Unlock the secrets to making a lasting impression in your next job interview with the wisdom of Gail Johnson, a branding virtuoso and lecturer with a knack for empowering job seekers. Johnson explains the START method to help you craft a compelling narrative of your professional path. By zeroing in on your unique value and learning how to effectively communicate it, you’ll be equipped to make authentic connections that resonate in any networking scenario, particularly on platforms like LinkedIn where first impressions are key.
Transcript
LANDESS:
Until they’ve been through one, a job interview can feel like juggling flaming chainsaws for a college graduate in any field. Arguably, after they’ve been through one, it can feel that way again. That’s why UT Tyler began offering a mock interviews event to undergraduates a couple of years ago, and now it’s available to area high school students as well. I’m Mike Landess. UT Tyler Radio Connects with professional branding coach and adjunct lecturer Gail Johnson to find out how it all works. How does it all work?
JOHNSON:
It all works very easily with one simple concept, Mike, and that’s you have to understand your value, you have to uncover your value. If you don’t know what your value is that makes up your professional brand, then when they start asking you those questions, you’re going to be stumbling. You’re going to be mumbling, and you’re going to start with “Well…”
LANDESS:
That’s right. Well, the famous, well. Tell us about the genesis of the mock interview events at UT Tyler.
JOHNSON:
The genesis started back in 2009, when I was asked by the dean to teach a career course: “How do you get from the college to the office.”
JOHNSON:
The job market. And I walked into class that day, and I’ll never forget it. I looked at the students. I said, “OK, we’re going to start. Let’s go around the room, tell me about yourself.” And there was total silence. They were panic-stricken, and I went OK, these are business students, and I’m a businesswoman, right? And I went we’ve got to fix this yesterday, and I changed the scope, actually, of the class, reorganized it.
JOHNSON:
So we started with having students uncover their values and then come up with a story to prove that they own that value. Because think about it in your resume, Mike, every bullet point on that resume which, oh, by the way, recruiters look at that for 5 to 7 seconds. So you better have that concise and bullet form, so that they can glance through it and get interested in you. Every one of those are value statements. And you have to understand I’m telling that person across the table from me that that’s what I’m going to bring that organization. I have leadership skills; I’m a demonstrated leader.
JOHNSON:
“Oh yeah.” So what’s the recruiter thinking? “Prove it, Gail. Prove it.” And that’s where you’re ready, because you know you own the value, because we’ve gone through that, we’ve uncovered it, and now, when you’re asked to prove it, you’ve come up with a story. Maybe you were first chair trumpet in the band. Maybe you were captain of the basketball team. Where do you have leadership that you can demonstrate? Tell a story of how you use that leadership. And we do that. We tell that story using — you’ve heard of the STAR method. That’s been around forever: Situation, Task, Action, Result. My co-author and I, because we have authored the book, “Your Standout Brand Workbook” — notice, I said “workbook,” not “textbook.” And in that we added the “T – Takeaway.” What did you take away from that experience? So now the “star” is “start,” and if you can walk through that methodically and interestingly, OK, because you’re trying to engage your listener, not put them to sleep, and demonstrate that I have this value that you just asked me about, and here is my story to prove I own it.
LANDESS:
So you’re not asking these young people to reinvent themselves, you’re asking them to investigate themselves.
JOHNSON:
Yes, and be authentic. That’s the fun part of it, OK? We start first of all. We’ll back up a little bit. The first thing they’re going to do in the mock team interview certainly, our students get headshots. We start off with getting a professional headshot. Why? Because they’re dressed professionally; they’re in business suits, or you know professional business attire, when you go into an interview. So the very first thing after you do that, you go back to the Soules College and before the, as the business folks arrive, you’re introducing yourself. And you notice, I didn’t say “elevator speech” or “elevator pitch,” because that’s now conceived or people interpret that as a “sales pitch.”
