[Chapter 1: continued from here] ...The best salespeople begin by asking questions to uncover their prospects needs, wants and expectations.

Good sales trainers emphasize establishing a dialogue with a prospect and moving the sales meeting away from a standardized pitch to a customized proposal with cooperative problem solving.

These are all useful skills for your interviews too, but you won't find it easy to apply many of them. The employment interview has become so highly formalized over the years that you're rarely given the opportunity to probe and listen to the employer's needs before talking about yourself. And unfortunately there are few employers who will make an effort to work collaboratively with you at this point.

In traditional employment interviewing, the employer is in control. For the most part, they ask the questions and you answer. If you don't know much about the employer or the kinds of problems they face, this puts you in the difficult position of trying to present yourself as the solution to problems you know little about.

The employment interview has become a ritual. The most common format -- particularly for advertised openings -- is that the employer comes in with a list of prepared questions to ask you, and is usually tight-lipped about their needs or the problems they're trying to solve. Many are afraid that if they open up to you, you'll just tell them what they want to hear and they won't get an accurate picture of what they could really expect from you if you were hired.