The Peak Interview

A friend and associate, Bill Burnett, has just published a book.

The Peak Interview


New insights into the job interview process can give you an edge to win the interview and get the job. By the time you get to the job interview, the company has determined you are qualified for the job. But so are all the other interviewees. Your experience, skills, competencies, and abilities will not differentiate you. Your competition is just as qualified as you are. You need an edge.



The Peak Interview talks about how to create that edge using Nobel Prize winning insights.

Read more about this small book at: Superinnovator

About the author:
With more than thirty years of business experience, Bill Burnett is a problem solver and a proven leader. He has led both line organizations larger than 250 people, and staff groups with less than ten people. Burnett's special talent is his ability to recognize and leverage hidden inventiveness of knowledgeably internal employees. His track record of building and leading problem solving teams at both the global and local level has delivered ingenious performance improvements in Product Development,Business Models, Customer Service, Operations, Network Infrastructure, Systems Functionality, and Policy Management. Burnett has traveled to and worked with a multitude of cultures in local businesses in over sixty-five countries.

What’s wrong with the "Formal Interview"? Part 1

A guy walks into an interview at a major accounting firm, slightly under dressed, and a little late. He says to his interviewer that he is pleased to be there but has just come from an interview at a rival firm where he had been offered a job. He says he would still like to take part in the interview process, but just thought that his interviewer should know, from the start, that he had already accepted the position. Just to be fair.

The interviewer asks, “then why are you here?”. He replies that, though he has already accepted the job, he had done so more from panic and excitement over the “package” he had been offered than from any real affinity with the company and its practices. He goes on to say that he had driven home (overcome with excitement) with the intention of calling in and canceling the interview but that his instincts had gotten the better of him and he figured he should come in anyway. He then apologizes, ostensibly for being late and for seeming frazzled.

The inexperienced interviewer ventures to ask what firm they were talking about and the whole thing devolves into a discussion of this man’s relative utility in the eyes of some other interviewer. It doesn’t last long, but long enough.

After positive informality, the formal interview begins.