Selling and "Mismatching"

According to Thomas Freese in his book Secrets of Question Based Selling: How the Most Powerful Tool in Business Can Double Your Sales Results, interviews are adversarial due to a defense mechanism called "mismatching," or "the instincitve and emotional behavior that causes people t respond or push back in a contrarian manner."

He proposes 4 strategies to reduce the risk of mismatching when trying to score an interview:

1. Ask more questions and make fewer statements.
2. Establish your credibility with the prospective employer from the get-go.
3. Pique the prospective employer's curiosity to neutralize mismatching.
4. Build momentum to quell the mismatching instinct.

And to that I would add a piece of advice with respect to seeking informational and job interviews from Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters: "Stay away from the human resources department because they are paid to mismatch! HR people akin their role to that of your body's natural immune system - essentially keeping out germs (bad employees) that could make the company sick. By nature, they are risk-adverse, err on the side of caution, and mismatch out of habit." In addition, hiring decisions for jobs - with the exception of those in the HR department itself - are made elsewhere.

I couldn't have said it better myself!