Want a job interview? Being qualified isn’t enough

You’re competing against thousands of equally qualified candidates. Expose your POV to stand out.

👋 Hi, it’s Greg and Taylor. Welcome to our newsletter on how to make high-stakes professional and personal decisions in your 30s.

Last month, I received 1,993 applications for the chief of staff role at Section. 

Dover (our recruiting platform that we love) disqualified about 1,200 based on qualifications, but that still left 750 people. 750 who had similar backgrounds, degrees, and levels of experience – in short, who looked exactly the same on paper.

Even if I spent just 3 minutes reviewing each application, that’s 38 hours to sift through these 750 candidates – not going to happen. I needed some way for candidates to stand out, beyond what I could glean in a LinkedIn profile. 

The best way was for candidates to expose their point of view on what defines a successful chief of staff, and how they’d do the job today. This was relatively uncommon – three candidates did this pre-interview. But it worked – all three got an initial interview, and one made it to the final round. Exposing their point of view on the role didn’t guarantee the job. But it did guarantee an interview – a seat at the table.

If you’re job hunting right now – especially in tech – you know the job market is a nightmare. 42,000 tech workers have been laid off since the beginning of the year, adding to the 262,000 who were laid off in 2023. I’ve seen it as a hiring manager – the pool of applicants we received was very strong … frankly stronger than candidates I interviewed 2 years ago.  

Even if you’re qualified, just getting someone to look at your resume is an uphill battle, let alone offer you an interview. The best way to stand out is to expose how you think before you ever get on the phone. 

Here’s how to do that.

– Taylor

Who’s getting hired

After we’ve discarded all the resumes that blatantly don’t fit what we’re looking for – too little experience, wrong skill set, etc., we’re looking to answer three questions as quickly as possible.

1. Can this person think critically and add value beyond the day-to-day tasks of their job?

2. Do they know where to spend their time (i.e., have the judgment to make that call)?

3. Can they see when things aren’t working, diagnose why, and take action?

As hiring managers, we want a sense of this information before we get on the phone with you. That helps us avoid wasting your time (and ours) with a phone call that won’t lead anywhere. There’s nothing worse than a 30 minute phone screen where you know five minutes in that it won’t work.

To get (and ace) the interview, you need a point of view on your role

A year ago, we would have said the best candidates are gurus in their field – they follow the right experts, read the right newsletters, etc. This is table stakes now. We expect that you’re immersed in the industry and/or role you want – if you’re not, you won’t make it past the first round.

To truly stand out, you need a point of view on your job function and the future – how that job function creates value for the business, how it’s changing, and how to do it well. 

The best candidates write this point of view down, and expose it pre-interview. You don’t need to publish it to LinkedIn (though to be honest, this absolutely helps). But you do need to document it and share it with the hiring manager via a personal email or LinkedIn message. Don’t assume the hiring manager will see it if you attach it to your application.

Documenting this point of view accomplishes a few things:

• It exposes how you think, quickly. It takes your interview from “okay, they’re qualified” to “wow, they’re strategic” in 10 seconds.

• It exposes your sources – the inputs you use to influence your thinking and make decisions.

• It positions you as a person who thinks about how the world is changing, and how that impacts your role in the organization – and given the rate of change today, this is catnip to a future boss. 

This is why companies (including us at Section) give case assignments during the interview process. It’s not to get you to do work for them (you don’t have the right context for your output to be that helpful). It’s to see how you think, the sources you use, and your ability to engage with how the world is changing, and how it impacts your ability to be successful at work.

Very few candidates share a point of view pre-interview. It’s time consuming and scary to pre-emptively expose your thinking. You have less control over the narrative – you’re not there to answer questions or cover holes in your thinking. But because of this, it will make you stand out. 

I received over 100 personal notes on LinkedIn and via email for my chief of staff role. I opened them – because I was looking for a way to filter candidates. Three emails included an attachment – I read all of them. 

How to develop your point of view

Bottom line: Start writing. Force yourself to write down your point of view, and you’ll quickly realize where you have ideas and where you need help. 

Answer this question: How has the role of [insert role] changed recently, and what do successful [insert role]s accomplish for their organization?

Here are a few questions to help you get started: 

• What’s changed in the world in the last 12 months, and how has that changed how I need to do my job?

• How should we measure success in this role? What are the milestones, accomplishments, and KPIs that great managers should hold me accountable to?

• How could I get better outcomes – where is the friction in my job right now? What, if solved, would unlock new leverage in the role?

• How has/will AI change this role? How are you leveraging AI now, and how do you expect the role to look in 3 years when AI is more ubiquitous?

• What tools, technologies, or methodologies are unlocking outsized gains in your role?

Resist the urge to make this specific to any company (current or future). 

If you’re interviewing for a chief of staff role, convey how you think successful companies should leverage chiefs of staff. What do successful chiefs of staff accomplish? What tool(s) or method(s) should every chief of staff be using? How has/will AI change this? How do managers successfully leverage their chiefs of staff? How do managers fail to leverage them?

If you’re interviewing for a content marketer role, explain the role content marketing plays in the business, the success metrics it drives, and how that’s changed over time. Engage directly with the threat of AI – and share your POV on how the content marketer role will need to evolve with AI. Explain the components of the job, and the ones that drive outsized or limited impact for the company. 

Ultimately, most people hired for a more strategic role will have to demonstrate this type of thinking in an interview to be hired. But so few people expose this thinking before they ever get on the phone. Which means that you might have this point of view, but never get the chance to share it. Don’t let this happen.

How to share the POV (once you have it)

In short: publish it. 

• Send it to the hiring manager you’re trying to get an interview with (this is the bare minimum)

• Link to it on your resume

• Put the point of view on your LinkedIn profile

• Publish it as a post (and tell your coworkers or friends to engage with it)

• Make it the homepage of your personal website

We can’t guarantee the hiring manager will read it. But if they’re anything like us, they’re looking for ways to filter candidates. And if your point of view is strong, you will almost certainly make it to the top of the pile.

And if you get an interview, having a written POV makes you a lot stronger on the phone. You’ll be able to crisply articulate how you will do the role and why others are doing it the wrong or “old” way. 

Lastly, don’t customize the POV for each company you interview with. We get plenty of messages from candidates that say: “I took a look at your curriculum. Here are five courses I’d recommend you build” – and yes, it sometimes works. But usually, it doesn’t. As an outsider, you usually lack context and inside information. It’s easy to come off as out of touch with the realities the company faces, or just incorrect. 

It’s also not scalable, and applying to jobs is mostly a numbers game. Don’t do free work for the company until they require it. Write one strong POV and send it to 100 interviewers first. 

Our advice

First, you have to get over the fear of putting yourself out there. We know it can feel awkward or scary to write a point of view about product management and publish it on LinkedIn. But it feels a lot worse to get 100 form rejection emails. 

You also might be thinking, “I don’t have time for this – I’ve got jobs to apply for.” And we get that. But taking some time to establish your point of view will pay off later in the interview process, and it will pay off again when you get the job. 

Bottom line: Even if you are not looking for a job, do this once a year. With CFOs cutting costs and AI cutting jobs, we want people that don't just do the job now, but will be able to do the job in 12 months – and that starts with having a POV on how the job is changing and what you will do about it.

Have a POV you want to run by us? Send it over – greg@sectionschool.com or taylor@sectionschool.com. We’ll tell you what we think (and whether you’d get the interview).

To the next 10 years,

Greg & Taylor