|  Welcome.
I understand that you are in career transition. You might be employed in a full time position and considering a career change. You may be negotiating a position with a new company or you may have already committed to a new position and have some time on your hands until you resume full employment.
If we were face to face, I would inquire about what you do best, what you would most like to achieve, the challenges involved, and whether you have had coaching to support your career change. If you are the recipient of a severance package, you have been awarded a scholarship to reevaluate your life and career. However, you may be experiencing a sense of loss and some tension at home. Your spouse may view you with less respect, and there may be some genuine concern about the loss of health benefits.
This may be the first time in years that you have reflected on the meaning of your life. You may be asking questions like: “Do I want to work 60 hours a week? Do I want to allocate more time for my family and friends? How do I want to change my career? Do I want to stick with corporate life, go solo, or join a mid-size consulting firm? What are my most important needs? What’s working for me right now? What do I really want to do and how can I go about it?”
Have you defined your optimum career direction and the remuneration you wish to achieve? With Optimal Thinking, you will ask the best questions to invite the best solutions. You will position yourself on the optimal track, pursue the best ends by the best means, and make the most of the hands you are dealt.
Here are some questions to help you to optimize your career change:
 What are the most important criteria for my next position?
Where are my best places to work and the best companies to work for?
What are my greatest strengths?
How can I best leverage my strengths to achieve what I want?
How I can best leverage my contacts?
Which actions must I take to give myself the best chance of landing in the right position?
 Focus on the preferences articulated in current hiring activities, and note the skill sets in demand so that you can think like your customer.
You can use Optimal Thinking prior to your next interview. Consider these questions:
What do you know about the company’s history, current situation and culture?
How can you best determine where the organization is headed in the next five years?
What do you know about the person who will be interviewing you?
How can you best prepare to achieve the optimum result?
How can you employ your knowledge, skills and experience to be the candidate of choice?
Prepare brief, accurate, optimal responses to challenging questions and statements such as:
  Tell me about yourself
Why did you leave your last job?
How long have you been out of work?
Why has it taken you so long to find a job?
What do you know about our company?
Why do you want to work with us?
How long do you expect to stay with us?
Why should we hire you?
What is your salary expectation?
You must be fully prepared to negotiate your optimum income package. Make sure you know the salary range for the position before you disclose your salary expectation.
An optimal interview follows a precise five-step format.
1. Ice breaker and warm up
2. Empower the interviewer to acknowledge your strengths
3. Uncover your obstacles, then provide your best options
4. Determine where you stand
5. Reaffirm your value, assert your uniqueness, and optimize!
Throughout the interview, keep the following question in mind:
What's the best result I can achieve in this communication right now?
You are most welcome to participate in our short-term executive coaching and role play your optimal career interview with our five-step interview optimization roadmap. Our career coaches have over 20 years experience working with career change and executive transition.
Job interview role plays are conducted face-to-face in our Century City, Los Angeles office, by telephone, or via Skype video conference. We are here for you.
BONUS OFFER TODAY: Sign Up for A Session, and Receive A Free Session (New Career Change Coaching Clients Only).
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