ONE OF THE two bad seats at a job interview is sitting in front of the interviewer wondering what she is going to ask next; the other is sitting across from a candidate wondering what kind of phony, canned platitudes you are going to be fed in response to a serious question.
All any interviewer really wants is to find someone who can do the job, wants to do the job, and can get along with others. All you need to do to win the job offer is show the interviewer you are this person.
Fortunately you have already done the lion’s share of the work. You know exactly who gets hired for this job and why. Your TJD revealed how employers prioritize their requirements and how they express them. You determined the experience and skills you possess in each of the deliverable areas of the job, you developed examples of assignments that show you tackling that area’s typical problems successfully, and you created a behavioral profile of the person everyone wants to work with and the person nobody wants as an employee. All this is supported by a clear understanding of how your transferable skills and professional values impact every aspect of your daily professional life. Showing these universally admired skills and values in action as you make passing reference to them in your answers gives those answers substance and a ring of truth.
Armed with this knowledge, you are already better prepared than the vast majority of other candidates. Apart from a healthy and perfectly natural case of pre-performance nerves, the only rational worry you have left is fear of the unknown: not knowing what questions you might be asked, what is behind them, and how to answer them. That will be our focus for the next few chapters.
I will help you understand what is behind each question—the kind of information an employer is likely to be seeking—and I’ll give an example of the kind of points you might want to make in your answers. The idea is not to memorize my sample answers; they are meant to reveal the logic of the questions and to point the way toward answers that work for you.
Tell me a little about yourself.
This is often one of the first questions you will answer. There’s logic behind the question: The interviewer knows you are nervous and that talking will help you relax; it is not an invitation to ramble. Simultaneously, she wants to know about your experience and qualifications for this job and if they warrant your being there. Answer the question well and you create a good first impression and set the tone for your candidacy; you also immediately feel more confident.
You already have the answer to this question prepared:
Your answer to this question takes the essence of your Performance Profile and turns it back into full sentences, giving you a condensed professional work history that focuses on the most important experience. Add chronology—“I spent _______________ years at _______________, and this is where I learned …”—and you’ll show the professional development that brought you to the point you are at today. This isn’t a question that you can answer effectively without thought and preparation. Because this is such a common question, take some time in advance to think about your career to date and how it has prepared you for the position at hand. For example:
“I—m the area director of marketing for the _______________ metropolitan area. I oversee all aspects of marketing to acquire and retain basic, digital, and online customers through tactics such as mass media and direct mail. In addition, I launch new products/services like VOD. I have a team of forty-six employees, which also includes twenty-six door-to-door sales reps.
“I rose to this position year by year, climbing through the ranks based on my performance, achievement, and an ever-growing frame of reference for my profession and our business. As we get into the nuts-and-bolts discussion of the job I hope to show you that I have a real understanding of the challenges faced by my direct reports, a steady hand, and the managerial skills required for a motivated and productive department.”
What do you know about the company?
The interviewer spends the majority of his waking hours in the environment that the winning candidate will join. Your knowledge of the job and the company is a piece of the jigsaw puzzle that helps him evaluate your enthusiasm and motivation for your work. If you don’t understand what the company does and is known for, you will lose out to candidates who do.
Use the Internet, company website, and networking contacts to gain insight into the company, its products, and why it is a good place to work. You need to visit the company website and read media coverage on the company and its key executives (Google News), as well as general news about the issues affecting your profession. Your research will raise as many questions as it answers, and you can use this in your answer: “I read that _______________, and wonder how this is affecting you …?” Such questions demonstrate engagement with your profession and get the interviewer talking, perhaps giving you useful information. It’s okay to throw in some personal details as well, such as the fact that working for the company will bring you closer to family.
Walk me through your job changes.
This question comes early in an interview and helps the interviewer understand the chronology and reasoning behind your career moves and gaps in employment. Don’t worry about gaps; everyone has to deal with them. You must be ready to walk through your resume without hesitation, making two statements about each employer:
For example: “My last company was a family-owned affair. I had gone as far as I was able to go. It just seemed time for me to join a more prestigious company and accept greater challenges.”
Under no circumstances should you badmouth a manager—even if she was a direct descendant of Attila the Hun. Doing so will only raise a red flag in the interviewer’s mind: “Will he be complaining about me like this in a few months?”
Why did you leave _______________ company?
