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Reset your fear and dread of a mid-career job interview from negative expectations to (yes!) feeling confident and even looking forward to it. While that may sound too good to be true, the following approaches can help even the playing field between you and your (likely younger) recruiter or hiring manager.

Prepare for your mid-career job interview differently than you may have prepared for interviews in the past. Sure, you can Google all of the expected questions that get asked most frequently in job interviews today. And you should absolutely read those articles. However, as someone with more experience, recognize that you’re an outlier in the applicant pool. In most instances, you will be fighting an uphill battle to be considered with an open and unbiased attitude.

Your goal is to be so confident and positive that you preempt their bias and win them over with your preparation and your presentation.

What Makes This Work

To effectively prepare for your mid-career job interview, you have to make one key – and possibly difficult – decision: only apply to jobs that best represent the kind of work that you want to do.

Don’t apply to jobs that you sorta/maybe can do.

If you apply to a job that you’re not totally jazzed about, they’re going to read your lukewarm commitment the minute you shake hands or greet the interviewer on Zoom.

Many of you are protesting right now: “But I really need to get back to work!” OK. Then work harder to find the positions where you feel you are the right fit and can effectively make that case.

Pre-sell Yourself With Your LinkedIn Profile

If you only apply to jobs you’re a) truly intent on doing and b) well qualified for, your LinkedIn profile can become a force multiplier. If you draft it correctly, including your Headline, About and Experience sections, you can achieve the following:

• Define and provide the key reference points from your background that match what the interviewer wants and needs to know about you,
• Set up the outline and agenda for the interview by stating your desired roles and areas of responsibility in your Headline and About section,
• Make sure that your Experience section contains the references to important case studies, stats, and achievements that you want to cover in the interview,
• Provide context you’ll use in the interview by Including strategic takeaways from each of your positions in your Experience section listings.

This gives you a script that you can use in every interview. Yes, each position is going to be somewhat different. But you are the same candidate. Don’t try to twist yourself into an approximation of what you think they’re looking for because they may not be that clear themselves.

Instead, be the best version of you that you can be. By having the same script in every interview, you’ll eventually get really good at delivering it. And the better you know it, the more relaxed and confident you’ll be at providing the answers.

If you’re not the right fit from their perspective, this is still the best way to present yourself. Your clear and articulate presentation may impress them so much that they refer you to a colleague or recruiter who has a more appropriate opening for you to apply to.

Keep It Current & Recent

Because you’re older, fight the preference to talk about your best experiences/successes without regard to when they happened. Unfortunately, your interviewer doesn’t want to hear about your decades of experience. Don’t feel offended. It’s often hard for younger people who don’t have the same degree of experience to really understand what that experience means.

Your job is to map your most recent experience in the past two or three jobs (and 4 – 5 years) to the role and responsibilities of the open position you’re there to discuss. This approach sets up your recent experience as valuable training and set-up for the open position under discussion. If they see that you are primed and poised to leap into this role based on your recent experience, it will make it easier for them to offer you the gig.

One of their goals in hiring someone for this position is risk aversion. They may act and talk aspirationally about the role and put an innovative, even bold, spin on what they’re looking for in a candidate. But the chances are that the offer will go to a safe candidate who does not represent many, if any, risks.

Breeze Through the Dreaded “Tell Me About Yourself” Question

Your LinkedIn profile can also help you prepare for this familiar, open-ended, and tricky question.

As a more experienced candidate, you have the maturity to go into greater depth and make this about more than your skills. This question is designed to reveal your character and your values.  Remember: you are more than your resume!

Consider formulating your answer as a mission statement. Lead with the roles and responsibilities you summarize in your LinkedIn Headline. Many Headlines are formulated as problem-solving statements of an elevator pitch – e.g., “I help [company/team type/sector] solve [X] problem through [Y] solution with [Z] result.”

Even if you don’t have a catchy elevator pitch statement, talk about who you are, why you do what you do, and where you want to go with your career. This could sound like: “I’ve always been fascinated by/drawn to [X] aspect of this industry because I wanted to [solve this problem/help this customer]. Throughout my career, I’ve [learned this lesson/developed this ability/built this expertise] to better [support my team/drive profits/make great products]. Looking forward, my goal is to [apply my experience to solve this problem/support our industry in overcoming this challenge/helping our industry take advantage of his opportunity].

Be visionary but practical. Portray yourself as a servant leader, someone who knows when to lead the charge as well as when to hang back to mentor and support the stragglers.

Embrace the Elephant in the Room

Ageism will rear its head in your interview, one way or another. If you’re in the room, it’s because  on paper you’re qualified. If you present well on the experience, applicable skills, responsibilities, and management skills, they’ll still probably have reservations about you.

Here are three statements you would be wise to make and weave into the interview:

Retirement is a long way away

The knee-jerk assumption is that retirement is somehow on your radar screen if you’re approaching or over 50. It’s ironic they’d be concerned about you leaving after a few years when younger workers are statistically more likely to leave their jobs after two or three years.

Share your longer-term career plans and reassure them that you’re not going anywhere anytime soon.

I know I’ve had more complex roles, but this is actually the right move for me.

If you’ve got more high-level experience on your profile, they may wonder whether you see this position as a step down. Assuming it is something you really want to do, address this concern before it comes up. Talk about how, out of all your jobs and responsibilities, you realize that this role and these responsibilities have given you the greatest sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

I have no hidden agenda.

Sometimes, a hiring manager may feel threatened by you and wonder if your real goal is to take their job or use this position as a stepping stone. They may also be concerned that because of your experience, you’ll either question their decisions all the time, fail to take their directions, or sow discord within the team.

Reassure them that you are there to support them and their goals for the team and the company. This is another opportunity to come across as a servant leader. Rather than being a competitor or an antagonist, your goal is to be a resource for them and a value-add.

A Genuine and Generous Offer

You’re not going to be the right fit for every role. All you can do is call their attention to the “product-market fit” as you see it and let them make their decision.

Many years ago, in my early Hollywood days, I asked an actor friend how he dealt with the constant rejection of auditioning and getting turned down for roles. His answer opened my mind. He said, “I used to get really depressed when I didn’t get a part. But one day, I realized that even if they didn’t think I was right for the part, my audition had played some small part in their decision-making process. I decided that my job was to offer them my take on the role, and if it wasn’t right, then they could check that approach to the character off their list. Since then I see going on auditions as an opportunity to offer that service.”

Your job search is exactly the same. Stand in your integrity and what you know is true about you, what you’ve done, and what you offer. Keep offering. When everything lines up, you’ll get the part.