How to Nail Your Next Interview

Interviewing isn’t a personality test. It’s a skill, and it’s one you can learn. In this Career Girl’s Guide episode, Emma breaks down what actually makes someone stand out in the room. Drawing from years of interviewing — on both sides of the table — she shares the mindset shifts and practical tools that separate average candidates from unforgettable ones. In this episode, you’ll learn: How to research like a strategist How to uncover a role’s hidden pain The three-part storytelling formula that works • How to speak about failure with authority • Salary rules that change your earning trajectory • The questions that signal leadership This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being understood — and positioned. Career girlies don’t audition. We position.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Emma Grede?

  Welcome back to Aspire. Today, we're kicking off with a special series that I've wanted to make for the longest time, the Career Girl's Guide. Now, this series is about giving you practical tools to navigate every stage of your career, whether you're just starting out or preparing to enter the C-suite one day. Now, I wanted to bring you this series because so many of us spend precious time looking for mentors and professional advice, the kind of thing that you just can't chat GPT your way through. So, I've spent time with my team breaking down the areas where so many of us are doing the work but aren't always taught how to navigate the moments that actually shape our opportunities, our confidence, our real growth and our earning potential.

• 0:53Emma Grede?

  Now, over the next few weeks, we're going to cover the topics that most impact our professional lives, from negotiation to leadership to career pivots and wealth building. But today, or today ladies, we are starting with interviewing. So, why interviewing? Because it's the entry point. It is the first positioning moment. It's where your clarity, confidence and judgment are all tested. And if you can't get your foot in the door, then what are we even talking about here? Now, it is crazy to me that no one gets taught how to interview. And if you're really good at interviewing, you actually don't do that many of them. So, while none of us are formally taught, there's actually a lot of moments in our

• 1:37Emma Grede?

  lives when we need to interview, for a new job, for entry into school, for board positions or even leadership opportunities. Now, I've been on both sides of the table. I have interviewed for roles and I have conducted hundreds and hundreds of interviews. So, I know a good one. And I've spent a lot of time breaking down the anatomy of a great interview. What I want you to know out of the gate is that interviewing is a learnable business skill. Most people treat interviews like some mystical personality test. You either have it or you don't. You're either good at interviews or you're not.

• 2:19Emma Grede?

  The job is either for you or it's not for you. And that, my loves, that's bullshit. Great interviewing is a system and the problem is nobody teaches the system. So today, based on all of my interviewing experience, I'm going to walk you through exactly how top candidates think, how they prepare, how they speak and how they actually position themselves. So that you are not begging for opportunities, but so you can evaluate companies while they are evaluating you. Because let me tell you, we career girlies, we don't audition, we choose.

• 3:03Emma Grede?

  The Start With Yourself tour kicks off on April 15th in New York City. Tickets are on sale now at emagree.com. Now, before we start, let me offer you a quick reframing. Interviews are decision-making moments, not just conversations or Q and A sessions. The goal is not to be perfect. The goal is to be understood and to demonstrate your suitability for that role. Let me start with something I need every person listening to hear. Interviewing is actually not about being likeable. It's not about being charming. It's not about being perfect. So you have to start here. Start with yourself and take some time to really get clear

• 3:46Emma Grede?

  about why you're interviewing for the role in question in the first place. This is actually going to shape everything else you do. So first, let me tell you the biggest interview lie. You think if I just show them that I am passionate and hardworking, then they'll see my potential. No, absolutely not. Hiring managers are not hiring potential, they're actually hiring solutions. Most open roles exist because something's broken, something is slow, something is leaking money, something isn't scaling, like something in that organisation is just chaotic. Even if

• 4:27Emma Grede?

  the role in question might be a straight replacement for someone who's moved on, any good company will actually be trying to hire for that former person's weaknesses and actually to increase the productivity or solve a problem. Because like it or not, whenever somebody leaves a company, management will always see it as an opportunity to optimise. Are you the optimisation that they seek? Now, that's the question. Therefore, in that situation, your only job in the interview is to help decision makers place you. An interview is not about you recounting your resume. And let me tell you, I cannot wait to get out of an interview when someone wants

• 5:09Emma Grede?

