The Power Of Always Saying Less Than Necessary

Just a few words in 30 minutes

Several years ago I had an interview for a research position at the university I was attending. The Professor I was going to speak with was known to be a very stern man.

A friend of mine had interviewed for the same position a few days prior and failed. He said that the professor had hammered him with technical questions to put the pressure on, and he crumbled.

When I walked into the room and sat down in front of him, he had this serious look on his face, as if he really meant business. If I was going to get this job, I would need to come up with a different strategy than my friend had.

After the introductions, I took the initiative to ask him “can you tell me more about your research?” It was a casual question aimed at getting him to talk about his own work.

And so he did, explaining what his research was all about and the great importance of it. The whole time, I sat in silence, just listening and absorbing everything. Every once in a while when he said something very interesting, I’d physically lean in and smile a bit to show him I was interested.

This was great so far! The meeting was scheduled for half an hour and we’d already gone through about 10 minutes by the time he finished talking.

My plan was working and I genuinely found the work quite interesting. I decided to ask an even deeper follow-up question that he could talk more about. I asked him: “Where could we really take this research over the next five years to have a high impact.”

He was practically beaming to answer it. He smiled, sat up in his chair, and took a deep dive into all the nitty-gritty details.

At that point, I knew this was going extremely well. I sat there, quietly and patiently, just listening. In fact, the only time I ever made a sound was when I’d nod and say “right”, to make sure he knew I was paying attention.

As the clock ticked past the 30th minute, he said to me: “Looks like our time is up, but you seem great for this position. Do you think you’d be able to start before the sprint break?”

Related posts:

Ascend is very excited to introduce our newest member, Hendrik Hofstadt (slamper), a Software Engineer. Hendrik, of Germany, brings an impressive resume to Ascend and the Lisk Community. Hendrik was…

Toyota is a Japan automobile manufacturer company. Toyota was established on August 28, 1937. It’s giving financial services and participating with other lines of the business. It makes vehicles…

Staring at a pile of debt can be terrifying. It is particularly rough if you only make the minimum payments monthly while feeling your debt is not getting any less. When I explained this to a friend…