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Communicating and presenting yourself in the Job interview. And anytime at work.

Mastering the Art of Persuasive Communication: Your Key to Interview Success

Imagine walking into your dream job interview, not with nervousness, but with an electrifying confidence. This isn't just a fantasy - it's the power of mastering the Claim-Specification-Impact (CSI) methodology.

Let's revolutionize your communication skills and transform you into an irresistible candidate.

The CSI Method: Your Secret Weapon

1. Claim: Your opening salvo, a bold statement that demands attention.

2. Specification: The vivid details that bring your claim to life.

3. Impact: The knockout punch - why your listener should care deeply.

This isn't just another communication trick. It's a mindset shift that will set you apart in every professional interaction.

Why This Matters:

Forget boring, meandering responses that put interviewers to sleep. With CSI, you're not just answering questions - you're weaving a compelling narrative of your value. You're not a job seeker; you're the solution to their problems.

The 5 Critical Interview Questions - Reimagined:

1. "Tell me about yourself."

Translation: "Convince me you're the missing piece to our puzzle."

2. "What do you know about our industry and company?"

Real question: "Prove you've done your homework and are passionate about us."

3. "What do you know about this job?"

Hidden meaning: "Show me you understand our needs and can hit the ground running."

4. "Why should we hire you?"

What they're really asking: "How will you make our lives easier and our company better?"

5. "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

The real probe: "Are you committed to growing with us and driving our success?"

The CSI Method in Action:

Imagine responding to "Tell me about yourself" like this:

Claim: "I'm a data-driven problem solver with a passion for transforming raw information into actionable insights."

Specification: "In my recent internship, I developed a predictive model that increased customer retention by 15%, saving the company $500,000 annually."

Impact: "I'm excited to bring this analytical mindset to your team, especially for your upcoming market expansion project. My skills in data visualization and machine learning could help identify untapped opportunities and minimize risks."

Feel the difference? You're not just listing qualifications; you're painting a vivid picture of the value you bring.

The Twister Analogy:

Think of CSI as a game of verbal Twister. You're constantly moving, adapting, and connecting your points to what matters most to your interviewer. It's dynamic, engaging, and impossible to ignore.

Your Call to Action:

1. Rewrite your entire interview prep using the CSI method.

2. Practice out loud until it feels natural.

3. Record yourself and analyze your delivery.

4. Get feedback from mentors or career advisors.

Remember, this isn't just about landing a job. It's about transforming how you communicate for life. Master this, and you'll not only ace interviews but also become an influential leader in your field.

The choice is yours: Blend in with forgettable responses, or stand out as the candidate they can't afford to let go.

Are you ready to revolutionize your communication and skyrocket your career prospects? The CSI method is your launchpad. Embrace it, master it, and watch as doors of opportunity swing wide open.

Your future self will thank you for taking this leap. Now, go forth and conquer those interviews!

Communicating and presenting yourself in the Job interview. And anytime at work.

I will now teach you a communication methodology called claim specification proof.

I was taught this at IBM many years ago under the category of influence and communication skills, and I will now share it with you.

This presentation methodology works as follows:

First: Make a Claim : A Simple Statement about the topic or issue at hand.

Second: Specificiation: Provide more details or examples of your Claim.

Third: Tie it to what the listen cares about by telling them “The reason why this matters to you is ....”. Don’t leave them guessing. Tell them why this matters to them.

The most painfully boring Job Interview Petitioner is the one who talks ago without connecting the dots and making it clear to the Interview why the statements made by the person being interviewed matter to the Interviewer’s Interests and Concerns.

The 5 Questions you will get during the Interview are:

One: Tell me about yourself. You interpete and hear this question as : Connect the dots for me as to why what you have matters to what the Interviewer needs. This question is the same as : Why should I hire you?

Two: What do you know about this industry and company. (Remember all the research that has gone into your Evernote database?)

Three: What do you know about this JOB: (Remember all the research that has gone into your Evernote database?) By using the skills we are teaching you to harvest information about of LINKEDIN, you can have a comprehensive view of what jobs like that entail.

Four: Why should I hire you? (If you did a good job with Question 1 Tell me about yourself, just repeat what you already said).

Five: What do you want to be doing 5 years from now. This question is intended to probe your psychometrics and ask your motivational state and knowledge of and interest in the field.

The way the claim specification, impact statement methodology works is that you can imagine you're playing a game, the children's game called Twister, in which there are different pieces of cloth on the ground, different colored cloth pieces, and you have to step from one piece to another. So if you're on red, you step to blue. If you're on blue, you step to green, and then you step back to red, and so on. You cycle around.

What that instructor, many years ago told us is that most people who do business presentations do it badly because they follow the academic model of communication, which emphasizes centering the communication presentation around the interests of the subject.

This is the academic model, and this makes sense if you're teaching calculus. You do want to talk about calculus, but if you bring this into a business context, it makes for dry, boring and unengaging presentations.

In the business presentation, we want to center everything we say around the interests of the listener.

We start by listing the Points we must convey which will be of value and interest to the person we are speaking to.

Everything we say aims to drive to the interest of the listener or the person we're speaking to.

Everything we're saying here now also applies to writing as well as to spoken presentation.

So if you're writing a blog or an article, always start by identifying the interests of your audience and putting them at the center.

Remember how earlier in our study of the vector path methodology, we talked about the importance of preparation and research, of knowing your customers, of knowing what interests them and what their pain points are.

We spoke about the credo, “What interests our customers, fascinates us”, so now you are getting the benefit of all of that work in understanding the interests and concerns of your person you're speaking to at the job interview.

Here is how the claim, specification, impact statement, method of organizing your talking and your verbal communication is done.

You always start by making a claim. Let's make an example with one of one of the fabulous five questions that interviewers are always going to ask. Students say they fear this question about if you are prepared, this question is the best Framework in which to present yourself.

This Question is “Tell me about yourself”.

So start by organizing your talking around making a statement or a claim.

So when using the claim, specification, impact statement methodology, you start by making a claim -a statement about the topic at issue

Step two is to make a specification statement in which you give more details about your claim or your statement in step one.

Step three is you connect it to the interest listener, with a connecting impact statement to the listener.

Let's illustrate this conversational flow with an Example.

One of the famous top five questions you can be expected to be asked at the interview is: tell me about yourself.

Handle this as follows:

Step one, make a statement. Make a claim. My name is Peter. I'm a soon to be new graduate from college. My Course of Study was mobile application development and database technologies. These are topics which I'm very excited to work with and to continue to learn more about. And this is the focus of my career search.

So that is step one, that is the claim. I'm a new graduate interested in working in this technology.

Step two, you give more details. Now this is where the research into the company comes into play. That's why this way of doing things has to be tightly integrated with everything we said before about your research and your Evernote database.

So step two now you're going to make specification of your claim. So you're going to say, based on my research of your company, I see that your company has recently taken a government contract to deliver services to northern part of Ontario, and I read in my research that your company is going to be implementing SQL Server databases with internet website connectivity. And since these are things I did a number of projects and studies on in college, I'm very familiar with these technologies, and I would be a very good fit to work with the teams which are delivering them step three impact statement to the listener.

So Ms. interviewer, as a soon to be new graduate with interest in sql database and HTTP web server setup, I would be very interested to to be a high performance contributor to the the team which is going to be working on delivering this government contract. contract.

So now we've seen one simple workflow of claim specification impact statement.

This is how you will speak with Authority and Thought Leadership at the job interview, and as an influential and persvasive professional at work.

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