5 Questions That Will Help You Land More Offers

JOB SEARCH STRATEGY
How To Deliver Value.

During the job search process, one of the major steps I recommend is value creation.

When I landed my job as one of the earliest Uber employees and as a VP at a Y-Combinator startup the recruiters said the exact same sentence word for word.

“The team loves you, it’s clear you can do the job, it’s a no-brainer to move you onto the final round.”

You don’t hear that sentence by simply submitting a resume.

You hear it when you build relationships through networking and asking great questions in the interviews - “The team loves you.”

And by showing the team what you can do by delivering value before you’re hired for the role - “It’s clear you can do the job.”

But, whenever I talk about value creation, I get lots of questions.

• What does value creation mean?

• What questions do I ask to know what value to deliver?

• How do I use those questions to deliver value?

So today, I’ll show you five steps that can uncover hidden ways you can deliver value on your job search, and why they’re so powerful.

Master these steps, the questions, and the follow up, and you will create a massive network and land offers without submitting your resume.

Let’s go!

Value Creation
What is Value Creation?

Think of your job search as a sales process.

In the sales world, a discovery call is a common first step of the process.

A discovery call is a strategic conversation aimed at identifying and understanding the specific challenges a prospect is experiencing.

It’s a call where you uncover the challenges the prospect is facing so you can present them with the ways your product is the best solution to help.

During the call, you explore their challenges in-depth, allowing you to tailor your presentation to demonstrate how your product offers the most effective and beneficial solution to address their unique needs.

In the job search, you are both the salesperson and the product.

Think of it this way.

How often have you jumped on a sales call only for the salesperson to start pitching you on their services immediately?

Did they close you? Likely not because that almost never works.

The same is true in the job search.

I’ve seen countless people jump on networking calls or make it to the question portion of interviews only to fill the time with surface-level questions or by rattling on about themselves, having no clue what’s important to me. What a waste of a valuable opportunity!

As a job seeker, you must match your experience and skills to the specific challenges your interviewer or networking connection is facing.

When networking with people outside your target company, this approach positions you as someone worth helping and connecting to others at your target companies.

When networking with people inside your target company or interviewing for a role, this approach allows you to position yourself as the right choice to fill the seat.

And the great thing is it’s very natural and doesn’t require you to do anything weird or forced.

You’ll be showing them your abilities instead of them having to take you at your word. Seeing is believing.

This approach is called “Kyle’s Key Consulting Questions“.

Here’s how it works…

Step 1
Ask About Their Problems.

One of job seekers' least utilized practices is asking about others' problems so they can help solve them. What is a job besides a set of problems and a person who can solve them?

So your first step is to ask them a question about their problems.

After the pleasantries and introductions, you can ask simple questions, particularly in your area of expertise.

Here’s an example:

Possible Question 1: “You have been so generous with your time, and I’d love to see how I can help you in any way possible. What are the biggest challenges you’re facing right now?

Possible Question 2: “What is the most annoying thing you’re dealing with right now that you wish you could wave a magic wand and have disappear?”

Possible Question 3: “What is the thing that keeps you up at night?”

Possible Question 4: “What is the biggest opportunity you have that you’re unable to take advantage of right now?”

You took the first step, but their first answer likely won’t be helpful.

You need to dig deeper.

Step 2
Dig Below The Surface Level Pain.

Surface pain is the boilerplate answer they might give to another person in their company to make them go away. It’s vague, generic, and almost completely unhelpful.

But there’s gold underneath the surface if you keep digging.

Here’s an example:

Interviewer: “Well Kyle, our biggest challenge is trying to keep the wheels on with all this growth.”

As you can see, this means nothing. You need to do the work to uncover what they’re actually talking about. So follow up with questions like these.

Kyle: “What do you mean trying to keep the wheels on? Are the operational processes breaking down? Are you and the team unable to keep up with customer support tickets? Are you seeing customer support issues pop up that are affecting customer satisfaction scores? Is it challenging to hire enough team members and get them up to speed fast enough to be effective? Or is it something else?“

See how in my question I’m not just asking for further details, but I’m also displaying my deep subject matter expertise?

Interviewer: “Good callout. So, we have a customer support team of two people, and we’re getting thousands of orders daily and hundreds of customer support tickets. It’s impossible for them to keep up and our response time is increasing as a result.”

Look at that! Now we have some valuable information.

Step 3
Understand The History.

Now that you understand a challenge, you need to understand what they are doing now and what they have done in the past to solve the issue.

This is so you understand the whole scope of the issue, and so you don’t share a solution that they have already tried and didn’t work.

Kyle: “What have you and the team done so far, to try and fix the issue?”

Interviewer: “We looked at bringing on an off-shore team, but we can’t really afford the cost nor the time it would take to get them all up to speed. I’ve tried to provide incentives to the two customer support people we have, but they still can’t keep up.”

Kyle: “Gotchya. How long are you spending managing those two and the entire customer support process?”

Interviewer: “Oh man, it takes up the vast majority of my time. I’m constantly looking at the numbers creep up and jumping on calls with them to check in on what’s going on.”

Kyle: “And has that been working so far?”

Interviewer: “Haha, no not really. We have tried a few things but nothing has allowed us to be able to deal with the volume. It’s also taking my time away from the expansion efforts.”