This is a checkbox question—the interviewer wants to ask the question, check the box, and move on. You get into trouble with too much information. Any answer longer than fifteen words is too long; if the interviewer wants more, she will ask. Use a phrase from above.
Why have you changed jobs so frequently?
If you have jumped around, blame it on youth (even the interviewer was young once). Now you realize what a mistake your job hopping was, and with your added domestic responsibilities you are now much more settled. Or you may wish to impress on the interviewer that your job hopping was never as a result of poor performance and that you grew professionally as a result of each job change.
You could reply: “My first job had a long commute. I soon realized that, but I knew it would give me good experience in a very competitive field. Subsequently, I found a job much closer to home where the commute was only half an hour each way. I was very happy at my second job. However, I got an opportunity to really broaden my experience base with a new company that was just starting up. With the wisdom of hindsight, I realize that move was a mistake; it took me six months to realize I couldn’t make a contribution there. I’ve been with my current company a reasonable length of time. So I have broad experience in different environments. I didn’t just job-hop; I have been following a path to gain broad experience. So you see, I have more experience than the average person of my years, and a desire to settle down and make it pay off for me and my employer.”
Or you can say: “Now I want to settle down and make my diverse background pay off in my contributions to my new employer. I have a strong desire to contribute and I am looking for an employer that will keep me challenged; I think this might be the company to do that. Am I right?”
Why were you fired?
If you were fired and you don’t try to clean up the mess and change your ways, it can dog you for years.
Firing someone is unpleasant and never a decision any manager makes lightly, so in the majority of cases the employee bears a degree of responsibility. The first and most important thing is to take responsibility for the actions or behavior that led to your dismissal. If you do not take responsibility for your actions, you cannot change them.
If you take responsibility for your actions, you can clean up your act and clean up the past. Call the person who fired you; your aim is to clear the air, so whatever you do, don’t be antagonistic. Reintroduce yourself and explain that you are looking (or, if you have been unemployed for a while, say you are “still looking”) for a new job. Say that you appreciate that the manager had to do what was done, that you want to apologize for being such a problem, and that you learned from the experience.
Then address what you learned and ask, “If you were asked as part of a pre- or post-employment reference check, what would you say about me? How would you describe my leaving the company? Would you say that I was fired or that I simply resigned? You see, every time I tell someone about my termination, whoosh, there goes another chance of getting back to work!” Most managers will plump for the latter option. Taking responsibility and cleaning up the past really works and is the first step in putting yourself back on a track to success.
Have you ever been asked to resign?
When someone is asked to resign, it is a gesture on the part of the employer: “You can quit, or we will can you, so which do you want it to be?” Because you were given the option, that employer cannot later say, “I had to ask him to resign,” since that is tantamount to firing and could lead to legal problems; that’s the point of the gesture. If you answer “Yes,” it’s a mark against you and can derail your candidacy, so answer, “No.”
Why does your resume have a gap? Or why were you out of work so long?
Whatever the reason for your hiatus, be honest. Discuss the decisions behind your absence from the workplace, whatever they were. What’s most important to the interviewer is how long it will take you to be productive if hired.
Your answer should emphasize that while you may not have been in the corporate workplace, neither have you been idle. Talk about how you have kept current with classes or part-time work, and/or what you have been doing to keep the specific technical skills of the job honed. You can also talk about how you used other transferable skills and applied professional values in whatever work you were doing, noting that these skills are fresh, current, and needed in every job.
What aspects of your work do you consider most crucial?
Your answer begins with an explanation of why the job exists and what role it plays in achieving departmental and company goals. Then itemize the most important responsibilities of the job (you prioritized these in your TJD).
You then proceed to address:
How do you manage your work deadlines?
This examines the time management and organization abilities that enable you to multitask productively. You should address the Prioritize, Do, Review cycle: You set time at the end of every day to review that day’s activities and plan tomorrow—s. You prioritize all the planned activities and stick to those priorities to make sure the important work is attended to first.
Describe how your job contributes to the overall goals of your department and company.
Every company is in business to make a profit. Every company depends on individual initiative being harnessed to teamwork to achieve the complex tasks that result in corporate profitability. Describe how your job makes individual contributions and its role as an important cog in the machinery that is your department. Your cog needs to mesh with all the other cogs (your colleagues) for the gears of productivity to engage and move the department toward its goals.
