Noob School - Episode 53: All You Need To Know To Ace That Job Interview with John Harrison

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

In this episode of the Noob School podcast, John Sterling talks to fellow The Citadel Alumnus, John Harrision. John and John talk about how you can ace any job interview, coming from a manager’s perspective. Their advice includes doing the easy stuff well, being well-prepared, and maximizing your personal network to get the interview. And no matter what you do, never ever be late.  HIGHLIGHTSBe vulnerable, be yourself in job interviewsMost managers don't get interview training It always helps to be prepared for an interviewThe most successful people are the ones who deliver under pressureDo all the obvious and easy stuff well If you're well prepared, you won't be too nervous Use your personal network to gain an entry pointMistakes that can get you disqualified for a job interview Everyone should have an elevator pitch ready to go QUOTESJohn H. on earning your interview skills through trial and error: "It's something you learn over time by making mistakes. But you also learn when you hire the right person."John H. on coming prepared for a job interview: "The most important thing that I look for is preparation. When someone comes into an interview, they may not be the most skilled of the applicants. But you can always be the most prepared. You come in with the list of questions that you've put together based on what you know about the opportunity. You know who I am. You know my background. It's easy to get on LinkedIn."John H. on using your personal network to find a job: "If you get a job where someone has gone to bat for you and been a reference for you, and then your entry point into that company, they have a vested interest in your success. If you go apply for everything on Indeed and LinkedIn and every other site out there where you can apply for jobs, you might get a job. But most of the time, it's going to be absent of that person that truly has a vested interest in you being successful." Follow John through the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngharrison/ Connect with Noob School and John by visiting the following links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsterling1/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnsterlingsalesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnsterling_/Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnsterling_TikTok: https://twitter.com/johnsterling_Website: http://salestrainingfornoobs.com/

I think any diploma comes with a network. And that's something that we're coached to use. And what I think that we all should do, anyone that's looking for a job or graduates from college and they're getting ready to get out in the job market is sit down with their parents and think about it themselves, who do I know that's in the job market that I'm looking for a job? Yeah. And the reason I think that's so incredibly important is that if you get a job where someone has gone to bat for you or been a reference for you and been your entry point into that company, they have a vested interest in your success. Welcome back to Noob School.

This is where we interview successful business owners, and we dial it back to the beginning and figure out what they did to make their revenue grow. Yeah, everybody. John Sterling here. Welcome back to Noob School. Today, we're going to talk more about interviewing. We've had a lot of questions come to the website or people asking more about how to get that first job, how to interview, how to nail it, you know, when they get the first job. So I'm bringing a series of people in who have lots of experience, both interviewing people and being interviewed. And today I've got John Harrison here. Welcome, John. Thank you, John. Appreciate you having me. John's first interview was with me, I think. Pretty much, yes, for a sales job. For a sales job. I kind of interviewed for a teaching job but knew that I was going to get it no matter what I did.

Yeah. Yeah, my first real interview was with you. So John, John will go through his lineage of different sales jobs and sales manager jobs and VP jobs he's had, including one now. I'll tell you, during his interview, he did something. I coach people during the interview to be themselves. And particularly, you know, don't be the worst version of yourself, be the best version of yourself. But definitely yourself. And when John, he was just barely out of college and he had, I don't know, was a girlfriend or fiancé at that time?

We weren't married. Yeah, we were engaged. Yeah. So Brantley. And we were both still really happy. So John would already interview him, I guess at the Citadel. He'd taken the tests and passed the test. He came up to Greenville for his final interview.

And I'm like, well, John, we'd love to have you come on board. And you're like, well, what's it look like? You know, and I'm like, well, here it is. Here's the offer letter. And you looked out, and the salary was twice as much as you were making as a teacher. It was like my target earnings, I guess my own target earnings, were more than double my teaching job. So he said two things. He goes, first I accept.

The second, can I use your phone? I want to call Brantley and tell her what's going on. Yes. That was a very exciting phone call to call her and tell her. We're moving home, and this is great. We've doubled our pay. Yes. It's wonderful.

