📍 Welcome back to No Silver Spoons. I am Sarah Beth Herman, and I have a lot of new listeners lately, and so I thought I would give you a little bit of an intro. I hold an MBAI am a five times CEO, and I currently own five companies. Seven, if you count the ones I own with my husband. And over the course of my career, I have built businesses that have generated well over eight figures in revenue.

Personally, I am an eight figure earner. I have had the privilege of speaking on many podcasts, building companies with incredible teams, and spending time in conversations with some of the most truly remarkable people across many industries. And one thing that consistently stands out to me regardless of industry or title is this, emotional intelligence is one of the most valuable traits a person can develop.

It influences leadership, it influences relationships, and it influences decision making. And interestingly enough, it shows up clearly in interviews.

Now over the course of my career, I've conducted more than 700 interviews for my own personal brands and another three to 400 interviews earlier in my career when I worked in executive roles for other organizations. So at this point, I've probably sat across the table or across the screen from well over 1000 candidates.

And after that many conversations, you start to notice patterns. Patterns about what works, patterns about what doesn't, patterns about what people think they should do in interviews that actually hurts them. And so today I wanna talk about interviews from a very different perspective. Not the traditional advice, not the rehearsed answers, but the real lessons that you start to see when you spent years hiring people, building companies, and evaluating leadership potential.

Well, let me share something interesting first, though. On my largest brand, our website receives anywhere from 25,000 to 40,000 visitors every single month, depending on the season or the content that we're sharing. And the number one type of message that I've been receiving over the last six months is people asking me for interview advice.

They're asking things like, how should I answer this question? Or, what are employers looking for? Or How do I prepare for an interview better? Or do you coach people on interviews? Interviews feel like high stake moments, right where people want the perfect answer. But after conducting more than a thousand interviews, I've learned something that most people don't realize, the answers people memorize rarely determine the outcome of the interview. What determines the outcome is the person behind the answers.  Their mindset, their emotional intelligence, their self-awareness, their energy, and their ability to build trust in conversations. I'm going to share with you some unpopular opinions today.

You might agree with me or you might disagree with me. But I'm gonna challenge you to listen through each of the things I share with you today,  because I'm not sharing them because I want to argue with you, but more that I want you to think differently and I want you to expand your perspective. This is gonna challenge your own emotional intelligence.

 I have an unpopular opinion that resumes are mostly insignificant. Now, if you are a life coach or a career coach or a mentor for people, or a mentor for someone who is trying to grow and maybe climb the ladder in the corporate world or in the leadership world, you're gonna be really surprised at that statement because this unpopular opinion really does surprise most people.

But resumes matter far less than most people think. They might help someone get a first interview, but once the conversation starts, they become far less important. I've interviewed people with incredible resumes who turned out to be really poor hires, and I've interviewed people with very average resumes who become extraordinary contributors because resumes don't tell you a lot of things.

They don't tell you how someone thinks, how they respond to pressure, how they treat people, how they listen. How they handle mistakes, how self-aware they are, how quickly they learn or how un quickly they learn and those qualities for me, they show up almost immediately in a real conversation.

And if I'm being honest with you, I really don't care about what your resume looks like in order for me to interview you if you simply apply for a job. That's really all I care about. Let me illustrate for you what I mean by that my largest brand dentistry support, we get around 600 to 800 applicants a month.

 Isn't that crazy? Like imagine getting 600 to 800 applicants a month. Now you're probably thinking, how do you have time to go through? All of those applications? Well, if you look at my job postings, we keep them open all the time because I have a philosophy, always be hiring. I'm always hiring. I'm always interested in who is gonna walk through the doors of my company, who's walking through the virtual doors, I guess you could say, to show me that they're interested in working for me.

Well, once they apply, there are very specific instructions inside of our application. Now, if you are a great applicant, you have read through that entirely. Now, someone who repeatedly follows up to know the status of their application. I literally will not interview them or hire them because I found them very annoying and I don't see that as a great quality.

What I see as a better quality is someone who actually reads the application process and understands that we have a 21 day turnaround time to get your first interview with. Now if you get your first interview with us, there are very specific instructions that tell you the time, place, what we're looking for, how you get to that first interview process, what it looks like to come on board with us.

A far better interview for me is someone who followed the instructions to send us a voice recording of who they are, a little bit about them, or even created a visual resume for us.  One that's actual audio and video. I think that's amazing. I think that tells me that you wanted to set yourself apart.

Someone who actually has a portfolio, not just a one page document that chat GPT wrote for them, because I'm telling you, I see it all and chat GPT is good. It creates some of the most amazing resumes I've ever seen, but I can spot one a mile away. You know, chat, GPT is making interviews really strange and so I actually wanna bring you to my second unpopular opinion.

Let's talk about something really modern here. Ai, specifically tools like Chat, GPT or Gemini, or the countless other AI things that exist out there. AI is incredibly powerful. It can really help people prepare, but it can also help people organize their thoughts in a way that maybe they wouldn't have organized them in another way.

But what I'm seeing is a new challenge emerge. People are starting to sound too perfect. Their answers are extremely rehearsed. They're over polished. They're almost scripted in a sense, and sometimes you can tell immediately that the words they are saying are not their own. I actually have a client right now who started a podcast recently, and we have been launching it for them in stages.