Show that you are aware of the problems that crop up in your job every day and get in the way of company productivity. Identify how your job, at its core, is to anticipate and prevent problems from arising and to solve them when they do.
What is your greatest strength?
First talk about a must-have technical skill. Second, talk about one or more of the transferable skills that help you execute this critical part of your job; for example, you could talk about the roles that communication, critical thinking, and multitasking skills play in helping you execute your “greatest strength.” This way you give a complete and believable answer that also speaks of skills you apply in other aspects of your work.
What is your greatest weakness?
The greatest-strength question is often followed by asking about your greatest weakness. While this question is handled at the start of Chapter 16, “How to Handle Stress and Illegal Questions,” you can start thinking about what might constitute an acceptable answer to this awful question now: What parts of your job are an ongoing challenge for everyone in your profession? This can help you position weakness as a challenge shared by all conscientious people in the profession.
What is your role as a team member?
Think for a moment about why the job exists: It is there to contribute to the bottom line in some way. Your department, in turn, has a similar but larger role in the company’s bottom line. Your ability to link your job’s role to that of the department’s larger responsibilities, and then to the overall success of the company, will demonstrate your sense of the importance of teamwork. The department depends on teamwork, so describe yourself as a team player.
What kinds of decisions are most difficult for you?
The most difficult decisions always relate to the most crucial responsibilities of your work. The employer is looking for people who can make decisions and solve problems, not those who’ll dither instead of do. You want to position yourself as someone who’s decisive but not precipitate, who considers the implications of decisions, any side effects they might have on other activities, and whether the decision conflicts with existing systems and procedures or other company priorities. Emphasize that, having analyzed the situation and reached a logical conclusion, you act.
The question almost demands that you explain how you make these difficult decisions, and that you give an illustration, and if you don’t give one, it might well come in a follow-up question. Your example should relate to one of the crucial responsibilities of your job, and itemize the logical steps you take in analyzing the problem to help you reach the right decision.
What bothers you most about your job?
Keep your answer focused on those aspects of your work that everyone agrees are annoying, and end your answer on a positive note about how you deal with them: You take the rough with the smooth, and take the time to do _______________ well so you don’t have to do the damn thing over. It is important that your answer show you remaining objective and calm.
Tell me about a time things went wrong.
You are asked to talk about something that went wrong, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do so with an example that turned out fine. Your TJD process identified a number of such examples you can use. Choose an example and paint it black, but don’t point the finger of blame; crap happens.
End with how you solved the problem or contributed to its solution. Get in a subtle plug for transferable skills: “… so sticking with it and doing it by the book helped us put things right in the end.”
You can go on to explain that the next time you faced the same kind of problem you had a better frame of reference, knew what to avoid, what to do more of, and what other new approaches you could try. Finish your answer with a statement about what you learned.
How have you benefited from your disappointments/mistakes?
You learn more from failures, mistakes, and errors than you do from successes, so this is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your emotional maturity (you stay calm) and critical thinking skills (you think things through objectively).
Your answer will explain how you treat setbacks as learning experiences: You look at what happened, why it happened, and how you can do things differently at each stage. Edison once explained his success as an inventor by claiming that he knew more ways not to do something than anyone else living; you can do worse than to quote him. In any event, sum up your answer with, “I treat disappointments as a learning experience. I look at what happened, why it happened, and how I would do things differently in each stage should the same set of circumstances appear again. That way, I put disappointment behind me and am ready with renewed vigor and understanding to face the new day’s problems.”
You don’t need to be specific about your failures, but be prepared with an example in case of a follow-up question starting, “Tell me about a time when ….”
What are you looking for in your next job?
Ask not what your company can do for you; ask what you can do for your company. You are there to get a job offer, and you only want to address your needs when an offer is on the table and negotiation likely.
With so little real knowledge about the company—your research isn’t the same as insights explained by a company representative—you need to be careful about specificity.
Keep your answer general and focus on the fulfillment you experience from a job well done, with a team similarly committed, working for a company with a solid reputation. If you’re lower on the success ladder, add learned and earned professional growth to this—although if your future boss is the next step up … not such a good idea. You can add that you have observed that good people seem to move forward in groups and you’d like to earn a place within this inner circle and earn the opportunity to grow as circumstances allow by making a consistent difference with your presence.