Now it sounds like they have a few problems.

The customer support team is overwhelmed, customer satisfaction is likely taking a hit because of that overwhelm, they’re not dealing with the root cause issues driving the support tickets, and valuable attention is being spent on the maintenance of customer support instead of expanding the business.

Woof!

Step 4
Understand The Priority.

You’ll often have limited time in these conversations but it’s important to understand the priority of the problem they laid out and if there’s anything else going on that you might be able to help with.

Kyle: “It sounds like you guys have a lot going on, like any successful startup. Where does the customer support issue rank in terms of your overall priorities and business objectives?”

Interviewer: “It’s my top priority because until we get it solved it’ll continue to pull me away from expansion.”

Great! Now we know how helpful you will be if you can provide a solution to this problem they’re facing.

Step 5
Understand The Timing.

Your final question should relate to the immediacy of finding a solution to the problem.

If this problem is a key part of the role you’re applying for, then you likely know the answer to the timing problem, but it’s good to ask anyway.

Kyle: “In an ideal world, when would you need to get the customer support process and volume to be handled by?“

They will share one of three answers that you can use when sending your value deliverable.

• We need it fixed ASAP: “It’s really affecting everything else in the business, so the sooner we can solve it, the better.”

• We need it fixed by a specific date: “We’re planning on launching in five new markets next quarter, and without a fix, that will be a massive headache and could delay the launches.”

• No-specific time: “Whenever we’re able to get it solved. I think we’ll be able to figure it out eventually.”

Step 5
What To Do Next.

You should have detailed notes of your conversation, and with all the information you gathered, you can create a powerful value deliverable that addresses the problem at hand and shows your expertise.

In this example, it could look like:

• A case study of when you saw a similar issue at a prior company when they didn’t handle the customer support issue and all the downstream issues it caused.

• A step-by-step playbook to address the issue backed up by a case study of where it worked in the past and the impact it made.

• A link to Zendesk and a recommendation of the plan they could pay for that would be good for their volume and number of agents.

• A list of common customer support snippets you used at a previous company.

• A link to a text expander app like aText or TextExpander they could use to improve the efficiency of the customer support team.

• A sample dashboard showing common metrics they should be measuring and expectations for where those metrics should be given the solution you provided.

• If you weren’t the one who solved it directly, a connection to a person you know who is an expert in customer support and can provide additional advice.

Package all of that up into a slide deck and send it in a response to the person via email.

It doesn’t need to be a comprehensive solution, but it should clearly demonstrate your abilities, expertise, and be helpful to them even if they don’t hire you.

Make sure to reference all of the additional problems that the core problem is causing and how much opportunity it will unlock for the company if it is solved.

Also, offer to set up additional time to walk through the documents and solutions you provided if that would be helpful.

Using this method, you show them how much value you bring because you’re giving away your best stuff.

Remember: People don’t pay for information. They pay for implementation.

So don’t worry that they will “steal your ideas.”

This is how the elite job hunters land dream jobs at winning companies.

They don’t just tell people about their experience.

They create immediate value through intelligent discovery.

OPEN ROLES
Who’s Hiring?

Zuper

• What They Do: Zuper is a company that provides a platform to help businesses manage their field and remote workers more efficiently, improving customer service and workforce operations.

• Company Headquarters: Sammamish, WA

• Number of Employees: 175

• Total Raised To Date: $46.10M

• Last Known Valuation: $152.00M

• Last Raise Date: December 13, 2023

• Recent Raise: $32.00M

• Series: B

• Pitchbook Success Probability: 86% Success

• Open Roles: Careers Page

• Departments Hiring Right Now:

  • Engineering

  • Marketing

  • Onboarding & Implementation

  • Product Management

  • Sales

Lassen Peak

• What They Do: Lassen Peak develops security technology to safely and effectively detect weapons from a distance, improving safety while respecting people's dignity.

• Headquarters Location: Bellevue, WA

• Number of Employees: 20

• Total Raised To Date: $35.74M

• Last Known Valuation: $132.00M

• Last Raise Date: December 14, 2023

• Recent Raise: $22.00M

• Series: A

• Pitchbook Success Probability: 92% Success

• Open Roles: Careers Page

• Departments Hiring Right Now:

  • Software Engineering

  • Hardware Engineering

CurbWaste

• What They Do: CurbWaste offers a platform that helps companies manage and improve their recycling and waste operations using data and real-time information.

• Headquarters Location: New York, NY

• Number of Employees: 34

• Total Raised To Date: $21.20M

• Last Known Valuation: N/A

• Last Raise Date: December 14, 2023

• Recent Raise: $10.00M

• Series: A

• Pitchbook Success Probability: 91% Success

• Open Roles: Careers Page

• Departments Hiring Right Now:

  • Account Executive

  • Customer Support

  • Product Management

  • Software Engineering

  • Special Projects

  • Data Engineering

So there you have it, how I uncover the problems of anyone I speak with.

I try and do this in any conversation I have.

It creates a reason to follow up and shows the person on the other side that you’re a giver.

People help givers find great roles.

People connect givers to awesome people in their network.

People hire givers.

Landing a job is all about building relationships and delivering value.

This is your secret weapon in value creation

Let’s go get you that job 🏆

Kyle