In the final stages of the interview process, you’re meeting with the core decision-makers. At this point, they’re deciding who they’re going to hire. If you’ve gotten to this stage, you don’t need to prove your abilities.
You need to prove they can’t get anyone like you. You need to be unique. You need to jam.
Christopher Lochhead, 3-time CMO and godfather of the “category design” specialty, describes it this way:
You can’t be a candidate; you have to become the only choice.
The way we become the only choice, and make them completely forget about other options, is by establishing unique, visionary points of view on the work we do. For example:
Lochhead would go into meetings with potential employers and say:
“If you need someone to keep the trains running on time, I’m not your guy. But if you want to design & dominate an entire market category, hire me.”
For the _% of companies that are afraid to shake things up, it’s an easy “no.” And both parties benefit from quickly ruling each other out.
And for the _% of companies that have big ambitions, it immediately becomes obvious that Lochhead is the only choice for the job. None of the other candidates talk about designing and dominating categories the way he does.
Originally published @May 24, 2021