What do you spent most of your time on, and why?
Your answer obviously needs to show that you focus your attention on top priorities, and you can make additional points by noting that you don’t ignore the repetitive tasks that are also important and sometimes require considerable time. You can mention some small thing that has to be done frequently, because if it has to be done frequently, it is obviously critical to success. But don’t do this at the expense of those top priorities, or you’re likely to be pegged as someone who gets bogged down in minutiae.
Another tactic is to use an example of multitasking to emphasize how you manage the priorities of the job. For example, “Like a lot of businesspeople, I work on the telephone and meetings take up a great deal of time. What’s important to me is prioritization of activities based on the deliverables of my job. I find more gets achieved in a shorter time if a meeting is scheduled, say, immediately before lunch or at the close of business. I try to block my time in the morning and the afternoon for main-thrust activities. At four o—clock, I review what I’ve achieved, what went right or wrong, and plan adjustments and my main thrust for tomorrow.”
What are your qualifications for this job?
The interviewer is interested in your experience and your possession of the technical skills to do the job, your academic qualifications, and the transferable skills that enable you to do any task well. This is why you need a clear recall of which transferable skills help you execute which aspect of your job. If you are confident in your skills, you can learn more about the job and make points for your candidacy by asking a question of your own: “If you could tell me about specific work assignments I’ll be involved with early on, I can show exactly how I can make real contributions in this job.”
What can you do for us that someone else cannot do?
You cannot know other candidates’ capabilities, so smilingly disarm your interviewer with this fact, then say, “But what I bring is ….” Your answer will then demonstrate your grasp of the job’s responsibilities, the problems that occur in each area, and how you are prepared to deal with them.
You can finish your answer with reference to the transferable skills and professional values you also bring to the job: “I also bring to this job a determination to see projects through to a proper conclusion. I listen and take direction well. I am analytical and don’t jump to conclusions. I understand we are in business to make a profit, so I keep an eye on cost and return.” End with: “How do these qualifications fit your needs?” or “What else are you looking for?” If you haven’t covered the interviewer’s hot buttons, she will cover them now, and you can respond accordingly.
How do you stay current?
We live in an age of technological innovation, in which the nature of every job is changing as quickly as you turn these pages. This means you must look to professional education as the price of sustained employability. In your answer, talk about the importance of keeping abreast of changes in the profession. You can refer to:
If you’re not already doing some of these things, you need to start now.
What achievements are you most proud of?
Use an example of something that is at the core of your job and central to its success, where you were part of a team working on some larger project beyond the scope of individual contribution, or where you accepted responsibility for some dirty/ignored project that nevertheless also had importance to the success of your department. Don’t exaggerate your contributions to major projects—share the success and be seen as a team player. Be honest, and to guarantee your illustrations are relevant, take them from your TJD. For example, you might say something like, “Although I feel my biggest achievements are still ahead of me, I am proud of my involvement with _______________. I made my contribution as part of that team and learned a lot in the process.”
Tell me about the most difficult project you’ve tackled.
When possible, discuss projects that parallel work you are likely to do at the new job. You will state the project, its challenges (in some detail), your critical thinking process to isolate causes and possible solutions, the story of your implementation of the solution, and the value it delivered to your employer. (This is the PSRV process discussed in Chapter 3 after the TJD.)
Tell me about an important goal you set recently.
Your answer should cite a goal that relates to productivity or another aspect related to the more important deliverables of your job in some way. You might use a skill-development goal, explaining why you chose it, how it helped you grow, and the benefits of completion. Or you can talk about a productivity/performance standard goal, why you chose it, and how it helped. You can add to this how you integrated achieving this goal into all your other activities, which allows you to talk about your multitasking skills.
What have you done to become more effective in your job?
Similarly to the prior question, behind this is an interest in your motivation to do the work being offered. The interviewer is looking for a fit between your dreams and her reality.
All worthwhile jobs require hard work and a desire to learn. Changes in technology mean your job skills must always be in development if you want to remain current and viable. The interviewer wants to know if you are committed to your profession and is looking for at least one example. You can also talk of the mentor relationships you have formed, the books and professional commentary you’ve read, the professional organizations you belong to, the certifications you’re earning, courses you are enrolled in, and webinars you attend. If you aren’t doing some of these things, wake up and start now.
How do you rank among your peers?
