Interviews: Part 2, close-ups, subsets, and data

                                                                    Sunset Blvd.

In this, the second part of a series on interview preparation, the focus on the importance of context shifts from a macrocosmic filmic long shot to a standard filmic two shot: faces with moving mouths and moving minds behind them.

Context: before a student, or anyone who is preparing for an interview, steps in to the room with a smile and a firm but not crushing handshake at the ready, he or she should have done a lot of research. Some of the books and articles out there use the word ‘homework’ for the act of doing some digging into what the facts are when it comes to a college or a company. I am assuming that you are already knowledgeable enough to have internalized that you’d better have the faces and data points of places you are looking to attend or work for ready at hand. The research I am talking about is of a significantly different sort and in my talks with various people in the business of doing interviews I have learned that not very many people are taking what I consider to be the next necessary step.

It sounds obvious enough, but the things an interviewee says should be as absolutely specific as they can be depending on the institution’s name and the name and data gathered on the interviewer him or herself. Should what a student says to an alum at Princeton be the same as to an alum at MIT be the same? The answer is no. For students interviewing right now for jobs on Wall Street, anyone with half a clue knows they had better have done some pretty deep data mining before they step in the room. They need to know the company and if possible, know the facts about the interviewer. Knowing some general facts about Blackrock or Goldman or Citi are not going to get a person a job. The people doing hiring expect interviewees to come with lots of data about a company and a desire to demonstrate knowledge about the nooks and crannies or at least the very latest updates of what is happening in the world and in the company itself. The same should hold true for anyone interviewing with an alum or with an admission officer.

Once a student receives the name of the interviewer, immediately Google them. Find out every fact you can. See if there are common data sets (and at some level there always are). These will be places where the person is much more likely to respond in a positive way as you both have certain tribal ties (a phrase I borrow from anthropology and evolutionary biology). If your interviewer was a star of his or her Lacrosse team at the college and you are the captain of your team's highly ranked Lacrosse team, then you are already halfway there to having a smoother route to a conversation.

I have said this in other places, but I will say it here too. Interviews are best when they are a relaxed conversation. Some interviewers follow a structured of set questions. Some want to meander. It does not really matter as long as the student picks up quickly on this. But here is the sad truth: interviews are forgettable. At least for me. I hate to say this but it is true. There are people I have interviewed that if I was hauled into court the following week and asked what that person was like I could swear on oath I had never met them (unless I consulted notes). This is not so odd or even a sign of early onset Alzheimer’s. Most people say the same things in the same way as everyone else. They are generic. And even then our mind wanders. Or it will, unless the conversation, and it should be thought of as such, is interesting.

Every interview is a conversation and every conversation, is at some level an interview. In both cases we are assessing the information that gets exchanged, both consciously and unconsciously. The statements are backed up by reams of brain research. If certain parts of our brain heat up during a conversation, this means our bodies, even prior to our minds, are creating pathways that stick with us. People like Sam Harris would say that our internal wiring and external life experiences act on us prior to consciousness; essentially, for him, we are robots wired react and act in certain ways. If even some of this is accurate, then stimuli, which students and job seekers can input, will trigger a positive reaction that actually happens faster than consciousness itself. No, this is not some silly hypnotherapy infomercial, but it is possible to play the statistical odds and use data research to find out ways of establishing common ground.

Let’s say that you find out that your interviewer is a cognitive scientist. It might prove useful for you to read some articles on the topic, maybe even a book, and then navigate the conversation onto that topic. If you come across as informed, passionate and interested in a topic in which your interviewer is an expert you are much more likely to receive a positive review. To some people what I am proposing may sound like a scam. Actually what it means is that a student may learn a great deal about a topic they did not know much about. It is an educational assignment. It also teaches people how to read others, a skill that often is essential.

If you pay attention to body cues you can tell if you have just said something potentially off-putting or potentially interest giving. In other words, a student needs to be keenly aware of the world and the words in the immediate moment. You are reading and reacting. And so are they.

If all this sounds all too calculated, it isn’t quite as bad as it sounds. If nothing else, I think an interview should be fun. People doing the interviewing tend to be smart, committed to education, and willing to do unpaid service. Most are not out to test you as much as to let you take the lead in a dance that can be a tango a two step or  a Steve Aoli club mix freestyle. (Probably not the latter, but then it depends on the school and depends on the interviewer.)