  to read me their resume word for word. That is a snooze fest. But here's what you should do instead. You have to prove that you understand the problem, and then you've got to prove that you can solve the problem. That's it. Pure and simple. It's not your life story, not your trauma, not your childhood dream, unless it's like really, really super relevant. Solutions only, please. And I promise you that that mindset shift alone will actually put you in the top 10% of candidates. So let's get started on the actual tangible steps. Step one, I want you to research like a strategist, not a student. Most people's idea of research is not that. They

• 5:54Emma Grede?

  skim the website, they read the about page, they kind of scroll on LinkedIn for a hot minute, but that's amateur hour, and it isn't sufficient for high performers. High performers actually research in layers, and there are four layers. The first one is about the business model. Now, a high performer will look at the business model in depth. They'll figure it out. They'll say, how does this company actually make money? Is it a subscription? Are they direct to consumer? Do they run ads? What's the service offering? And how do they charge for it? Where is the majority of the revenue coming from? Now, if you don't know how a company makes money, you simply cannot be valuable to them. So you have to learn that piece.

• 6:37Emma Grede?

  The second thing, you need to understand the stage that the company is at, because each stage values very, very different skills. And during an interview, you are in the business of maximum understanding and demonstrating your suitability. So this is one place where you get to do that. You have to ask yourself before you go in, are they an early startup? Are they scaling after a period of growth? Or is this a mature business? Or a declining one? If a business is an early-stage startup, they're going to value scrappiness. Someone who is willing to wear multiple hats and have a do-whatever-it-takes mentality. I am telling you, every business that I have ever started, the type of people that you're looking for in the beginning

• 7:21Emma Grede?

  are just those who are oozing the idea that they want to come in and help and they'll do anything to make this company a success. That's what you want. But it's very different if a business is scaling. Then they're going to value someone who understands growth, understands integrating new systems. And for a mature business, it's all about optimization, and so on, and so on. So know what type of business you're walking into. Then you have to articulate your understanding of the business and position your skills for the stage of the company. That's going to be a huge win, because it demonstrates a broad understanding of the business needs outside of just the role that you are interviewing for. And what you really need to know is that the way managers look at things, this idea of T-shaped leaders,

• 8:06Emma Grede?

  those that can see the bigger picture and demonstrate an understanding of the needs of the company outside of their core competency or their division. Those people are always going to be the most highly valued. Put simply, all that means is, if you know what you do and you understand what that person over there does, And a little bit what that person over there does and a little bit about what the company is trying to do. You will ultimately be always more valuable to the company. Now, the third thing you can do is ensure that you understand the competitive landscape. Familiarizing yourself with the business's competitors and understanding exactly what makes this company different is super important.

• 8:48Emma Grede?

  You don't need industry expertise, but you do need to show an interest in their business or the space or the category. Now, remember what I said about not reciting your resume word for word. This is where you can create conversation mid-interview and actually show up as who you are, your personality and all the things. But with relevancy to the hiring process. By you saying a little off-the-cuff remark about one of the competition, offering your thoughts on that. You actually position yourself as somebody who really understands what they're walking into. Now, I had a candidate very recently, an interview with a candidate for a senior design role. And he was a very, very skilled designer with an incredible resume.

• 9:30Emma Grede?

  But it actually seemed to me like he was living in a total vacuum. When I said that his designs reminded me of X, he said he hadn't heard of them. I was like, fair enough, maybe my reference is off. When I asked him who in our category he admired, he cited our company and the company that he was currently at, his current employer. Okay, I thought. Finally, I asked him what launch had impressed him in the last few years and he couldn't name one. Now, this was either one of two things, arrogance or just a complete lack of knowledge. And frankly, I don't want either on my team. Now, I'm not saying that you need to do like a deep and meaningful data mining exercise. But you owe it to yourself to show up having an opinion and a point of view on the business.

• 10:14Emma Grede?

  So that you're in a situation, it's not like a nice to have, this is just a must have.

• 10:25Speaker 01

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• 11:00Emma Grede?

  The next thing that I'm going to suggest is that you try your very best to learn exactly what they're hiring for within the interview. And this is what I like to think of as the idea of the role's hidden pain. Job descriptions are really sanitized, but behind every bullet point is something that the organization is actually trying to solve for. If the job description says they're looking for strong communication skills, it's likely because people keep misunderstanding things. If they ask for the ability to work cross-functionally, that equals the teams don't talk to each other. Your job is to decode this by asking really thoughtful questions.