Anyway, that's really a nice example of someone being very. vulnerable and being themselves versus being all, you know, all weird about it, you know. And so that was pretty cool. But anyway, John started out working for us as a salesperson and quickly, you know, did very well in sales for a number of reasons. And then became a manager of a couple of different groups. So just walk us through real quick just to establish, you know, the history of the track record you've had of having to pick people and do interviews and decide who's on your team, starting

to DataStream through the different companies all the way to Keymark. Well, and, you know, my first experience as a manager was at Datastream after we bought SQL systems. Yeah. And then, you know, I was a manager, but it was just me and Nelson going around trying to sell it. It was really, let's see if you can sell it first. And then if you can, we'll hire some people. Yeah.

And I was lucky in that respect that we started having success. and then people who were already employees at Datastream that knew the products, knew the company, fit in the culture, were interested in coming over. And so that made my first management experience a little bit easier than most because I didn't necessarily have to go out and hire people from the outside. It was really more of an interview of someone. I knew they would work. It was just convincing them to come over.

Yeah. And so it was still kind of selling. And that was the first opportunity. And then the second was after selling down in Florida, taking over and running state and local government sales. And we grew that, you know, to a pretty significant size before we sold, before we got bought. And I did get to hire a couple of people from the outside. We did, you know, had a similar similar. similar experience with people coming over.

But that was my first time interviewing, and I had no clue what to do. I mean, I knew what I was, I expected, you know, of myself in an interview, having interviewed for those positions and done that, but it was difficult. And I mean, and I think it's still a difficult thing to do because it's an ever-changing landscape, what you expect, what newer,

generations are taught to do and ask for in an interview. And so I think it's become a little harder these days to, you know, really compare and contrast interviewees and cut through the bull, so to speak, to what you were talking about. I mean, I think for me coming out of school, not being a business major, I had not, the only thing I had to offer was being myself. But I think when you're coached to do things, ten different ways. ways. It may make it a little more difficult for someone that's supposed to interview well for that

job because you know that's their background or that's what they studied in school. So it's almost not like you need to take a step back and not force, you know, not force things. But what I learned in that second role was how important it is to hire the right people and to take your time, and you should never take the easy way out on that, because it's a lot more expensive to have to let someone go or move them to another area and replace them.

Yeah. So you went from salesperson to manager to manager at Datastream, then we sold. And did you go right to scan source then? No. I worked in a couple of positions as a sales rep again, and so then, At Oracle, I was moving into a management role when I was offered the opportunity to go to ScanSource.

And ScanSource, of course, was a much larger group that I was managing. It was a different industry for me. And I learned a lot of valuable lessons there just in how HR handled interviews. And so there was a lot of, there was training and stuff that we went through that really helped me kind of hone my interviewing skills, which I think, I think a lot of times those go, you know, I wouldn't say it's something that people don't prioritize like they should. Yeah, I mean, heck, I did tons of interviews and I never got any interview training. just like, you know, how would I know how to pick people? You figure it out as time goes on. Yeah.

Well, and I mean, I think for you, like we were talking about earlier, it's, you know, it's something you learn over time by making mistakes, but you also learn when you hire the right person, you know, one of the things that data streamed that you guys did so well, you hired a bunch of guys, things were going really well, and then you started looking at what are these successful reps doing that we've done? hired. What's their makeup? Yeah.

And can we figure out what the formula is to get a new, you know, Todd Loribach, get a new, I don't know, John Hillman, the guys that, you know, some of the guys that helped me when I came on board. And how do we replicate that over and over again? And so I think you learn over time what that looks like. And then you start asking questions that kind of fit the mold for what you're looking for. But I learned a ton at ScanSource about that because we interviewed a lot of people internally.

So I was interviewing people that already worked at ScanSource, but I didn't even know them. And so what kind of things when you interviewed like the ScanSource people, what kind of things were they doing well that you noticed that gave them a better chance to get the job? So I would say, you know, for me, I started thinking about this after we talked about the topics for today. but the most important thing that I look for is preparation. So when someone comes into an interview, they may not be the most skilled of the applicants, but you can always be the most prepared. You know, you come in with the list of questions that you've put together based on what you know about the opportunity.

