believe in the magic that's surrounding this job interview process, but there's just something about when it when a employer can sense it from a mile away. If you're desperate or if they're the only company you're talking to, they just seem to know it without you saying it. I probably get an email at least every other week from a listener, and you listeners will know I'm talking about you right now that they say I had a job search for three months, and I couldn't get through a first interview. And now I have two job searches. One, I got yesterday, and it expires in two days. The next company I'm waiting for them to send the offer. I see that all the time, and it's the weirdest thing in the world. But that's just, that's how it goes. I went way off on a tangent. I think I'm a couple of states away from you now, William, but it's just the thing that happens. And to close the loop on it, the talk about salary negotiations, my experience is, and I'm a business owner. So I can give you first hand experiential knowledge of this. When I get a good person on our team, I'll do everything I can to keep them. So if you go in at salary level X, and you prove yourself to be one of those really unique individuals where if you're like winner, the pay will take care of itself. It just will not because people are good natured or because all that we ought to take care of. No, but because retention is the new competitive advantage among employers, find a good person, keep them as long as you can. So if you go there and just prove that you're special, the salary will take care of itself. I agree. And I don't know if this is unfamiliar for listeners, but when I've been director of town acquisition, whether it be at the startup or the conglomerate, when we'd have someone that came through that we really liked like this marketing person, William. And maybe they were a little outside of our budget, but we thought that they could really overperform. We'd offer performance pay. We'd say, hey, we'll give you a great base, maybe six figures. That's right. You want to get to this level and you're capable of these things. You'll earn more than you're asking at 100% high end. And maybe you'll just be a little bit less at the low end and we can build from there. And people sometimes worry about that. Personally, I think performance pay is really great. And it doesn't just have to be in sales. It's a great way to get paid more than the company even intense to. But if you hit those numbers, they will be very happy with you. All pay is performance pay. Good point. And if you overperform, you're going to get paid more. I've never had an episode where I talked about and shame on me, ending the interview and questions to ask the employer. Obviously, there's just some general questions that I think people need to know to move forward. But do you have any strategic questions that people should be thinking about that aren't hoki or maybe what you and I might see come across our screen on the new top 10 lists on TikTok to ask the employee at the end of the interview? What's something that shows that you are bought into the process that you're thinking about things the right way? And in my mind, by hope of the question helps solidify the candidates a little bit more just by having it being brought up. Yeah, so Matthew, I've read the job specs for this marketing role. And I know it's over on the other side of the office floor here. I guess what I'm wondering, I'm really energized with this. You company's growing. I like growth situations. I also like overperforming. So what comes to mind if I say this to you two years from now, you've renamed the other wing of the office, the way of the interblument wing of this building. What in the world did I do concrete things I achieved in the first two years that would make you being I'm doing back clips. I don't want you on the website because I don't want any recruiters finding you. Give me some concrete. You didn't have to be exhausted, but just a couple things that you would love to see happen in the first two years that would be huge difference makers. I think that that shows a curiosity and it also puts the power in the hands of the interviewer and not you commandeering the interview itself. Yeah. And then at the very end, a cleanup question I always ask is listen, I don't want to bug you. I also don't want to let this slip through the cracks, right? So if you were me, when would you reach back if you haven't heard anything? What's a what date would you tell me? Oh yeah, you should call us if you hadn't heard by. That just frees people up and let's them say, okay, he's not being demanding here. He realizes we're busy, but he's asking a valid question. They'll let you know, too. They'll say we'll get back to you if they don't want to hear from you. If they like you and they want to stay in touch, just say if you don't hear from me by Monday, right? He's reached out here. Maybe here's my card with my direct wine. You're only going to do stuff like that if they like you. They also just that might not be part of the process. So if it doesn't happen, don't be discouraged. But those are two of the best questions I've heard. Friending interviews. So thank you, William. You say that to all the guests. I do not. I think be the unicorn has come out in the last month or two. Is that right? That's right. What is the response been to that? Well, the process was a bit of an accident. You've met these kind of people before. You meet them and within five minutes, you're like, that one's special. It didn't happen very often, but oh, this one's different. I'm bought in. I need to hire them. I need to offer them performance pay to try like they just rise up out of the crowd. So for years, I've wondered what in the world is going on that makes me that gullible. Because I'm usually not real gullible, but I meet these really high performers and I'm bought in real fast. They're like unicorns. They're this mythical rarely spotted, but when you spot it, you know exactly what it is. So I've wondered that for years. Pandemic happens four years ago now. World shuts down. Every one of our clients is indefinitely shut down and none of them are hiring. That gave me a little extra time. I can't wonder if freed up a good fit. Probably a lot of people had that and we realized during that time we did a lot of things to serve our clients without building them. But then we also realized we've got some time to work on the business and we get back to this question. What's happening in that first five minutes that makes me go, this one's a winner. We realized that in every one of our searches, we have lots and lots of interviews that happen. When you get down to the end, the last half dozen to 10, those people get a long form face to face interview, like three and a half hours, pretty intense. We realized during the pandemic, we've now done 30,000 of those. Okay. So there's more than that at the top of the funnel, but the bottom, the highest town, people 30,000, we've tracked where they've gone in their career who's done well, who's gotten elevated or promoted and that's the thing. And so we said, within that 30,000 could we identify the best