Interview Secrets, Part II-B: Control the flow.
You must map it out for the best interview score
Top 1Ls,
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This week is a continuation from last week’s topic. Let us know if you have any questions or comments!
Recap: Bad interview situations = opportunities
Last week we saw that there are many interview situations that can end up being bad for your prospects. A tired, stressed interviewer. Bad interview questions. Directionless conversation led by the interviewer.
Most law students will just follow the interviewer’s lead in these situations. Ironically, that will not increase their chances of getting a callback. But you - with the right mindset and a better approach - will be able to rise above the crowd.
To get to the right mindset imagine things from the interviewer’s perspective. This includes understanding that there could be many external factors - such as firm politics, the interviewer’s own professional situation or a previous bad interviewee - that can be making the interviewer react in a manner not helpful to your objectives. The main idea being that it may not be about you, it’s about them. This will give you a bit more mental room to think proactively and adopt a better approach.
Thus, instead of completely following the interviewer’s lead, you must learn to:
Interview Secret #2: Control the flow.
So how do you steer the conversation ship in the direction most beneficial for you, without sabotaging your own chances even more?
Let’s examine the first four situations we looked at last week, one by one:
Ex 1: The tired, stressed interviewer
You’re super enthusiastic about XYZ law firm, but when you meet the screening interviewers from that law firm, the partner starts the interview with… a yawn. And the dude cannot stop yawning.
The interviewer is tired, bored or stressed. It is now on you to control the flow by getting the energy up in the conversation. You can achieve this by inserting simple questions throughout your responses to create a more interactive experience with your interviewer.
For example, let’s say the interviewer asks you about your favorite course in law school and it happens to be Constitutional Law. You want to make the conversation more dynamic, so you can start your response from a different angle:
“I initially didn’t think I would enjoy Con Law, because my interests really were in the commercial world and I didn’t really think it was very relevant for my career…”
And then:
“But it ended up being my favorite subject. Do you know what did it for me?”
This not a real question - it is just an invitation, a nudge to the interviewer to be more engaged in the conversation. They will simply permit you to continue your narrative.
Small nudges like these will increase the interviewer’s level of interaction. Adding moderate hand gestures and appropriate body language can enhance the effect of nudges like these to increase the interaction level in the conversation, possibly allowing more information to flow from you to the interviewer.
Ex 2: Open-ended and abstract questions
The interview is punctuated by abstract, completely open-ended questions, such as “Tell me about yourself” or “Who are you” or “What’s your goal in life”.
While these are some of the most annoying questions, they actually present some of the best opportunities for you to direct the conversation to a place of strength.
The key is to come prepared with concrete ideas about how you want to position yourself and where your strengths are, and exclusively focus on those specific points. As mentioned earlier, each such “claim” must be supported by some kind of evidence that you can discuss, in the form of an anecdote or story about what has happened to you in the past.
Question: “Tell me about yourself.”
BAD response: “I was born in South Carolina but grew up in Brooklyn. I went to school at Trinity…”
While this sort of response is still within the technical bounds of what the question is asking, it is a very bad response (despite being quite the typical one). Providing specificity on matters that are at best tangentially relevant is wasting your and the interviewer’s valuable time and attention (remember, you only have a few minutes to answer each question). A GOOD response would immediately direct the attention of the interviewer to something highly relevant for your interview:
Question: “Tell me about yourself.”
GOOD response: “When I was in the military, I had an experience that changed me and the kind of career I wanted to have…” OR “I served as a volunteer high school tutor in Harlem for 2 years and that experience completely changed my perspective on the kind of career I want to have…”
GOOD because it presents a topic that is less common (not many served in the military or served as volunteer high school tutors in Harlem) and hones in on what the purpose of the story is (how those experiences changed you and your career perspective, which is highly relevant for the interview). What you’re also doing is bringing the conversation closer towards your goal of presenting your strengths. In the two good examples above, the candidates might be thinking of these qualities or narratives:
leadership and dealing with challenges in the military
willingness to serve others and how teams can achieve things individuals cannot
As mentioned before, saying “I am willing to serve others” is much less meaningful than presenting facts about your past in the form of an anecdote that proves that you are willing to do so. You must make them think it without saying it first. So whatever qualities you are trying to present, it is imperative that you think carefully about how you will show the interviewer you possess that quality.
Ex 3: Curveball questions
The interviewer asks seemingly nonsensical, curveball questions like “If you were an animal, what would it be and why?” or “Who or what would you take with you if you knew you were going to be stuck on a remote island away from civilization?”
Seemingless nonsensical, curveball questions happen much more often than you would assume, and when they are asked, 99% of the interviewees will fumble because it’s likely not going to be in the mix of questions they prepared for. This doubly highlights the need to control the flow of the conversation towards your strengths and the need to think in advance what those strengths should be. For questions like these, the immediate answer at hand almost does not matter so long as the why behind the answer is desirable.
Question: “If you were an animal, what would it be and why?”
GOOD Responses: [Assume interviewee has in mind leadership as a quality they want to present]
“I would be a cheetah because cheetahs are fast, and leaders are required to think and respond quickly in difficult situations.”
“I would be a monkey because monkeys have the ability to jump from tree to tree without losing balance, and leaders are required to seamlessly transition between different situations to keep their teams performing well.”
The immediate answer (cheetah, monkey, etc.) is not important. It’s the why behind it that is. At the same time, the key to responding to these nonsensical, curveball questions is to provide a reasonably thought-provoking response that is BRIEF. If you go too deep into why cheetahs or why monkeys, you’ll be falling into a trap. You’re following the Pied Piper.
Instead, you should shift gears, change the topic slightly, to bring focus to the conversation in a way beneficial to you. You want to do this in a subtle way, without offending them. Asking for permission is one of the best ways to do this.
An IDEAL response may go like this:
“[Answers the question at hand:] I would be a cheetah because cheetahs are fast, and leaders are required to think and respond quickly in difficult situations. [Transition:] Can I tell you about some situations I needed to deal with as a volunteer teacher?”
The question gives them the illusion that they are controlling the conversation when their approval is almost required while allowing you to transition to your talking points.
Ex 4: When interviewer doesn’t ask you enough questions
During an interview, with about 10 minutes left, the partner asks you if you have any questions for her. You ask your questions. She answers them. You still have 7 minutes left. You’re out of questions and the partner doesn’t have any questions for you. You’re horrified because this is your favorite firm.
In situations where both you and the interviewer might exhaust prepared conversation topics, you must again bring the conversation back to an area of strength. If there is no immediate topic or question to piggyback on, you should consider framing a question in the general area of your strength that would require a longer response. If it’s leadership, you can ask about questions like:
In what ways would you say leadership in the law firm context is different from other contexts?
What kind of leadership qualities would you look for in junior associates?
Answers to both of these questions should provide ample opportunity for you to bring the conversation to what you want to talk about - your leadership qualities and the experiences that support those qualities. In such situations, it’s important to appear genuine when you ask the question and as you listen to their answers, without giving the impression you only asked it to talk about what you want to talk about.
Summary: Have a clear map and steer with nudges and questions
Ultimately, the key to overcoming terrible interview situations is to have a clear internal map of the things you want to talk about, in case the conversation does not go in the direction you want it to go. And when you steer the conversation, you must steer it with subtle nudges rather than sudden jerks, through questions rather than unilateral monologues.
In an upcoming issue, we will go over how to create the best internal map and talking points based on what qualities are appreciated most in the law firm setting.