JOHNSON:
So call it what it is: it’s an introduction. So you walk up, stick your hand out, shake hands, eye contact, smile and say, “Hi, I’m Gail Johnson, I’m a nationally known, nationally respected…” and you go on and on and on, and you tell a little bit about yourself. Everybody knows what they do, right? I’m a senior management major at The University of Texas (at Tyler) Soules College of Business. In addition, I’m a Patriot athlete, whatever it happens to be. And then you slide ever so carefully, one of your values that you want to showcase, and you sneak it in there, maybe during the what-you-do portion. So we teach them who you are: your first name, last name, what you do. OK, for maybe three or four sentences, because the purpose of the introduction is to engage them in conversation. It’s not to just blah, blah, blah all kinds of information. You want to say, “Hi, I’m Gail Johnson. I’m a nationally respected professional branding author, lecturer and keynote speaker.” Pause, see if there’s a connection there. “In addition, I teach how to develop and manage a successful career at The University of Texas (at Tyler) Soules College of Business.” And you hear the listeners say, “Oh, I went to UT Tyler.” Bingo –Touch point.
JOHNSON:
So now you have a touch point. You’re starting the conversation, and if you never finish your introduction, that’s great, because the purpose is to get to know each other and start building a relationship. And if you’re smart, you follow up, and one of the ways you can follow up is connect with them on LinkedIn. That’s how you build your brand, that’s how you communicate your brand. Then, once you’re through with the introduction, and we do that for about 30 minutes — we have breakout sessions. And Mike, think about it. This is a conference. You’ve been to conferences. First day. What do you do? You all meet, you have an introduction, you network. The next day you decide what breakout section sessions you’re going to attend. So it’s set up also to give them that training. So they, the students, decide who they want to sit with. We have wonderful businesses that have been supporting this.
LANDESS: You have businesses that are doing the interviews?
JOHNSON:
Yes, absolutely.
LANDESS:
So these are real-world people?
JOHNSON:
Absolutely. They come in, they love it. They’re awesome people like Heartland Securities and Sherwin-Williams and Cavenders. We get Amazon coming in from Dallas. I mean these are and they’re just wonderful folks. And guess what, Mike? A lot of them are UT alum.
LANDESS: That’s nice.
JOHNSON: OK, I put a whole other spin on recycle.
LANDESS:
Wait — That’s a touch point.
JOHNSON:
Yes, that’s a touch point. Absolutely, yes.
JOHNSON:
So the students decide who they want to sit at at the breakout session. So you have a couple of business professionals. We also have, like CTCU and Altra and Southside and you name it, they’re there, OK? Survey and mapping, so it runs the gamut. So, the students pick who they want to sit with. They’re usually five or six of their classmates, so it’s a team, group interview, and they spend the next 45 minutes practicing what businesses use, which is open-ended, behavioral-based questions.
LANDESS:
Interesting.
JOHNSON: All right?
LANDESS: All of it’s fascinating.
JOHNSON:
So tell me a time when you — oh, I have a great example and let me share it with you.
LANDESS: The ellipse at the end of it:Tell me a time when you …
JOHNSON:
Yes. OK. So, what are they asking? They want you to prove that you can do what they’ve just asked. Maybe it’s organization skills. Maybe it’s team skills, whatever it is. And you’re ready for that answer because you’ve practiced it, you’ve uncovered it, and it’s authentic. And guess what? It’s your story, and no one can stump you on your life. You’re not memorizing anything.
LANDESS:
You know these students will come from a variety of disciplines offered at UT Tyler and elsewhere, but it sounds like this is a lesson in marketing. I mean particularly branding themselves.
JOHNSON:
Absolutely, what do you think a resume is? You’re marketing and branding who, the person whose name is on that resume, OK? When you walk in and you’re dressed, you look sharp, you’re ready to go, you’re organized, you’re 15 to 20 minutes early. What are you non-verbally marketing? Your brand. You stick your hand out, web-to-web, firm handshake, eye contact, smile. That’s all a part of your brand. Everything is your brand, so you always need to be on and be careful and be conscious of that.
LANDESS:
And authentic.
JOHNSON:
Authentic.
LANDESS:
Authentic.
JOHNSON:
Yes, and I’m passionate, so passionate about this that I realized in 2017, we need to start earlier. I am a huge fan of Career and Technology, CTE. I actually, before they broke ground, I was working with Tyler ISD on their CTE project. In my opinion, it should be the benchmark for the entire United States — what we’re doing in the state of Texas. It’s phenomenal. So I call, I reached out to Tyler ISD, Jessica Brown and Leah Stanley at Whitehouse, and said, “You know, I’d really like to bring what I teach my college students into the high schools.” And they said, “Great, when can you come?”