within that and we did. And then we asked ourselves, do these people have anything in common? And the whole goal was to learn how to spot these unicorns faster so we'd be a better search firm. Well, what we uncovered was they do have something in common. They have several things in common and it was nothing I expected. And that's good news. I thought best of the best, they're all going to have an IQ of 165 or greater, right? They're all going to be great pedigree, Harvard Princeton Yale, that sort of thing. No, neither one of those. They're all going to have amazing hair and beautiful teeth. No, that one, you know, oh, he was a quarterback. She was a head cheerleader. No, that wasn't it either. What we found was there were some habits that these unicorns had that they were bent toward that most of us are not bent toward and it's fundamentally focused on how you treat other humans. So we identified 12 habits that these unicorns seem to exhibit and we realized This is not like how fast can you run the 40? It's not like how tall are you? This is something every single person can learn these 12 habits and we thought, okay, we went from selfish research project to we got to write a book and get this in people's hands so that they can become a unicorn so that they walk into the job interview and within five minutes the employer is going, how do I get them? Not, oh, what do you think? And the response has been pretty amazing. It's not a, it's not, I get my people getting mad if I don't hold the book up, but it's not a, this is not a manual for building rockets, right? It's not your cancer. This is a, in fact, the other, it should be the unicorn. You can be that person in five minutes. The other title that we just jokingly kicked around was, well, I guess mom was right. Because the 12 habits that we identified are probably things your parents told you to do when you were growing up and they think and gosh, mom, you're not right. Are you? Well, now we actually have data behind 30,000 interviews that shows us, yeah, on these things, mom was right. So very simple book, not simplistic, but simple. Each chapter has a case study of a unicorn in this particular habit, interviews with the unicorns we found about how they improve this habit and then very clear practical steps for people to improve that habit in their own life. And if people will do that, I guarantee they will stand out in the crowd. There's too much research behind it to say it with any less confidence in that. Here's what I'll say for listeners. I am confident that if I wouldn't have read Williams introduction, you still would have known and realize he knows exactly what he's talking about. He's got the right answers in this industry that we're both in. He's maybe a unicorn himself. The book is going to be even better than this episode at Highly Encouraged listeners. Check it out. If you like what Williams saying, if you hate both of us at the end of this episode, it's probably not going to be for you. But just from the level of insight we've gotten from you listeners will be excited to check that out. I'll put a link in this episode description. How else should listeners connect with you, your firm or anywhere else? Just go on Google and try spelling Vanderbluen. My name is so messed up. I'm from the part of Europe where you're from and my name is so weird that you can misspell out a hundred ways and you'll end up on our site. Same with the book. You got to Amazon just try and spell Vanderbluen. It'll pop up. But I hope it's a help to people. We've built a software tool that goes alongside it so you can learn where you're good or not. All of those things are in one website if you want though, theunicornbook.com. Great. We'll show you bonus content, resources, where to find the book, blogs you can read. That's the way. Great. We'll link to that as well. Is that like a personality test or it'd be like a strength finders or an ennagram. It's how do you, you self grade your in these 12 habits. How do you measure up against the unicorns that self graded surveyed unicorns. We surveyed 250,000 non unicorns. See where is the rest of us and where are the gaps? So what are your three strongest, what are your three weakest? We built it as a 360 tool for employers. It's pretty cool. That's a whole nother podcast though. As you're saying that, it gave me an idea. Maybe we should have you back. We can reflect on be the unicorn. We can talk about that assessment and dig more into the personality side. Not just getting the job interview, but realizing what are your strengths and maybe you're working way too hard at being someone that you're not meant to be. Maybe you've got a huge skill set that will not only make work seem easy and more rewarding, but that employers will find you a heck of a lot better at. So maybe we can talk about that offline. I'd love to have that back on the show. That'd be great. I appreciate you having me on, Matthew. I'd love what you're doing. Thank you so much. Before we close the episode up, do you have any parting words of wisdom or motivation for our listeners as they take what they've learned from you and apply it to their job searching careers? Yeah, one warning and then one motivation and I don't know either of them are wise. You said wisdom. But if it's Monday, don't make a career decision on Monday. Not the job you take, not the job you're quitting, particularly the job you're quitting. It is a proven biological fact that we are in a worse place emotionally on Monday than any other day of the week. And I don't know how it was for you, Matthew, but you have clients writing and saying, can you find me whatever it is? And then you have candidates writing and saying, I think I might need to make a change. Monday has had more of that kind of call. I need to make a change than all six of the other days combined for us. So Monday, just don't make big decisions when you're tired. And for most of us, that's Monday. Okay. And then on the flip side, the market's tight right now. It's really hard. And if you're just struggling to figure it out, how do I get a job? How do I feed these kids? Oh my gosh, summer camps coming up and I can't afford it. But what am I going to do? I would encourage you to keep on looking for that right thing. The number one mistake I've seen in all of hiring is people hire too quickly and they fire too slowly and they hire quickly because they get anxious. Sometimes people accept jobs too quickly. So maybe you have to take some job that is not your jam just to make ends meet while you're looking for the next career step, but you're going to spend the bulk of your waking hours in your job. And it really ideally should be something that's fulfilling to you. So don't quit on Monday. Hang in there. If you've got a take a job that's just a job until you can find the one that causes you to flourish, fine, but keep looking for the one you are wired uniquely. There's nobody else like you except you and you fit in a job that is going to make you happy to be doing it and the world will end up better for it. So don't lose the faith. Keep up the good work and above all, don't quit on Monday. Love it. William, thanks so much for joining us.