Nailing the job interview

Using people skills and an innate ability to sell anything, Elinor Stutz is quietly building a following among salespeople and job seekers who want to demystify the process of selling themselves to potential employers.

From the helm of Smooth Sale, her Petaluma-based business, Stutz is mining the lessons learned over a decade in sales jobs she candidly describes as “Dilbertesque.”

In addition to seminars, workshops and personal coaching, she has written two books, the latest of which is “Hired: How to Sell Yourself on Interviews.”

At 62, the self-effacing powerhouse says she is doing nothing more than sharing the skills that helped her enter the workforce after raising two children.

“My husband told me I have the personality of a sales person, and I’m still not sure if that was a compliment or an insult,” Stutz said with a laugh. Either way, she followed his lead and soon found her first job, a 90-day tryout selling copiers door-to-door for an unknown manufacturer.

“I know how to make friends with people, so that’s what I did,” she said. “Within four months I was their top seller.” She worked her way up to better copier companies before leaping into a high-tech job she calls “the worst job in history,” selling ads for a new product that never got launched. For lessons learned from that cutthroat environment, readers will have to read her first book, “Nice Girls Do Get the Sale.”

Seven years ago, a car crash changed the course of her life, leaving her strapped to a gurney at Stanford Hospital with a broken neck that should have left her paralyzed.

“I had a vision, like the visions you hear about people having, but in my case I saw a report card,” Stutz said. “On the left side I had high marks. On the right was a blank page labeled community service.”

A visiting surgeon inserted metal plates to hold her spine straight, thus saving the connections that control her limbs. During rehab, Stutz remembered the report card and vowed to make amends. But what skills and talents could she use in a second career?

“Sales trainer,” Stutz said. “It wasn’t what I would have wanted, but I decided to make the best of it.” Off to a slow start, she decided to establish credibility by writing a book that continues to sell well.

She speaks at conventions, coaches people over the phone and, earlier this year, helped organize a career and business resource fair in Petaluma that drew 200 people.

This summer, she wrote a second book, translating sales tools for job seekers interested in selling themselves.

“Getting a job is the sale,” Stutz said, “but it’s not about you. It’s about how you can help the company solve its problems.”

Applicants must learn everything they can about the company — what’s important to it, its industry and competitors. Stutz recommends studying the company’s Web site and reading business publications with an eye toward trends that might effect it.

Once there, Stutz suggests learning as much about the interviewers by asking a few questions of your own. One of her favorites: “I know you must have gotten hundreds of applications, so what caught your attention about mine?” The answer will help interviewees tailor responses to their questions, as will asking them to describe the ideal candidate.

“You have to find three to five needs that you can fulfill, and you do that by getting them to talk first,” Stutz said.

On your way out, it’s OK to ask if you’re the leading candidate, and to add one of Stutz’s most effective questions from her days as a salesperson: “What would put me over the top to get this job?”

(Contact Linda Castrone at argus@arguscourier.com)