Interview With Enthusiasm and Passion

I’m always looking for life and career success advice to pass on to my career mentoring clients.  I found some great advice in an interview with Laura Sen, CEO of BJ’s Wholesale Club.

Here are Laura’s three best bits of life and career success advice.

  • If you give your thoughtfulness, respect and high performance, you get that back.
  • Tell people what you want.  Go ask for it.
  • If you’re curious, enthusiastic and passionate you’re going to get the job.

Three great pieces of advice, but I’d like to focus on Laura’s third point about curiosity, enthusiasm and passion when job hunting.

Let’s start with enthusiasm and passion.  I once lost a job in which I was very interested because in the interview I came across as too casual and not passionate enough.  I really wanted the job, but I mad a conscious decision to play it cool in the interview.  I wanted to come off as relaxed and confident.  Instead, I cam off as not very interested in the job or company.  I learned a lesson that day.  It’s always best to come off as enthusiastic and passionate than to run the risk of coming across as uninterested.

Curiosity is really important.  Prepare for an interview by learning all you can about the company and the job.  I heard a story the other day about a very qualified candidate who showed up for an interview with Frito-Lay with a bottle of Dasani water.  This guy didn’t know — and didn’t bother to check — that Frito-Lay is a division of PepsiCo.  Dasani is a Coke product.  Aquafina is the Pepsi competitor.  He was the leading candidate going into the interviews.  He didn’t get the job because of that bottle of Dasani water.  He could have avoided this problem by doing a better job researching the company before he arrived at the interview

The common sense point here is simple.  When you land an interview don’t blow it.  Research the company thoroughly and show up for the interview full of enthusiasm and passion — for the company and the job.

Your career mentor,

Bud

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