You know who I am. You know my background. It's easy to get on LinkedIn. You know the people that you're going to be working on. had someone say, you know, John, tell me a little bit about you. I mean, people who've done that to me before at an interview, they're like asking me, tell them, like, what's your story? Like, you should know that story. Yeah, I mean, you should know it to a point. Yeah. And then it's stalking. Right. But I agree. I mean, I think that I think that one of the things, and we talk about

this in my class that I teach and also with my team at Keymark all the time. We talk about in the research you do, finding that connection point, finding there's something you can find, whether it's on social media, Twitter, wherever you're looking, but primarily LinkedIn, that's a connection point. And, you know, I think back to my interview with you. I didn't, no one had taught me how to prepare for an interview, but I knew that you played basketball at the Citadel and I played baseball at the Citadel and that was my connection point. I didn't need anything else because we had that in common. And so I think that that's what I look for.

And so I want somebody to come in the interview and say, hey, John, I noticed on LinkedIn that you got your MBA from Clemson or you went to the Citadel or you had a nonprofit. You know, there's a number of different things you can see. You know, that's really interesting. I did this. So make that connection and then move on. Yeah. But that's enough to tell me, okay, they're doing the basic stuff I'm going to ask them to do as a salesperson or in any role. Yeah.

And so that's number one. And then number two is just, you know, I think back to my coach, our baseball coach at the Citadel used to say. Coach Port. Coach Port. Yeah. And I can't use it. He used a lot of explicit, you know, explicit language. I'll cut that out.

But he would always say that winners that, you know, the people who are the most successful in baseball are the people who make the routine plays under pressure. And so every interview is under pressure, you know. And I thought about how that translates to the interview process. And it's doing all the stuff that's easy well, dressing well, conducting yourself well, looking you in the eye, being prepared. I mean, all of those are things that anyone can do. And so making sure that all of that stuff is locked down.

And then if you have a question that you don't answer quite well, that's going to be okay. Yeah. But do all the stuff that's easy very well. And so I look at that and that's important. And then I think, you know, and then there's the intangibles that you can't teach. It's just someone's ability to have a conversation with you. I remember you telling me that when we met. Like, I'm a school teacher, but, you know, I can talk to anybody.

So, yeah. Yeah, I think it's good. I remember watching something about, what's his name, the CEO of Google, his name is like Poochard or something, Sanjay or something. Anyway, you know, brilliant guy from India. And they talked about, they had a little documentary on him interviewing for the job. And they were just grilling him about Google Mail or, email, do you think it's a good thing or not? And he was like, I don't know. Like, you've got to give us an answer. He's like, I haven't used it. I haven't seen it yet. No one showed it to me. It was like early stages of mail. And it was just, it was kind of an interesting moment to watch him because, you know, he could have been, you know, like, well, I think it is and I heard it is. And he could have just started making stuff up. He's like, sorry, I love to answer it, but I haven't seen it yet. If you'd like to show it to me, I'll give, you know.

Yeah. And that's, what you're talking about there is just kind of maintaining your composure and not, you know, thinking, well, what can I say that's what they want to hear. Right. Like clever talk. Yeah, that doesn't work. That doesn't work. And that's, yeah, I mean, and you can see right through that when someone is, and that's a, I think, a sign of desperation. And I think sometimes that's hard. Like if you've had a bunch of interviews and they haven't been successful, I. I think people can kind of get in a rut of doing that. And so I just think that if you're prepared, if you do all those things and you're prepared well, you know the details of the job you're interviewing for, you know the people that are involved that you'll be working with and the people you're interviewing with, and you understand what the company does. I think those are the three things that if you're well prepared, then you're not going to be as nervous,

then you're not going to be jumpy. And, you know, it's just like going into a test. If you're well-prepared for a test, you're not really nervous. Right, right. And hoping it's easy. Right. And, you know, back to preparation, you know, I coach people to get maybe their top 10 companies.

Like if you could pick just 10, no less, no more, that you'd like to go to work for, that are kind of in your geography, in your area of interest, good companies, right size, you know, all that stuff, then if you've got 10 of them, you know, you don't have to worry about one interview. You figure one of them is going to pop. And the other thing I tell people is if they really,

really, really, really want to go to work for X, Y, Z company, and you can't break into sales right now. Break in somewhere else. That's true. Go to work in support or marketing or something. Just get your foot in the door. Start talking to John Harrison about a sales job. Yeah, absolutely.