The interviewer is examining your self-esteem. In some cases (for instance in sales) it may be possible for you to quantify this: “I’m number two in the region.” In other cases, you’ll be more subjective, but you should strive to be realistic. You might slip in a real-life detail such as, “There are two groups in my department: those who make a difference, and those who watch. I’m in the first group.”
How do you feel about your progress to date?
Your answer should illustrate a commitment to productivity and the effort you invest in professional development. Explain how you ensure that your work is executed effectively and, if you can, cite endorsements given you by managers. You see each day as an opportunity to learn and contribute, and you see the environment at this company as conducive to your best efforts. Perhaps say something like, “Given the parameters of my job, my progress has been excellent. I know the work, and I am just reaching that point in my career where I can make significant contributions.”
You might finish by saying that being at this interview means you’ve gone as far as you can with your present employer and that this environment at _______________ and its new ways will encourage a new spurt of growth.
Is it ever necessary to go above and beyond the call of duty in terms of effort or time to get your job done?
If you hope to get ahead in your professional life, any job you ever hold will every now and then deliver opportunities to reschedule your personal life and otherwise mess up your weekends ;-), but these invasions of personal time are nevertheless opportunities to show your commitment and team spirit, so you always step up when these sometimes unwelcome opportunities present themselves; doing so increases professional success … and that gives you better personal time. Answer “Yes,” and then illustrate with a story of making extra and special efforts with good humor.
Tell me about a time when an emergency caused you to reschedule your workload/projects.
The question examines multitasking skills and how you handle emergency imperatives. You’ll make points when you explain how your planning and time management skills help you stay on top of your regular responsibilities even when emergency priorities throw normal scheduling off.
The story you tell should illustrate your flexibility and willingness to work extra hours when necessary. Demonstrate that your multitasking skills allow you to change course without having a nervous breakdown.
How long will it take you to make a contribution?
It takes time to understand systems and procedures, who the power players are, and why things are done the way they are. Be sure to qualify the question: In what area does the interviewer need rapid contributions?
You might ask, “Where are your greatest areas of need right now?” You give yourself time to think while the interviewer explains priorities.
What is the most difficult situation you have faced?
You’re really being asked two different questions: “What do you consider difficult?” and “How did you handle it?” This means the interviewer will be evaluating both your critical thinking and technical skills.
Don’t talk about problems with coworkers in your answer. Instead, focus on a job-related problem. We have talked about the importance of problem-solving throughout the book and the steps a professional takes to identify the most appropriate approaches and solutions; you should have numerous examples from your TJD and the resume creation process with which to illustrate your answer. In ending your answer, be sure to identify the benefits of your solution.
What do you think determines progress in a good company?
The interviewer needs to see that you understand progress is earned over time, and does not come as a result of simply showing up to work on a regular basis. Begin with each of the technical skills required to do the job, briefly citing the transferable skills that allow you to do the job well. Finish with your willingness to take the rough with the smooth that goes with every job, and the good fortune of having a manager who wants you to succeed.
What are some of the problems you encounter in doing your job, and what do you do about them?
There’s a trap in this question and two areas you need to cover in your response, so your answer has three steps.
In your last job, how did you plan to interview?
If you are a manager, getting work done through others is at the very heart of your job. Recruitment and selection are part of your job description, and you can expect this question. Your answer should give a description of how the skilled interviewer prepares, as we discussed in Chapter 13. You might also read Hiring the Best and the e-book Knock ’em Dead Breaking Into Management: The Essentials of Survival & Success (details at www.knockemdead.com).
If I hired you today, what would you accomplish first?
Gear your answer to first getting settled in the job, understanding how things are done, and becoming a member of the team. You would mention that of course this includes a clear priority on all your responsibilities. Then finish with a question, “What are the most critical projects/problems you’ll want me to tackle?” The response to that becomes your final answer to what you will accomplish first.
What type of decisions do you make in your work?
This examines the extent of your authority and how critical thinking enters into your work. With the TJD, you will have a clear understanding of the job’s deliverables and can determine the decision-making events that are integral to your job. The interviewer will certainly follow with a request for an example. Assume this will happen; your answer will address the types of decisions you make and include an example that shows how you approach making them.
How do you handle rejection?