He is using chat GPT to write every single script. He reads them word for word and it's almost fascinating to listen to because you can literally hear him pause between words that he wouldn't normally pause between , and even like using words that he wouldn't normally use. I've heard him mispronounce terms that he doesn't really understand, and I can feel the disconnect between the person.

And the script interviews are starting to sound like that too. When someone gives a perfect answer that doesn't feel authentic, it actually creates distance between me and that person.  they don't understand that authenticity is what builds trust. Scripts are breaking it. Here's a story that actually changed my perspective.

Considerably. Years ago I interviewed someone whose resume didn't actually stand out at all   and honestly, I don't know what piqued my interest to interview them, but nothing about it really suggested that they would become a top performer for me. But the moment the conversation began, something for me felt a little bit different.

I noticed that this person had a calm demeanor about them that really stood out. They listened carefully to me. They asked thoughtful questions that didn't make me feel like they were trying to overpower me, but more that they were trying to show me their leadership potential. They spoke honestly about their mistakes.

They didn't try to impress me or even give me the feeling that they were like competing with me 'cause I've had those kind of interviews before. They tried to understand what the opportunity was. They wanted to know more about it, and because of their curiosity. I was so intrigued that I wanted to continue the conversation.

I even went so far as to create an entire position just for this person because they were so intriguing to me. This person has become one of the strongest hires I've ever made. They still work for me to this day. In my opinion, leadership shows up quietly. It's not something that stands out above the rest.

It's more about self-awareness. It's more about someone showing me their curiosity, their humility. Those traits for me, are far more predictive of success than credentials could ever be my unpopular opinion. Number three, stop trying to be the smartest person in the room. Some candidates, they walk into interviews or they show up on a virtual call trying to prove that they're the smartest person there.

They talk constantly. They overexplain, they try to answer every question instantly without even thinking, without that, even slight pause to formulate a sentence. But for me, leadership is not about proving intelligence. Leadership is about clarity and about understanding. One of the most impressive things someone can say in an interview for me is, that's a great question.

Let me think about that for a minute. And if you've had conversations with me where I'm speaking at an intellectual level, or I'm speaking to someone who is highly intellectually challenging across the table from me, you'll notice that I take that moment to pause. I'll say something like, let me think about that for just a second.

And sometimes I speak off the cuff really well and I don't have to pause, but I love a pause. Confidence doesn't always mean instant answers. Confidence means being comfortable thinking,

i've learned that a lot of people aren't comfortable letting down that barrier to show that they actually think they think thinking is bad or a sign of weakness.

But it's not. It's actually a beautiful and powerful thing that shows you are still human and you're not relying on what you think someone else thinks. You are your own person. You're formulating your own thoughts. You have your own opinions. You are a strong leader all on your own. You don't require that validation.

You see, to me, emotional intelligence is everything.  One of the biggest lessons I've learned from building multiple organizations and hiring hundreds of team members is that emotional intelligence often matters more than raw intelligence. There's a psychologist, Daniel Goldman. His research on leadership consistently shows that emotional intelligence is one of the strongest predictors of leadership effectiveness.

Emotional intelligence shows up in really simple ways, ways you might not even be thinking. It's like how someone listens. It's how someone responds to criticism, how someone talks about previous employers.  I'm gonna pause at my list right here, because I left a company on good terms because I left them the right way.

They treated me poorly, but I left in the most respectful way. The previous CEO of that company. He actually reached out to me after I had left, and he asked me to tell him everything about why I left. And I told him that I wasn't going to do that, that it wasn't important for me to give him that feedback because I wanted to have a great relationship with him on into the future.

And I knew that there would come a time that our paths would cross. And I never wanted him to have a poor memory of me or a memory of me that would require me to speak seemingly ill . And he really tried to get me to go there many times. He asked me multiple questions,  multiple different ways of the same question to try to get an answer out of me.

But ultimately, I stuck to my guns there and I said, no, I'm not gonna do that. And actually, we now work together in other capacities that are beautiful and we've had a great experience together. That is wonderful. And. The moral of that short little story is that you don't always have to say how something was bad.

Something could just be not a fit on an emotional level, emotional intelligence level. , It could be a not a culture fit. There's a lot of ways you can explain how you. A previous employer without dragging them through the mud because not everything is bad. Leaving another employer isn't a terrible sign.

It doesn't mean you're a red flag and you can learn to have an emotionally intelligent way. To articulate why you left someone. I also think that emotional intelligence shows up in how you take accountability, how you recognize the perspective of others. These are real signs of maturity and for me, maturity builds trust because I know that I can trust how you'll move forward even if you don't work for me forever, because of how you spoke of someone else.

People spend so much time thinking about what they should say in interviews, but they rarely think about how they make people feel during a conversation. And psychologists call this emotional contagion. People subconsciously absorb the emotional tone of the person they're speaking with.

So if someone walks into an interview, nervous or defensive, or even dare I say, performative, that tension, it actually spreads. But when someone enters very calm and they're curious and they're really positive. The entire dynamic shifts and trust builds faster. The conversation, it becomes more of a natural two-way street.