And also show how you can, you can, help. I think, so you just made me think of, you know, one other thing that, that I think is important for anybody, you know, that's watching or sending questions of you that is, that they're interviewing for jobs or they're trying to find a job. And that is the importance of using your personal network or the network of your family. Yeah. And, you know, at the Citadel, you know, that diploma comes with a network. I think any diploma comes with a network. But, and that's something that we're coached to use. And it's, and I've been talking through this with Evans, you know, since he's been in the job hunt as well, Evans, my son.

And what I think that we all should do, anyone that's looking for a job or graduates from college and they're getting ready to get out in the job market is sit down with their parents and think about it themselves. Who do I know that's in the job market? that I'm looking for a job. Yeah. And the reason I think that's so incredibly important is that if you get a job where someone has gone to bat for you or been a reference for you and been your entry point into that company, they have a vested interest in your success. If you go apply for everything on Indeed and LinkedIn and LinkedIn and LinkedIn and every other, you know, site out there, where you can apply for jobs. You might get a job, but most of the time it's going to be absent of that person

that truly has a vested interest in you being successful. And to me, that's extremely important. Like when you hired me, because of the Citadel connection and because other Citadel grads recommended me to you, they had, you know, they were mentors to me. They helped me be successful. So I can't stress that enough. And I mean, it's to let a network like that go to waste is not a good thing. Absolutely.

I told the story earlier. You know, if you were trying to get a job, let's say, at ScanSource, and, you know, you've got three or four different people, family or friends, to vector in to the people that were making the decision at ScanSource, whether it's Mike or whoever. Right. And to say, hey, this guy is really good. I've known him for 20 years, you know, just want to put a word in for him.

And another guy did the same thing and another person. Now, you know, they're going to think, you know, this guy, first of all, he's probably good if these people that I know are telling me that. But second of all, he's pretty clever. Right. He's pretty damn clever, which is exactly what I want to help me sell big deals. Exactly. Right? Yep.

The Dade deal, Miami-Dade, I mean, you had that thing wired from the mayor, the CIO, you know, the whole thing. thing. Exactly. I mean, it's, to me, you need to exhaust every point of influence that you have. And if you do that to get an audience with me for an interview, then to me, that's the intangible we're talking about. That's the kind of stuff it's going to take to go close a big deal. And not only that, but to be successful inside an organization, building those relationships inside an organization and having people go to bat for you and pick up the phone when you need them. So a couple things. So along the way, you went back and got your MBA from Clemson.

Right. Did you have a certain specialty? Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Okay. And then at the end, you know, you really learn both. You really come to the end of that program with the ability to do a presentation. to start a new business or to do some type of innovation within your organization. And I did an innovation project within Keymark.

Okay. And yeah, and I like how you said along the way. It was like five years ago. There was a lot of work. Very late. Yeah, very late in my career, but an incredible experience. And now you're teaching. You're teaching sales there, right?

I am. I'm teaching. So I'm a lecturer is the official title. in the corporate MBA program. Okay. And it's an awesome, awesome job. I had my first class last spring, and we potentially could have two classes this coming spring

if we have enough, you know, enough people in the class or, you know, try to get in the class. So it's a lot of fun. That's awesome. Yeah. So now you worked at Oracle and some other places, but now you're at Key, Mark, which is a real great fast-growing tech company right here in the area and your VP of sales

over there. What's your team size now? So I have 19. Whoa. 19 people on the team. So it's a pretty good, pretty good size team across. I have our direct sales team. And then I have our sales, our essays.

It's a complex software. The essays are a very important part of what we're. We do. And then we have a really strong sales operations team. And, of course, that, you know, there are companies like at DataStream. We had a good sales operations team, but we, you know, manufactured our own software. We worked with multiple software vendors at Keymark. And so that operations job is extremely important in the relationship with those different vendors we have.

