Interviews, Part 3: footsteps, parables, and practice

Practice never makes perfect. Perfection is not of this world (as philosophers since Socrates well knew and preached). Practice is simply another word for learning. And learning, like education, is a journey, mental and otherwise. Unlike some ‘abstruser musings’, better left to philosphers,  practice is akin, linguistically and pragmatically, to the practical. After thousands of hours of conducting interviews over several decades I believe I can give at least a few practical pieces of advice for those just beginning both to learn the rules of interviews (see Part I and II), and to play the game well.

Find a mentor. A mentor is someone who has experience with interviews. These mentors come in many shapes and ages.

A great mentor might be a student who has just been through the alumni (or job, or selective student group) interview process him or herself. You should select a person who you deem as a winner and a kindred soul. Winners are not the ones who get into every school or get 20 job offers, but a record of success is certainly one way to help you narrow the field of people who seem to know what works. But, and this is a big but, the person you pick has to be a player who competes in your league. What does this mean? If you pick the Intel winning record breaking Lacrosse player who also saves kitties from trees and does HBO stand up specials then you may have a great time talking with them but you will not likely learn much except you perhaps humility. You need to pick someone with a common data set. I do not mean a clone, I simply mean someone with whom you share certain traits. 

I am hesitant to be more specific as I do think each of us can learn a great deal from virtually anyone else; nevertheless, in terms of interviews, having a mentor who has shared certain cultural and life experiences indicates you may be placed in a similar group of candidates when being interviewed. What I am explicitly not advising is for you to try to imitate the answers the mentor may have given and then shared with you. I think there is an ethical line between learning from what someone else did and paraphrasing what someone else said or did in your own interview. The number of factors that a mind doing the interviewing is assessing numbers in the hundreds of millions if we take a neural count, so just mouthing the same words may not in any way elicit the same response to another person or even the same person. On the other hand, hearing the way the format works, the kinds of questions asked, and the overall description of the process are all invaluable tools. But tools come with instructions and warnings too.

If fellow students are sometimes good mentors, people in career services offices or those who work in guidance offices in high schools, or even knowledgeable teachers all can help students prepare for interviews. They too will give basic advice like I have just given. They too will impart useful knowledge. Seek them out. Be assertive. The latter two things are skill sets that people look for in students and employees. It is good practice to reach out and network.

At one of the magnet schools I visited in China I conducted 14 interviews in a day and I can still remember almost all of them. They were, as a group, the most impressive set of interviews I have ever been a part of. I asked the principle how each of her students could be so impressive; she replied that the school had trained them over many days and many hours. The cliché 'take pride in your work' applies to learning interview skills. Think of it as a sport. Picking up a new sport almost always begins with basic and boring stuff. Endless repetitions, and endless practices. But slowly the body learns and teaches the brain. And now there is much data to support the same is true even in more cognitive activities. In other words, it is body preparation that creates a ready mind either in tennis or in an interview.

The  ‘Je ne sais quoi’ Mystery

We all have an aura. We have all met people who command the room. And we have all met people who seem to want to be invisible. Is it possible to teach an invisible man to command a room? Maybe not, as we are genetically wired and have years of life training that largely form who we are by the age of 17. But practice works. A dead fish handshake is not something hard to change. A smile and confident eye contact are easy too. 

By the time the formal greetings are over the person doing the interviewing has already, consciously and unconsciously, made a huge number of assessments. Those first 20 seconds are, like the opening of a commercial or a youtube video, going to determine if what follows will be entertaining. Mentally, an interviewer may have already revved up for something fun or already be thinking about dinner and kids and who knows what else.

For example, one of the things that the national business fraternity, AKPsi, does with its new members is to teach them interview basics. And by this I don't mean answering questions. Instead, they start from the ground up. They evaluate the way a student walks in the room, the eye contact, and the handshake. And I think they are absolutely right for doing so. Studies with what I would call scientifically based data demonstrate that humans make instant classifications when meeting someone. This helped for survival in hunter-gatherer days and it still helps, sometimes, in a world in which we are meeting endless streams of people in life. Friend or foe might be the rubric.
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 Freud, The Family Romance, and Hardball:

Students should spend lots of time talking to adults. It is great practice. The language a student uses with adults should not be the demotic argot of current phrases passed effortlessly among peers as code for entry into the young adult club.

Everyone knows this but knowing and doing are often at odds. Some of you know just what I mean. You are at dinner with mom and Dad.

Dad/Mom: How as your day?

You: OK. (Followed by sullen look which those familiar with Latin phrase would call the Noli Me Tangere aura).

Dad/Mom: Well, how was practice?

You: All right. Coach K made us do endless reps. It kinda sucked.

Dad/Mom: Do you have to use that word?

You: I could think of worse

Dad/Mom/You; (long pause, looks exchanged, sounds of mastication echo across walls).

Dad/Mom: Are you...

You (interrupting) Do we have to have this endless conversation? I have tons of work, a test tomorrow, a game the next day, test prep, and then the academy awards party. I’m going to my room.

Studies show that single children often are better at things like interviews simply because they have spent countless hours around a dinner table talking to grown-ups. And not in the way I have just created above. Growing up with grown-ups often means that there is more trust and more comfort. These two qualities make it much easier to hold a conversation, with parents or interviewers.

 I have interviewed hundreds of students from China. If this counts as a form of data-gathering and research, then I can say that the one child policy has prepared many of these students to feel completely at ease with an adult even in a second language.

But the emotional baggage we all have with family made Freud a household name so it might be better to find a trusted adult to converse with and practice answering questions. But again, find someone who has some experience either conducting interviews or who has had recent success interviewing.

If you are brave and willing to risk putting yourself in a situation that will require mental and verbal acuity, trust, and faith, then I would advise trying to find a wild card. A wild card is someone who thinks the Socratic method of questioning is still about the best way of learning. But almost anyone who ever came in contact with a disciple of Socrates will say that some of the questions were incredibly tough and some were downright intrusive. Nevertheless, most will say that they learned how to respond well to any question anyone might ask.

I work with students on interviews I make it clear from the outset that I have absolutely no filter. I will ask anything and expect an answer. I tell students that if anything makes them uncomfortable, then it is their responsibility to speak up. If this sounds like a worst nightmare scenario it usually isn’t. Questions can range from the typical: favorite class and teacher and subject soft balls to the ninety five mile an hour fastball I have hurled hundreds of times: “Are some cultures better than others?”

I recently asked this question on Quora.com and received some opposing responses. That is the point. In real time, when I ask this question, I follow up the answer, whether it is yes or no, by challenging my interviewee with every rhetorical tool I have. Sometimes the debate gets heated. And sometimes I change my mind based upon what I have heard. And sometimes the interviewee does too. 

 I learn what students think and then I want to challenge their assumptions. People who learn to go through tough training are ready to perform well in a game situation. Practicing with easy questions will increase comfort and while this is certainly useful, stepping up to answer zingers from someone will prepare you for almost anything. But answering tough questions is only one part of the equation necessary to solve the space/time quandary that is the dark matter of interviews. The real secret is yet to come.
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Final Chapter: In an upcoming entry, I will address the most important pat of the interview process: how to become a subset of one with words instead of formulas.