17 Help Wanted: Master of Brevity
Talk to the point and stop when you have reached it. —F. V. Irish

Long story, short. Interviews are moments to have controlled conversations, not nervous monologues.

Not the Time for Anxious Rambling
Even the most well-prepared and accomplished professionals go into job interviews nervous and self-conscious

Brevity plays a key role during an interview. It helps you stand out clearly from the others, ask good questions, and listen.
When people get nervous, they start talking—a lot. If you’ve ever interviewed people, you can see it as they ramble on about themselves. They want to get as much information across as they possibly can.
An interview is a time for control, discipline, and awareness. Don’t pour it on. Make a positive impression in the first 5 minutes. Stay in the moment, and be in a conversation.
You may be the best candidate in the world on paper. But if you’re not careful in person, you can flush away everything that you’ve worked for.

Brevity is a gauge of talent
Unemployment is a persistent issue, especially among recent college graduates. According to global talent management expert Dorothy Dalton, brevity is the secret to a good interview. “Brevity shows that you understand the interview is about creating a dialogue,” Dalton says. “It allows you to conquer nerves and facilitates strategy. If you are concise, you target your responses accordingly.”

Brevity is your weapon—and it starts with the résumé. Trim it, highlight your successes, and put them in context. Don’t give them five pages about your entire professional and educational history. Write a good, pointed cover letter that leaves your interviewer with that single defining idea of why you’re the best fit.
Good interviews live the principles of BRIEF. You are short and to the point. You make it easy for your potential employer to understand who you are, where you’ve come from, and why you’ve been successful.
You can tell your story quickly. People understand that you and your résumé are the same. You can also sit down with someone and comfortably talk about yourself without sounding as if you’re delivering a sales pitch.
You’ve taken time to prepare. You know to stop and ask good questions during the interview because you’re listening for clues about what is important to them.

Nobody likes interviews. In fact, some interviewers do most of the talking because they’re nervous, too. There’s an opportunity for interviewers to be brief as well. If they can talk less, ask better questions, and be better listeners, they will get an even better gauge of the person they are interviewing.
In this chapter, I’ll explore those moments when you can be much more mindful of brevity—ensuring that you get your dream job or that your
position gets filled with just the right person.

Asking a really good question is a great way to be brief

An effective way to speak less is to act like a journalist. Seasoned Chicago radio news reporter Charlie Meyerson suggests that we view a conversation as an interview: “Do your homework. Have an idea in advance of what you hope to get out of it—even though good interviews often reveal things you didn’t expect. Be ready to listen for answers that open your eyes to questions you hadn’t planned to ask.”

Let Others Lead the Conversation
As we’ve discussed, brevity plays a big role in business, particularly when trying to get your foot in the door. People tend to make some common mistakes in terms of being brief while interviewing, on both sides of the table.
A close friend of mine, Doug Hinderer, is the head of human resources at the National Association of Realtors (NAR). He’s spent more than 20 years as a senior leader at the helm of an organization that certifies millions of real estate professionals as Realtors, the official designation of an NAR member.
Over the course of his tenure, he has seen it all.
“The most common mistake a candidate makes in an interview is talking too much,” he observes. “A trained, skilled interviewer is usually very good at using silence—[and it can make] candidates very uncomfortable if the interviewer isn’t firing questions back. More often than not, they find a way to step into it and make a big mistake to keep talking and talking and talking.”
According to Doug, it’s just a matter of time until an undisciplined interviewee either says something stupid or reveals too much information.
“When I talk to people about how to interview for a job, I tell them to look at it like a tennis match. The interviewer is going to serve up a question. Respond to it, be done with it, and wait for the next question.”
Being brief during an interview demonstrates that you are a disciplined communicator and a team player.
Talking Your Way out of a Job Offer
It’s painful to hear but true; great candidates often talk their way out of a perfect position.
Tom Earnhardt, a close friend and accomplished officer at Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was once interviewing candidates for a vacant position in his department.
One woman came highly recommended by one of Earnhardt’s previous supervisors. She had endorsements from many influential people in the department.

Her screening went perfectly. She aced a series of psychological tests, a thorough background check, and physical training tests. She had all of the prerequisites. Everyone was in her corner. Basically, all she had to do was go through the interview, and she had the job.
“We interviewed one female candidate and one male candidate in order to be fair, even though we knew walking in the door we were planning on hiring her,” Earnhardt said.
The woman came in, sat down, and they began to talk. “Right out of the gate her answers were fine,” Earnhardt said.
And then someone asked her, “Why do you want to work here?”
She replied, “I think this would be a very beneficial step to help round me out as a leader.”
Her answer made Earnhardt pause.
“We all were a bit taken back by that,” Earnhardt said. “You’re in our department because you want to be here, to be part of this team.”

That response led to another round of questions. The more the panel asked about her reason for applying for the job, the more fixated on herself she became.
“It was a spiral effect,” Earnhardt said. “She began to talk about herself and her aspirations. She expected to be on the battalion command list in a number of years, so this would be only a two-year commitment.
“The fascinating part was she didn’t realize it. Her answers were leading to more questions that she perceived as interest in her.”

The panel then specifically asked about her jobs while she was deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“In an organization like ours, the last thing an applicant wants people to start doing in that sort of setting is digging,” Earnhardt told me. “And she was consistently in supervisory jobs rather than in practice jobs. We began to discover no one had ever put her in a job where she actually had to practice her art.”
This is a perfect example of an undisciplined interviewee who failed to guide the conversation down the right path.
“She completely misread the audience and perceived that we were more interested than alarmed,” Earnhardt said. “Probably the best thing she could’ve done was shut up, because frankly, she had the job. All she had to do was walk in there and not drop a hand grenade in the room.”
Finally, the panel sent her to a waiting room. They told her, “We’ve got one more interview to conduct, and then we’ll let you know.”
The male applicant’s appearance was not what one would expect for someone applying for a job in Earnhardt’s command. It became clear as soon as he began to answer questions, however, that he understood not only the organization but also its critical mission better than the first candidate.
“We could see the tide turning very quickly,” Earnhardt said. “I’d never had this happen to me before—had someone who came so highly recommended completely reverse me, and someone who I was predisposed to not want turn me around.”
They hired the second candidate, who is now the chief of the directorate.

All business professionals can learn from this interviewee’s mistakes.
“Know your audience when you’re briefing,” Earnhardt says. “That applicant didn’t realize the level of expertise that was sitting across the table. She had no grasp of the commitment expected to the command. She didn’t understand her audience, and she talked too much.”
Interviews aren’t supposed to be monologues. They’re dialogues. Engage in give-and-take conversations.
Long story, short. Interviews are moments to have controlled conversations, not nervous monologues.
By applying brevity to an interview—regardless of what side of the table you’re on—you’ll be seen as a professional team player that practices discipline and self-control. Here are a few considerations to prepare for an interview:

For the Candidate:
• Be prepared. Create a BRIEF Map that quickly explains why you’re qualified.
• Tell a story. Have a few snapshots of successes that you can share.
• Keep it conversational. Listen closely, ask good questions, and make sure it’s a balanced dialogue.

For the Interviewer:
• Listen closely. Notice how the candidate’s Elusive 600 might be leaking and what it tells—positively or negatively—about him or her.

• Sandwich the better questions. Put the meat of the interview into the middle so you’re more comfortable and you are not rushing at the end.
• Don’t sell. If you believe the candidate is strong, don’t start hyping the benefits of the opportunity