And people feel comfortable and people remember that because people rarely remember every sentence from an interview, but they always remember the experience of interacting with someone. And I wanna mention on this episode today that, . I might have like another fourth unpopular opinion, and I think I was only gonna talk about three,   but another one is that titles mean almost nothing.

Titles don't impress me. I have interviewed executives with impressive titles who lacked leadership skills, the world around us actually. Talks about titles, and they find such value in them that if you don't lead with what your title is, it's almost like you don't have the keys to unlock the door to speak in the room that someone is present in.

But I have interviewed people with modest titles who had extraordinary emotional intelligence. Leadership is not defined by authority. Leadership is defined by behavior. I was speaking to my dog trainer the other day and he is a , world recognized dog trainer. He is incredible. He's carried four world titles, and if you don't know anything about the dog training world, I'm gonna encourage you to go do some research because people that train animals.

To the caliber that my dog trainer trains are some of the most incredible leaders and people I've ever met in my entire life. And I would never know that if I didn't actually have good, constructive conversations with those around me. And. This dog trainer is currently training two personal protection dogs for my husband and I and when we were talking about how he hires dog trainers, which maybe you think dog trainers aren't that prestigious of a position, but I will challenge you to that every day of the week because they are remarkable individuals because they're remarkable at what they can do.

This dog trainer tells me that every time he brings someone on board that's gonna train for him. They start doing the worst work. The picking up of the dog waste and the working of the kennels and the cleaning of the kennels and all the work that has to go into boarding different breeds and different personalities of dogs.

Leadership is defined by your behavior and how you receive that, how you communicate, how you handle pressure, how you take responsibility. Some people don't even want to work for him once. He tells them that once he introduces them to the job of the least, that they'll have to begin with. You should be comfortable with that because if you don't know how to do the little work, how will you know how to do the big work?

How will you understand all of the things that go hand in hand there? After interviewing more than a thousand people over my career, three qualities consistently stand out  self-awareness. Emotional intelligence and curiosity, your skills can be taught. Oftentimes I interview dentists who want my virtual team to support them, and they'll ask me questions like, now how many years of experience does your team have?

And some of them are shocked to say, well, a lot of my team members don't even have like a month of experience in dentistry or a day because I actually don't hire anyone with dental experience to work for my company. Now I have a company that services over 250 dentists. I have over 700 employees that work for me and not one of them has ever had dental experience that has started to work for me.

Not one, because I don't hire anyone with dental experience. Skills can be taught, processes can be learned, but mindset is much harder to change and when someone has the right mindset. Everything else is extremely easy to develop, many dentists don't hire us because they think quantity of years' experience in dental means that they will be a really good employee.

But I promise you that's not the case. I promise you it's not true. They don't need to have experience to work for me. I can teach someone any skill. Just think about McDonald's for a minute. They're a great example of how they hire people with no experience, yet everyone can make a big Mac or fry fries or pack a to go order.

It's very easy to train someone on skills. It is very hard to teach someone mindset now here is a little bit of a leadership reflection for you. If you're listening to this episode today and you are preparing for an interview tomorrow, or you're preparing to hire someone, here's something that I would encourage you to think about.

First, I want you to think about how you want people to experience. Not just what you want them to know about you. Do you want them to experience clarity? Respect, confidence, curiosity. Those impressions often matter more than technical answers.

Second, remember that leadership is rarely about proving superiority. It's about demonstrating awareness. Awareness of yourself, awareness of others, awareness of the environment you are stepping into. The most impressive candidates are rarely the loudest ones. They're the ones who understand the bigger picture.

And third, remember that real confidence is often quiet. It shows up in honesty, in humility and curiosity, and someone who is comfortable learning. And those people are often the ones who go the farthest. As I close this episode, I wanna give you our, that's good moment. The moment where we talk about things that I want you to remember and take with you as we close out this episode.

Interviews are strange moments. Two people who barely know each other that are trying to determine whether they trust each other enough to move forward. Whether it's a career, a partnership, a team, or a business relationship, and the interviews that create the best outcomes are rarely the most polished ones.

They are often the most authentic ones where curiosity replaces performance, where listening replaces selling, where two people explore whether they can actually build something meaningful together. And when you approach interviews with that mindset. Everything changes. It doesn't matter if you are the interviewer or the interviewee.

You have to approach it from understanding the context of why you and another person are in a room or on a virtual call together. How is someone going to perceive you? How are you perceiving someone else? What is giving you the sense of trusting the other person no matter what your role in an interview setting is?

Be that. Emulate that. Speak that work on your emotional intelligence. Work on the person you want to become. Work on the perception you want someone else to have of you. That is your responsibility. How someone else perceives working with you, working with your company, working for you, working underneath you, working over you.

That's your job. Thank you for taking the time. To listen to this episode here today on No Silver Spoons. You can listen to us wherever you get your podcast, and we always encourage you to rate and review this episode, share it with someone you know who's looking to interview and needs a little bit of encouragement on how to move forward, how to go in as their authentic self.

Thank you 📍 for tuning in. I'll catch you on the next episode.