“I’m far too honest”, she replied.

“Honesty is not a weakness”, a different interviewer interjected.

“I wasn’t speaking to you, was I?” she replied.  (Honestly!)

In terms of old hat interview questions, “What is your biggest weakness?” can only be matched with “Sell me that pen.”

The sensible thing to do if you’re asked that question is just to get up and walk out (after stabbing the interviewer in the eye with the pen), but if you really want that job, the way to answer that question is by not answering it.

Or, to be more accurate, by answering it with a question or series of questions.

Because what an interviewer is really trying to find out, or at least should be trying to find out, is …… if you ‘do discovery’.  Do you try to find out the customer’s needs before you try to sell them something?

So, instead of fumbling with the pen and mumbling a few inanities about the pen, throw it back on the Interviewer – “OK, so what do you need the pen for?  Every day use or to create an impression at meetings?  What sort of a budget do you have to spend on a pen?” etc.

In a worst case scenario if the interviewer says “I’m not answering any questions about it” you have bought yourself a few precious seconds to think of some sales lines and you can always say “I would always try to qualify someone before selling them anything.”  You may not get a compliment for it but your approach will impress.

I did hear of one guy who when handed a Mont Blanc pen at an interview and was asked to sell it to the interviewer, broke it in half and said “You need a new Mont Blanc pen.”  I’d have believed that story more if he had stabbed the interviewer in the eye with it.

Conor Foley

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Before the article downloaded I asked myself what I thought it could be.  Cynically, it brought back memories of a joke that used to do the rounds when I was in the derivatives markets:

Q: How do you make a small fortune trading Futures?

A: You start with a large fortune.

So, assuming the answer wasn’t going to be as churlish as having a rich daddy I asked myself what answer I’d give if asked the question.  Personally, the characteristic I always observed in successful people was their ability to ‘get things done’.  That might sound pretty intuitive but when contrasted against people who always found an excuse for not doing something, usually in the form of ‘We need to do a lot more research before we do this’, I’d always pick the guy who does it over the guy who spends too much time thinking about it.  Don’t take my word for it – read the first 3 chapters of The Lean Startup.

But no, the answer was not ‘Just Do It’, although it’s not a million miles away from that either.  According to Justin Bariso, Founder, Insight, the key to becoming successful at anything is ‘creating habits’.  (Good habits, presumably!)

And the reason why habits are vital for success is because habits turn into routine.  And routine increases efficiency and makes it easier to keep up with those difficult or undesirable tasks.  Makes sense, although the article probably should have gone on to explain how someone creates habits.  It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Bariso ends with a note of caution: It takes significantly longer to break free of a habit than it does to build a new one.  I wouldn’t be so sure about that.

You can read the full Inc.com article here.

Conor Foley

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I never really paid much attention to those classical definitions of intelligence because I considered both of them flawed as ways in which to measure intelligence.  To me anyway, a person scoring highly in an IQ test is only demonstrating and ability to do an IQ test – how often do you have to count the number of triangles in a mass of lines in real life?!  Regarding the university exams, I viewed them as little more than memory tests and I don’t have a brilliant memory.

As an aside, but interestingly, I am studying for a Masters in Digital Marketing in the Smurfit Business School at the moment and because of the practical nature of the material we don’t have to sit a single exam.  My grades to date have been the highest I have ever recorded as a result.

So, what other types of intelligence could there be?  A Harvard developmental psychologist, Howard Gardner, believes intelligence comes in an incredible eight different varieties.  In addition to the two kinds of intelligence captured by IQ tests, namely language and logical, he lists another six types of intelligence that these tests fail to measure at all, as follows:

1. Musical Intelligence – People who are good with tones, rhythms and timbres have a form of intelligence that is comparable to people who are good with words.

2. Spatial Intelligence – This is a type of ‘big picture’ intelligence that airline pilots or chess masters have.

3. Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence – This type of intelligence centres around the use of the body and comes in two forms.  The first refers to the use of the whole body to solve a problem or perform well at something.  Think athletes or dancers here.  The second refers to the use of your hands or other parts of your body to solve problems or make things.  Think of a craftsperson here.

4. Interpersonal Intelligence – This refers to how you understand other people, how you motivate them, how you lead them, how you work with them, according to Gardner.

5. Intrapersonal Intelligence – This refers to a person’s self-knowledge and their ability to have a good understanding of their own goals and motivations, in both a professional and a personal context.

6. Naturalist Intelligence – This refers to “the capacity to make important, relevant discriminations in the world of nature between one plant and another, or between one animal and another.  It’s the intelligence of the naturalist, the intelligence of Charles Darwin”, according to Gardner.  He goes on to say that “everything we do in the commercial world uses our naturalist intelligence, from deciding which jacket to buy over another one, or determining the difference between a tasty small animal and a poisonous one.”

Modesty prevents me from saying how well I think I score on each of these.  Could someone pass me that guitar?

Conor Foley

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This is a Test Post.

Stay tuned for more.

Conor Foley

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