This question is common if you are applying for a job in sales, including face-to-face sales, telemarketing, public relations, and customer service. If you are after a job in one of these areas and you really don’t like the heavy doses of rejection that are any salesperson’s lot, consider a new field. The anguish you will experience will not lead to a successful career or a happy life.
With that in mind, let’s look behind the question. The interviewer simply wants to know whether you take rejection as rejection of yourself or whether you simply accept it as a temporary rejection of a service or product. Here is a sample answer that you can tailor to your particular needs and background: “I accept rejection as an integral part of the sales process. If everyone said ‘yes’ to a product, there would be no need for the sales function. As it is, I see every rejection as bringing me closer to the customer who will say ‘yes.’ Sales is a profession of communication, determination, and resiliency; rejection is just part of the process, it’s nothing personal. I always try to leave the potential customer with a good feeling, as no sale today can well become a sale next month.”
Tell me about a situation that frustrated you at work.
This question is about emotional maturity. The interviewer wants to know how you channel frustration into productivity. Give an example of a difficult situation in which you remained diplomatic and objective and found a solution that benefited all concerned. Show yourself to be someone who isn’t managed by emotions: You acknowledge the frustration, then put it aside in favor of achieving the goals of the job you are paid to do.
What interests you least about this job?
The question is potentially explosive but easily defused. Regardless of your occupation, there is at least one repetitive, mindless duty that everyone groans about but that nevertheless goes with the territory. Use that as your example. “_______________ is probably the least demanding part of my job. However, I know it is important for _______________, so I do it at the end of the day as part of my performance review and next-day planning.” Notice how this response also shows that you are organized and possess critical thinking and multitasking skills; it also shows you understand that it is necessary to take the rough with the smooth.
I—m not sure you’re suitable for the job (too inexperienced).
In a job search you quickly develop a feeling for whether a particular position is a close match, a job you’ve already done for so long that you might be perceived as too experienced (too heavy), or a job that might be a bit of a stretch (too light). If you can see a potential problem with an opportunity, the employer probably can too. Nevertheless, you were close enough to get the interview, so make every effort to land the offer.
It could also be used as a stress question (to see how you handle adverse situations on the job). The interviewer’s “I’m not sure” could really mean, “I’d like to hire you, so here’s a wide-open opportunity to sell me on you.” Either way, remain calm and accept this as another opportunity to set you apart from other candidates.
Put the ball straight back into the interviewer’s court, “Why do you say that?” You need more information and time to organize an appropriate reply, but it is also important to show that you are not intimidated.
When you might be too light, your answer itemizes all the experience and skills you bring, and offsets weaknesses with other strengths and examples of how efficiently you develop new skills.
You can also talk about the motivation you bring to the job, and that you will expect to be motivated for some considerable time because of the opportunity the job offers for your professional development, while someone with all the skills is going to need a quick promotion to keep him happy. You can finish your answer with a reflexive question that encourages a “yes” answer, “Wouldn’t you agree?”
I—m not sure you’re suitable for the job (too experienced).
If you are told you have too much experience, respond with the positives: how your skills help you deliver immediately, and why the position fits your needs; perhaps, “I really enjoy my work, so I won’t get bored, and I’m not looking for a promotion, so I’m not after anyone’s job. I’ll be a reliable and trustworthy person to have at your back. I have excellent skills [itemize], so I can deliver quickly and consistently. My experience makes me a steadying member of the team, and when you think I’m ready I can help mentor.” Finish with a smile, “… and let’s not forget I’ve already made my mistakes on somebody else’s payroll.”
Do you have any questions?
A sign that the interview is drawing to a close. Take the opportunity to make a strong impression. Ask questions that help advance your candidacy by giving you information about the real-world experience of the job: “Yes I do have one or two questions.” Go through the list of questions you developed after reading the interview preparation chapter and brought with you.
Most candidates ask questions about money and benefits. These are nice-to-know questions that an interviewer is not really interested in discussing at this point. As your goal at every interview is to bring the interviewer to the point of offering you the job, such questions are really irrelevant because they don’t bring you closer to the job offer. Better that you concentrate on gathering information that will help you further your candidacy.
Ask about next steps if there are more interviews. If there are, match your skills to the needs of the job, explain your interest in the job and desire to pursue it; then ask for the next interview.
If there’s not another interview, cite your understanding of the job, how your skills match each of the deliverables, state that you want the job and want to join the team, and ask for the job.