• 11:44Emma Grede?

  What problem made you open this role? Where do people usually struggle? These are good examples of great questions. Now, I want you to turn all of the research into interview ammunition, because this is where most people stop. And top candidates, well, they go one step further. Top candidates turn the research into points of view and conversational topics during the interview process. Let me give you a little example. You could offer something like this. I noticed you're expanding into new categories. Usually that creates operational challenges around the calendar and around the approval process. And I've dealt with that. And then you're going to give an example. You say, I've dealt with that.

• 12:27Emma Grede?

  And by working closely with X, Y and Z, I saw da, da, da, da, da. That's the way you do it. Or you say something like this. I saw you recently launched a solution for whatever it might be. At my last company, that stage was where retention becomes really fragile. So I'd be curious how you're thinking about that. Notice what you're doing here. You're already operating inside the business. In your interview, this completely positions you differently. It positions you as a peer and not a hopeful applicant. And there is strong research that shows that interviewers rate candidates as more competent when they demonstrate a contextual understanding of the company's specific challenges. So try it. Do a little Emma, practise in the mirror.

• 13:11Emma Grede?

  You know how much I love to do that. It's not silly and it's definitely not overkill. It's actually trying and everyone loves a tryer. Now, this type of behaviour is going to demonstrate a lot of understanding, not over enthusiasm. Next thing is that I want to talk about you, your story and how to convey it in three parts. Now, so many people, may have happened to me once or twice, they come in and they like trauma dump their resume. And career girlies do not do that. Career girlies tell strategic stories. All your answers should kind of follow this flow. You give context, you show an action and then a result. That's simple. Context, action, result.

• 13:53Emma Grede?

  You give context, offer what you did and share the result. Don't say things like, I was responsible for, because it just registers weak. But rather, we had X problem, I did Y and here's what changed. You got it? And you should really quantify when possible. Our revenue grew, cost dropped, time was saved, errors were reduced, engagement increased. And if you don't know the exact numbers, you can just estimate, because I'm telling you, a ballpark number is better than nothing. Saying improved significantly really means nothing. But if you say, reduce turnaround time by 30%, then that really, really means something to people. Now, my darlings, the most powerful interview question.

• 14:37Emma Grede?

  Almost every interview includes, tell me about a time that you failed.

• 14:43Emma Grede?

  I'm guilty for that over here, but I love this question because it really sorts people into two distinct piles. Those that have a deep perspective on themselves and they care about progress and those that are really dialing it in. Now, most people answer with weakness. They say, you know, I care too much or I'm a perfectionist. You stop, just stop, stop, stop. Don't give those answers. Here is a real answer framework. This is time to grab your pens. One, you speak to a real mistake. Two, you offer what you learned and then you say how you changed your behaviour. So let me give you another example. So you say something like this.

• 15:25Emma Grede?

  Earlier in my career, I underestimated how much stakeholder alignment matters. I shipped something technically strong that no one adopted. Now I never move forward without pressure testing with the people who will actually use it and use the work. My days, it's like this shows self-awareness, accountability and growth. Those are like hiring gold standards. I'm falling in love with the person that tells me that. So think about a time when failure actually really happened for you. We all have those moments because hiring managers smell the truth. They seek out authenticity and this framework offers all of that.

• 16:08Emma Grede?

  So many of us struggle when it comes to talking about our weaknesses and rightly so. It's hard and it takes a lot of guts, but the fact is we all have them and it's way better to walk into an interview with an awareness of your weaknesses than trying to prove that you don't have any because it just isn't realistic. And as we've said already, people love honesty. It's one of the single most important qualities for anyone that I hire. Let me help you with how you can talk about weaknesses without shrinking. Never ever say I'm bad at. Say I'm actively improving. Never say I don't have experience in. Say I haven't done whatever directly yet, but I've done A and B, which all use the

• 16:52Emma Grede?

  same underlying skill. You're mapping transferable skills. That's your job here and that is executive level thinking. Now on to the good stuff and my favourite subject of all, you know this, money. Now, right in your notes, all in caps, ladies, because salary confidence is a career multiplier. And we all have been in jobs and situations where we've been undervalued. And that has to stop right here. Women consistently undervalue themselves in compensation discussions. This is not an opinion, not an opinion of mine. Multiple labour economics studies shows that women are much less likely to negotiate and more likely to anchor low.

