A highlight from this week happened during a networking and interview training session with a small group of clients, and it just so happens that two of them were former colleagues and friends who hadn’t spoken in years. I loved witnessing the banter and lighthearted personalities that emerged during interview role playing, which is often much more serious in a one-on-one session.
One of my favorite aspects of these sessions is helping people build community and connection with peers who are shedding their imposter syndrome, building new skills, and working through challenges together.
This blog article is about applying a “growth mindset” to your perspective about what’s possible in our unknown futures, and potential mental traps that may be hampering your creative thinking abilities.
What is a Growth Mindset?
The growth mindset is a term based on Carol Dweck’s famous psychology research from Stanford University. In Sandra Yancey McGuire’s Teach Students How to Learn, she dedicates a whole chapter to why mindset matters and defines Dweck’s framework.
People with a fixed mindset believe their talents are innate gifts and that their skills and traits are “fixed.” They tend to avoid challenges, give up easily, ignore criticism, and find the success of others threatening.
By contrast, people with a growth mindset believe their talents can be developed through things like hard work, good strategies, and input from others. They tend to embrace challenges, persevere, use effort to achieve mastery, benefit from criticism, and find motivational fuel in the success of others.
Before I get into how you can apply the growth mindset on your job search, let me list a few common “fixed mindset” traps that I’m seeing with my clients:
The comparison exercise - A colleague/friend has left to join a new company. Your natural inclination is to assume that you would join at a similar level or role. You arbitrarily set your expectations at the same level as your peer instead of considering a range of potential outcomes at the company.
The gaslighting exercise - You’ve been in the same job or industry your whole career and ask yourself, "Is it crazy for me to think I can move into a role and try something different?" You let the negative self-talk and beliefs of the people you’re surrounded by at your company seep into your own self-conception.
The “Let me go back to a company that I’ve left in the past because that’s what feels most comfortable” exercise - You’re unhappy at work. But instead of thinking about all of the potential opportunities available to you, you limit yourself to talking to just one company (a company that you’ve worked at before) or a manager who you’ve worked with in the past.
If any of these sound like you… write down your thoughts and ask yourself, “How is this helping me right now? Am I using a fixed mindset or growth mindset?”
How to Apply a Growth Mindset to your Job Search
So if those examples above are what a fixed mindset looks like, what’s the mindset that will help you expand your idea of what’s possible?
I’d challenge you to think about your dream role or dream company.
Even if you think it would be too hard to land, or impossible to get in.
Even if you have colleagues going to a different company.
Even if you think it’s too late to make a change in your career.
Even if you’re scared of something new, even though you know it would be better than going back to something old.
And let me give you a tip for utilizing the growth mindset in your next interview.
How to use a Growth Mindset in your Next Interview
The most important thing to remember is that your goal in the interview process is to bring vision and leadership to the problems that they need to solve. This comes in many forms, including your leadership principles and systems, communication strategy, domain expertise, judgment, reputation, and character.
The second most important thing to remember is that you aren’t trying to be the job description. Your goal is to be your most authentic and self-actualized version of yourself in the interview and at work.
Why is this important? In the vast majority of cases, the interview teams haven’t spent a lot of time defining why the role is open, who their ideal candidate is, or metrics for success. In fact, you’ll be dealing with a ton of ambiguity as you try to make sense of what the actual role and responsibilities are because the team has spent so little time defining it.
Going back to our growth mindset, you’re looking to challenge the team you're interviewing with in how they are approaching solving their problems and testing whether or not there is an appetite for your leadership approach, judgment, and problem-solving ability.
While this may feel contrarian, if the team could solve these problems on their own, they wouldn’t be hiring someone else to do it. You want to find out up front how difficult or collaborative the team is to work through the challenges ahead.
Spend Time Researching the Company... All of Their Open Roles
When you’re researching a company of interest:
Read or listen to their earnings report
Think about their product roadmap
Look at all of the jobs that they have open on their job board
Maybe they have 20 positions open in the sales org based on seniority level, region, and domain expertise. Take a look at other departments like product management, marketing, engineering, and sales ops. What are the themes that you’re seeing? How does your background help them in multiple areas of the business?
When you’re in the interview and the hiring manager asks you the typical “Tell me about yourself” question, start the interview by thanking the hiring manager for their time, expressing your interest in the role, and provide a short description about your background.
As you transition, tell the hiring manager you’ve been in their shoes before and how challenging hiring 20 people at one time is. Let them know that you’ve done some research (stated above) and ask them what their biggest problems are right now and what they are looking for.
This will change the dynamic of the interview from question/answer to a conversation, allow you to gain a bigger picture of the challenges they are facing and an open discussion about how you can uniquely solve their problems.
This approach contrasts from a more fixed approach of trying to align directly with the job description.
Stay Connected
I’m passionate about working with leaders like you to help you figure out your “why,” define your career goals, master your storytelling, and create roles that are tailor-made for the unique person you are.
We helped one of our most recent clients through a month-long offer negotiation as a Global Head of Talent with a company on the S&P 500. It is never an easy process to have difficult conversations with the C-Suite, or design a new role that you're excited about that's also aligned with the company's best interests. The good news is that we were able to do just and negotiated a 30%+ increase in total target compensation valued at more than $300K in annual income.
This is a great time of year to reflect and get refocused on your career goals.
My executive branding suite features 8-10 hours of 1:1 sessions and spans personal branding, leadership development, interview training, network activation, and offer analysis and negotiation. You can learn more about it here, and let me know if you have any questions.