And so without naming companies, we don't want to name any companies, but along the way, with all the interviewing you've done, what are some of the just outright mistakes people make that get them disqualified? So, you know, for me, I would go back to that number one thing, just it being obvious that you're not prepared. You don't know who I am, who, you know, and typically when we have people come in to Keymark,

I'll have people interview with multiple folks, even if I'm the primary person they're interviewing with, and they're going to report to me, I'm going to have others that they are going to have to work with, interview them. But not being prepared, not knowing who you're interviewing with. Those are extremely important. Being late, being late for an interview is, that's a pet peeve. How early do you think we ought to be in the lobby?

15 minutes at a minimum. Okay, I say 30. I would sit in the parking lot until 15 minutes. before. But that's, to me, that you should take out any chance of traffic or anything like that, making you late to an interview because all that says is this is important to me. And if you're late, it says, yeah, this isn't a high priority. So when your friend, my son, Jack, was in his seal training, when he would come visit, he only visited, I think, once or twice during the training, he would get back to San Diego two days early.

I'm like, Chad, can't you stay a little longer? He goes, no. I said, why? He goes, I don't want there to be any chance I'm going to be late. I'm totally agree with that. You imagine if he was late what they would do to you? Yeah, I mean, that's a little more motivation comes with that. But, no, I mean, I think we, that was kind of drilled into me at the Citadel,

but it's something that I think is extremely important because if you're late for the interview. Yeah. then you're going to be late for anything. Yeah. And so I think that's another thing. And, you know, I have had, shockingly, I have had recent interviewees come in, and this has been over the last couple of years, come in, and they'll cuss in an interview. And, I mean, you know, I think we all have our cuss words from time to time.

Not in an interview. Not in an interview. And so I just, and again, I go back to the things that are easy that you should be able to perform in the interview correctly. You know, I mean, dress well. Be efficient in your answers. You know, you don't need to tell the same story or answer the question three different ways. Yeah. Just, you know, and be calm and in control.

And then the other thing, I think that, you know, it's just basic communication techniques like, you know, eye contact, firm handshake, just what you would expect from someone who's got their stuff together. Yeah. Yeah. And you said, I forget, I forget, what very nice term you used about not answering the question too many ways. But I would say, you could also say tell people not to talk too much. Right. Not just to start blabbing and talking and talking. It's like you just want to get in, nice, clean answer, and get out.

Right. And then stop. Yeah. You know, enjoy the silence. And, you know, I mean, just like, and again, this goes to, I think how they conduct themselves in an interview, especially if you're interviewing for a sales role, is a good picture into how they might conduct themselves when they're talking to a customer. And so to me, it becomes a little more important.

And if I'm interviewing with you for a job where you're going to sit at a, you know, computer and you're going to build software for me, how you interact with me isn't as important as the knowledge you have about the job you're taking. But to me, if your job is interacting with people and convincing them that we're the best company to do business with for a specific deliverable, then how you conduct yourself in an interview is extremely important. How do you feel about when people, like, toward the end of the interview, would say, you know, if I was interviewing with you, I'd say, well, John, do have a couple, another question. So how are you going to make a decision? And how am I looking? I don't have any problem with that. I think there's good methods and bad. Yeah.

Because, you know, we're coached to ask that at the end of a sales cycle. Or not even at the end, just along the way. You know, here's where we are. Here's what we've done. How do we stand in the process so far? I'm totally okay with that question, and I think it's good. In fact, I'm a little surprised if I don't get a question like that at the end of the interview. How did I do?

Yeah. You know, I mean, because if I, and again, if I'm prepared for the interview and I do all those things that are easy well and we get to the end, I think I've earned the right to ask that question. Sure, you have. It only takes, you know, 30 seconds. ask and answer. And, you know, another cheat code for people is to find somebody like me or you, just somebody in their network that's been in sales for a while and just do some practice. Absolutely. I wrote that down practice. And I think I want to, to that point, you know, one of the things that, you know, we talked about the class that I'm teaching at Clemson

and even with my team at Keymark, one of the things that we focused on. One of the things that we focused on is that everyone should have a personal elevator pitch. You know, you sit down at the bar on a road trip and the CEO of a company in that area sits beside you and says, you know, what do you do? What do you guys do at your company or what do you do for a living? That shouldn't be a hard question to answer. You should, you know, that should be something that you're able to pop off very quickly. And you're definitely going to get that question in an interview.