• 17:34Emma Grede?

  There are many, many reasons for this, and we'll go into them when we cover negotiating later in this series. But there are a few basic rules that I want you to know right now that are super easy to adopt. Rule one, never ever give a single number. Always give a range and always tie it to market and value. So for example, when you're asked your salary expectations, here's what you say. Based on market data and the scope of this role, I'm targeting between a hundred and seventy and a hundred and eighty five thousand dollars. Depending on total compensation and the growth path. You see what we did there? Calm, neutral, no apology. You're not asking, you're stating, and then you go silent, completely silent.

• 18:18Emma Grede?

  Don't fill the space, don't backtrack, don't do nothing, just leave some space and smile with your eyes, not your teeth. Usually, at the end of an interview, you're asked if you've got any questions and you always, always, always need questions. If somebody answers, no, I think you've covered it all during the interview. I'm like, you are lazy. And even if you don't have a question, ask a question. You have to signal interest and curiosity and intelligence, so just ask a question. Your questions really should signal power. Don't ask, what's the culture like? Is this a fast-paced environment? No, please don't do that, that feels lazy. Don't ask anything that sounds like you're optimising for comfort over impact.

• 19:00Emma Grede?

  Nothing about PTO, nothing about holiday entitlement, you haven't even got the job yet and you're thinking about a holiday. Please don't do that. Those are meaningless, both to you and to the interviewer. Just don't do it. Power questions stand like this, they go like this. What does success look like in the first six months of my employment? What are the biggest problems you need this role to solve right now? How are performance and promotional decisions made in this organisation? What differentiates top performers from average performers here? How do you support growth for someone who's consistently performing at a high level? By the way, you're like, that's me. What tends to cause people to struggle or failing this role? Is there anything else I can help clarify that would help you with your decision?

• 19:44Emma Grede?

  I mean, these are the golden questions. Somebody asked me something like this, I'm already dying for them. I think you ask two to four questions max with your eyes on the time that's allotted for your interview. Don't be a time waster. But these questions do a couple of things. They make you look senior, they make you demonstrate strategic curiosity and they protect you from bad situations. Career girls, we optimise forward, not backwards. Right? You're going into the future, moving into your future, quite literally. So, a couple of final things I want you to know. Your body language and your voice can signal authority. Research on communication shows that perceived confidence is driven heavily by slower speech,

• 20:27Emma Grede?

  fewer filler words, upright posture and pauses, not volume and dominance. You should practise speaking slightly slower than feels natural. And silence after a question is okay. In fact, it's more than okay, it's optimal. Thinking is not a weakness, it makes you appear considered. And rushing gives all the wrong signs, so just don't do it. Now, this last part, the post-interview strategy. Always, always, always send a follow-up, but not like, thank you for your time. No, instead, reference a business topic that you actually discussed. You could say, I've been thinking about our conversation around onboarding friction and I'm excited by the opportunity to help streamline that process.

• 21:10Emma Grede?

  You're reinforcing your value, not just follow-up politeness, but like real understanding. And let me leave you with this. You are not lucky to be in the room. You earned your way into that room. And interviewing is not about convincing someone you deserve a chance, it's about I solve a problem, I create value and I move things forward. That energy is magnetic. That energy gets offers. And honestly, that energy builds careers. And career girlies, they don't wait to be chosen. We choose ourselves. Stay tuned for next week where we'll be talking all things negotiation.

• 21:51Emma Grede?

  If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favourite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Grede is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Grede. Executive producer, Ashley McShan. Derek Brown. And me. Our executive producers from Odyssey, Leah Reese Dennis, Asha Saluja, Lauren Legrosso. Producer KK Sublime. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Evan Cox. Kurt Courtney. Andrew Steele. And Carlos Delgado. Social media by Olivia Holman, Catherine Bale.

• 22:35Emma Grede?

  Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sidney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company and WME. Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Hillary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson Rose, Tim Meeke, Sean Cherry and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at aspirewithemmagreed. Grede is spelt G R E D E. That's aspire, A S P I R E with Emma Grede. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me.