JOHNSON:
And we are now reaching students throughout East Texas, all the way to Rusk and Henderson, and soon to be Tatum to Brownsboro, to Crandall High School on the other side of Buc-ees, right? And teaching these students the same thing I’m teaching the students in the colleges and guess what? In order for them to finish the course and get their certificate, they have to come to the mock-team interviews. So now we have the college students with their teams, and now we have the high schoolers and they go through the same thing they learn to network, they get dressed up ready for an interview. They’ve got their resumes. They’ve practiced communicating their brand. We’ve worked with them, and they love it. I get students who started in their freshman year and they come back every semester because they’re learning and growing. It’s just phenomenal, and it’s making all the difference in the world.
LANDESS:
Takes me to my next question, and that is that there’s any kind of metric that indicates how successful the program is and its stated purpose? A note or an email is nice, and having them come back.
JOHNSON:
Funny you should mention that because we’ve actually, I’ve been working for the past few years with Dr. Rochelle McWhorter, Dr. Marilyn Young, Dr. Julie DiLello on research we’ve been doing on the mock-team interviews, and it’s entitled, “We’ve Got Talent.” And we’ve submitted that to one of the major journals, and I’m hoping to get that published here very shortly. That has what you’re talking about, the details of what we’re doing, because I would love to see this expanded, because it works. And one of the ways I know it works is this year when we sent out the invitations for the mock-team interviews, we had the business folks — 95% of them responded positively and said they were going to be there the first week.
LANDESS:
Wow, how many people does this serve when you put one of these on?
JOHNSON:
Right now, we have 100 undergrads in Management, Marketing and Finance, and I had to call a couple of high schools and say, “I need you to back off because, we don’t have the space.”
LANDESS:
Oh goodness.
JOHNSON:
Fire marshals would get real upset with us. So instead of 33, you can only bring 25. So last, between ’22 and ’23, the participation increased 88%. Absolutely phenomenal. Can I talk about one more thing?
LANDESS: Sure, please.
JOHNSON:
OK, there was an article in the Tyler paper last, I believe it was November, and there was a company that was going out of business, and they were saying oh, we just can’t find anybody, yada, yada, yada. And I went OK, I’m done, I’m done with this. And I called my friends at the Tyler and Longview Economic Development Council, Texas Workforce Commission. I called three of my business professionals who have been with the mock-team interviews forever: Heartland Securities, Southside Bank, and one that’s very actively engaged in the high schools through TISD, which is Hood Packaging, and then, of course, I can represent The University of Texas (at Tyler). And then I reached out to Tyler ISD and Christy Murray’s going to be there from Tyler ISD and Leah Stanley will be there from Whitehouse, and said we are going to put a panel together. And I got it all together and all outlined to say, “You cannot sit in your office, in your HR chair or your management chair, and expect them to come to you. You’ve got to engage on campus.” On May 1, we’re going to have a panel — it’s a free seminar titling “Providing Success-Ready Gen Z Candidates for East Texas Businesses.”
JOHNSON:
Because my undergrads and the high schoolers, they’re Gen Z. And they’re the fastest growing population that’s moving into the workforce. They’re going to replace you and I, the boomers, OK and some of the millennials. So we have got to work with them, figure out the best way to work with them, because the exciting thing about Gen Z is they’re bringing technology into the workplace. They’re going to make it faster, quicker, make sense.This has exploded from mock-team interviews to now let’s go into the high schools. And now let’s get the community involved, so we have this working seamlessly. So, instead of doing a post on one of the job sites and do a, you know, hit the send button and hope for the best. You actually are cultivating young people, identify them from a younger age, growing them, bringing them in for internships, part-time, full-time jobs and then saying, “You know what? We want to keep this young person, and we’re going to offer them a full-time job.” It’s not rocket science, is it? It’s common sense.
LANDESS:
Thanks for listening as UT Tyler Radio Connects with professional branding coach and adjunct lecturer Gail Johnson. For UT Tyler Radio News, I’m Mike Landess.
(Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain phonetic spellings and other spelling and punctuation errors. Grammar errors contained in the original recording are not typically corrected.)