And so being able to very quickly say, you know, this is a quick 30-second blurb about who I am and what I stand for is extremely important. And that's something that we harp on all the time. And I don't think that ends when you get the job. I think that's something that you're, you know, with every experience, especially successful experience you have, you should be building on that. Yeah. And updating that elevator pitch.

Well, I'll tell you, the dumbest thing I ever did as an interviewee is I was still in college. And probably my dad got me an interview with this lady who was like real high up with Bank America or something. So I was like, well, I didn't know what I was doing. I knew nothing. Right. This was a good interview. So I drove to Columbia and interview with this lady, big building, go up there. And she's like, so.

John, you said, I'm like, yes, yes, ma'am, I am. She goes, so what do you think of our commercial department? I'm like, well, ma'am, it's a citadel. We don't have television, so I'm really not real aware of your commercials here at the bank. Of course, you was talking about commercial division, you know, versus the personal division or whatever. Right. So I probably, they're probably still telling jokes about this idiot who came up.

I mean, I had no, no, no, I didn't even know what the bank was. hardly. So, you know, you can be an idiot and recover and do okay, but it'd be much better off if you did a little bit of homework. A little bit of research. You're right. Well, I mean, I remember interviewing with you and I remember your first comment was, so they tell me you're a closer and I had no idea the pun. I was a closer. I had no idea what a closer was in sales. And so that was, I remember walking out of that. I was like, I don't even know what that meant. And I had to call some people.

Well, another funny story was Hillman, one of our favorite sales guys ever. He was coming to his interview on campus. But the interview guy, Brent Stewart said, who ran the placement department, he said, John can come see you at 4.30. But only if you're okay if he comes directly from the golf course because he's at practice. You know, and he won't be able to get all cleaned up and put his stuff on. Like, I don't care. You know, it's fine.

He comes in, man. He's wearing, like, pink pants, lime green shirt, sweating like a goat for his interview. I was just like, anyone who can be that comfortable with themselves to show up like that for an interview. Now, I guess my point is, first of all, be comfortable with whatever you are. He was comfortable. He nailed the interview. But also, you can get away with anything. If you get permission.

You're exactly right. Yeah. If they know that you're coming in and workout clothes, it's all good. Yeah. Or you can say, can you be here by 11? Say, I'm not sure. I got this and this. I'm taking a bus from Cincinnati.

I'm not, it'll be, it'll be sometime that day. That's okay. If they say yes to that, then you're fine. Absolutely. I agree. You get permission. I totally agree. That's a good story.

Yeah. Another thing is about asking questions like the interview people. I think if an interview person, like if I was interviewed, with you and I just said right off the bat, I'm like, so John, what was your favorite year at the Citadel? And when did you start to really make some good money? And what was a sale you really, you know, start just drilling down these crazy, unrelated questions.

But if I said, John, you know, do we have enough time where I could ask you some questions? I'm curious about your trajectory in sales. Would that be okay? If you said yes, then I could get away with asking those questions. You're right. Well, asking permission is to me just a show of respect. Yeah. So you're right about that.

I also think that you just made a point about asking appropriate questions versus those that really don't have to do with. And, you know, we have a guy that works at Keymark now. I won't use his name, but not that he would mind. And he's young and was fairly, you know, fairly. early out. I mean, he'd probably been out of college for a couple of years when I interviewed him. But one of the one of the most polished interviews I've ever had in my career and extremely prepared. Like he was the, if I could if I could go back and film that interview, I would show that to people as this is how you do it.

And extremely prepared, came in, had questions. and his questions were all around what our company is doing in certain areas, what our sales strategy is, do we have a CRM, what type of methodology do we use if we use one. So it was a number of things that I thought were very fitting, but it also showed that he did his homework. And when he came in, he had. questions prepared in his in his planner. And so you know that that to me is someone I want on my sales team and of course and he's been

extremely successful doing very well. Yeah, he's organized. This guy's gonna do very well wherever he is. That's good. Well those are some great some great pointers of mostly things to do a few things not to do and hopefully the new school folks will will take full advantage so thanks for coming back to the new school John. Yes sir. Thanks for for having me. I appreciate it, John. Thank you. Thank you.