The Rooms · 02 of 12
The Job Interview
A room where they mostly decide whether they like you inside four minutes and then spend fifty-six looking for evidence.
What they’re reading
Whether you'd embarrass them in front of a client. Whether you want this specific job or any job. Whether you're already operating at the level, or asking to be promoted into it.
What to wear
One notch above the office dress code. Never two.
If they're in t-shirts, you're in a knit polo and good trousers. If they're in button-downs, you're in a jacket. If they're in suits, you're in a suit. Never a full suit at a company that hasn't seen one since 2015, because overdressing by two notches reads as badly as underdressing by one. It says you don't know the industry.
Check their careers page and their team photos before you decide. Ten minutes of looking beats guessing.
What to bring
Nothing you need two hands for. A slim folio or nothing at all. A printed resume you will probably never take out, which is fine, because having it and not needing it is the point.
When to arrive
In the lobby fifteen minutes early. Announce yourself at seven. Arriving to reception twenty minutes early makes somebody's morning awkward and they will mention it.
The first sixty seconds
A firm handshake and direct eye contact. Use their name once. “Thanks for making the time.” Then stop talking and let them lead.
The most common failure in the first minute is filling silence. Let it sit. Comfortable silence reads as confidence and almost nobody can do it.
How to act
Listen for
what they keep coming back to. If they've circled the same problem three separate times, that's the actual job, whatever the posting said. Listen to how they talk about the person who left, because it tells you what happens to people in that seat. And listen for whether they say “we” or “they” about their own company.
When you speak
answer, then stop. Most candidates lose the room by continuing past the end of a good answer, filling the pause with a worse version of what they just said. Save your questions for the end, but ask one good one in the middle. It turns an interrogation into a conversation and it changes the temperature of the whole hour.
How you speak
specific over impressive. Numbers, names of things, what you actually did. Sixty to ninety seconds an answer. Never “I'm really passionate about.” Passion is a claim. Say what you did and what happened, and let them draw the conclusion.
Your body
sit back, not forward. Forward reads as eager, and eager reads as available rather than wanted. Hands still, on the table or in your lap. Whatever you do when you're nervous, you're doing it right now, so find out what it is before you go.
The thing you can't fake
the failure question. Everybody gives the safe one, the failure that's secretly a strength. Give a real one with a real cost and what it changed about how you work. It's the answer they'll repeat to the hiring committee, and it's the only part of the hour that sounds like a person.
The mistake
Dressing for the job you have. You're not being evaluated on where you've been. Dress for the room you're trying to get into.
The guide
All twelve rooms,
with the drawings.
Fifty-eight pages. Free, and there is no email field.