I have always advised students to take risks in writing and I will say the same might be true in an interview. Let’s say an alum from a school that recently got caught by US News for fudging numbers asks if you have any questions: would you dare to come up with a question about rankings that would be both interesting and challenging? Could the interviewer be offended? You bet. Could they admire your courage, you bet. Will they be able to identify you in court the following week either way? You bet.

If the point of an interview is then to make an impression (and the etymology of this word is useful since it underscores that our words and demeanor will trigger physiological imprints in the brain), then it is up to a student or job seeker to get in front of someone as often as possible. Here is a secret that should be spread far and wide. An interview is an assessment no matter what. Even in those cases in which it is stated that interviews are  ‘informational’. For those not familiar with this term, many colleges and universities and some businesses permit people to set up interviews, but these opportunities are said to be solely for the purpose of gathering information. In other words, rather than being assessment based, this type of interview is a chance for a person to ask questions and to hear a bit more detail about a school or firm than what is said in brochures or information sessions and tours. Again, however, the research on the brain and my own experience has taught me that what is put out for public consumption is not always the most accurate information.

If someone, in an informational interview, talks in ways that demonstrates expertise, mastery, confidence and ‘aura’ it makes an impression. In travelling with very highly selective schools that promote only ‘informational’ interviews, I have seen them note names of stars they have talked to. If this appears misleading, maybe it is, but since most interviews are not exceptional, the goal is not to mislead. Most do not alter chances. On the other hand, if your interpersonal skills stand out and you know it, then it is your responsibility to get in front of as many people as you can. It could be at the end of a tour, it could be in an informational interview, or it could even be in an email. Whatever the case, every interaction, as I have said before, is part of a longer conversation that is part of your presentation to the world.

Maybe one example will help. In a group presentation held in Shanghai in which a small group of highly selective schools presented brief overviews and answered questions, a student came up to me before the formal presentations and said the following: “I live in the city of Hubei and just took a train here over night to come and talk to you and a few others about your schools". Unfortunately, I will have to leave before the sessions ends because I have to catch the overnight train back in order not to miss school tomorrow.” She did not do the math, but I did. She travelled over 24 hours in a train to come hear schools talk for an hour. She asked great questions and left her contact information with us. She then followed up via email and sent supplements to her application, which demonstrated a range of talents from art to an interest in Modernist Literature. Even the schools that said they use only informational interviews were impressed with her to such an extent that they wrote her name down and also followed through with her until decision time. She was accepted at every school in par because of her academics ad over performance but also in part because she was willing to travel across the country in order to spend a few minutes with us. She has just been accepted at one of Wall Street’s big name investment banks after majoring in art history, economics, and mathematics.

And just to re-emphasize this one more time, our minds make assessments before our conscious selves do and if you can make an impression that sticks in the brain of someone in a position of power, it is impossible to forget. The thought experiment, which is often used, is that of a pink elephant. If I tell you that your life depends on not thinking of a pink elephant, no matter what, for the next hour, you are likely not going to succeed. Once the seed of knowledge has been planted and nurtured it is hard not to have it grow or at least survive a passage of time or the rubric of something like ‘informational.’ And many schools not track interest as a part of their assessments, so when visiting places do not just give a name, give them a face and some well chosen words and questions to go along with an email you have left behind to prove you have visited.

The object of an interview may be, for some, survival, and that is unfortunate. Talking with people is the way I have learned almost everything I know in terms of reading people. I have read more books and articles than most, but these pale in terms of living in the world and making actions happen between minds other than my own. I can safely say the best interviews I have had with students are still safely stored in my internal memory base, and will be, for as long as my neural network is running relatively normally. For example, I can tell you that the conversation—an interview with a student I will blog about in the near future—I had last Sunday will not leave me as long as I breathe. This student knew more about why religious unrest in Nigeria will not likely spread in anything close to the same way in Ghana. (If this interests you look at the history of Caliphates in Africa). 

Details and stories. One of several mantras I trot out as often as I can: we are our stories. We all have great stories. I talked with a student last week who said, before a job interview, she had no great stories. She was way wrong. She had a great story about saving someone from drowning and had other great stories about working at McDonalds. If you know how to tell a story then any experience can be interesting. If you cannot knit nouns and verbs, predicates and subordinate clauses, then you need to begin to learn how. We are story telling animal (to cite the name of a wonderful book), and we need to take what we have in our heads and present it in a compelling way. Each of is a subset of one. Or at least that is what I tell a student to become in an interview. You are in possession of details and experiences that would knock the socks off someone. Which story, which approach, is subject to discussion. Or negotiation. Or practice. Or, as they say in SAT speak, all of the above.
 

Voynich Manuscript