In career counseling we spend a lot of time coaching people to be more assertive and to speak up for themselves. In some cases, however, we need to coach people to spend more time listening. I interviewed someone for a job a few years ago, and once I asked my first question, I barely was able to get another question in at all. The candidate told me story after story about themselves in an over-caffeinated tempo that amazed me. I abandoned my list of questions and cut the interview short. Needless to say they did not get a second interview. Everyone gets nervous for a job interview, so if you are aware that you get more talkative when you are nervous, then it is a good idea to develop some other strategies for dealing with anxiety.
A good rule of thumb is that the interviewer should talk about 60 percent of the time and the interviewee should talk about 40 percent. This is because it should be a pretty even give and take since you each need to learn some things in order to make such an important decision like hiring. The interviewer usually needs to talk a little more because they need to orient you to the job, the company, the work and to ask you key questions.
The person being interviewed needs to keep the answers brief, focused and to the point. This conveys a sense of confidence and understanding of what the interviewer wants. The interview questions will usually be open ended questions, such as “tell me about a time when you had an important deadline and how you met it.” Hopefully you have prepared for this kind of question and you can answer with a summary (“I certainly understand how important deadlines are in this kind of work, and I have always been known to deliver on time and with great accuracy.”) and then tell a brief story that illustrates your point. (“I remember a time when we needed to complete an order in a big rush and I did X Y and Z to make it happen, and we met that deadline with two hours to spare.”)
The other extreme is when the interviewee doesn’t say enough to really sell themselves, but also doesn’t ask important questions to learn enough about the job and the company. I have been in job interviews where the interviewer wasn’t very skilled and talked way too much and didn’t have a chance to get to know me. Unfortunately, we run into unskilled interviewers all too often. Many companies don’t provide adequate training for their hiring managers.
In these cases the job seeker needs to be prepared to gently take over the interview and be sure to get all your key message points across. If the interviewer doesn’t ask the key question that allows you to talk about one of your main strengths, then you need to act as if they had, and politely tell them anyway. Some ways to do this are to say something like, “You may be wondering how I would do in a fast-paced operation such as this one. I am happy to say that working accurately at a rapid pace is one of my strengths and I much prefer being busy to being bored.” Another way to introduce it is to quote someone else. For example, “My previous supervisor always told me how much he appreciated my ability to multi-task in a very hectic environment.”
The power of listening is that it shows that you are interested, that you are thoughtful and that you are not just into yourself. Listen up, everyone!
