CIC

David thought he was doing everything right in preparing for job interviews. He had carefully crafted his “Tell Me About Yourself” answer to align with the leadership roles he was targeting. He had practiced countless CAR stories to demonstrate the value he would bring. He had even planned where to inject humor to build rapport. […]

I wince any time I see an online career services influencer declare definitively that their way to frame an interview answer is THE way. Our clients are not homogeneous, their target industries are all different, and everyone has a unique voice and learning style. Our job is to match our clients with the right tool.  […]

“It wasn’t a good fit.” It’s one of the most common phrases in hiring, and one of the least defined. We use it to explain decisions that feel intuitive but are rarely articulated. Candidates hear it after rejection, hiring teams use it to justify a choice, and coaches are expected to prepare clients for it. […]

As interview coaches, we spend weeks arming our clients to win the room. But the moment the “Congratulations” email hits their inbox, the conversation shifts to money. And suddenly, everyone starts to shrink. That’s why I’m bringing in Keri-Lynne Shaw for our next Interview Institute Master Series this month. Keri-Lynne spent 20 years in executive HR roles. […]

It wasn’t so long ago that women were expected to list their weight on their resume and navigate intrusive interview questions like “Are you planning to get pregnant?” Not so long before that, women weren’t even allowed in the room. Today, the barriers are less visible, but they show up clearly in how women are […]

As coaches, we spend most of our days in one-on-one sessions. We hear a tip from a recruiter here. Read a valuable study there. But the work itself? It’s siloed. I’ve long craved a dedicated, trusted space to stop being an isolated practitioner and start operating as part of an elite interview intelligence collective. So tough […]

As interview coaches, we spend a lot of time telling our clients that networking is the secret weapon of the job search. It’s how they get their foot in the door, understand the shifting reality of their industry, and align themselves with what decision-makers are truly looking for.   I’m here to tell you: we […]

We toss around the word confidence a lot in interview coaching. For many clients, it becomes just another performance goal. The pressure to “perform confidence” can be a huge mental health stressor.  Clients often think confidence means feeling calm, so they may focus on “relaxing”, trying to suppress or transform the physical manifestations of anxiety.  […]

When I first earned my PARWCC interview coaching certification in 2019, it was called the Certified Employment Interview Professional.  It was a classic self-study program: a 122-page online manual and an inspiring one-hour session with Program Director Jay Block before a written exam. It was insightful, practical, and gave me tools I still use today. […]

Clients don’t pay interview coaches to help them get to the next round of interviews.  They hire us to help them WIN. That win is the real ROI of interview coaching. For clients, it’s a new job, a new paycheck, a new future. For us, it’s the glowing testimonial, the referral, the reputation boost that […]

The new PARWCC Interview Institute is launching at the perfect time. AI-enhanced résumés and AI-generated job applications are flooding hiring systems. Interviews are fast becoming the centerpiece of hiring decisions as the most trusted way for employers to validate and evaluate candidates. Now more than ever,  interviews are the high-stakes conversations that make-or-break careers. One […]

All things being equal, hiring decision-makers hire those candidates they come to know, like, and trust. This is a simple philosophical concept that is pretty much a constant throughout the hiring process. It comes down to, “Do I know you and like you well enough to trust that you can perform as expected when hired?”  […]