Whether you’re fresh out of education or at any stage on your lifelong career trajectory, any season of the year can be a nerve-wracking interview season. If you’re in the job hunt zone and busy stressing about how to prepare for all those interview invitations that we hope and trust are coming your way, don’t worry!! WE’VE GOT YOU!! We have all the interview advice you need to get out of your head and into the job of your dreams.
If you want to perform the best you possibly can in your interview process, you need to understand why interviews are conducted in the first place.
Think about the information they already have on you. Depending on where you're aiming for, prospective employers may write one or more essays from college, your resume, your grades and scores, and recommendations. Your grades and scores speak for themselves. These institutions know how successful you’ve been in an academic environment. With your resume and LinkedIn profile, they also know the companies you worked for, job descriptions and titles you held, whether and how fast you were promoted, and the key accomplishments you achieved in those roles. So they have a pretty good sense of how well you’ve been able to perform at work, what your attainable career aspirations may be relevant to the context of their company culture, your growth mindset potential, and so on.
Your recommendations and essays even add a bit of color commentary—they’ve hopefully gleaned a sense of your personality and the way you approach challenge and achievement. So why not just admit who you are and be yourself?
Organizations will always interview because they need to assess your human skills — your emotional intelligence, communication, and relationship-building abilities. They need to know if you are likeable. Someone who can connect and communicate effectively with others will be a coveted candidate.
Said another way: Your prospective organization needs to be sure you won’t be the rotten apple, the one person who makes the workplace miserable for everyone else. And there’s no reliable way to gauge this on paper.
Keep in mind that candidate-selection calculus is slightly different for organizations vs. schools. However, what can define a strong candidate is that they understand that being highly qualified isn’t enough. What sets top candidates apart is their ability to connect. Strong candidates know that interviews aren’t just about proving competence—they’re about demonstrating compatibility. That’s where emotional intelligence and likeability become powerful differentiators.
As long as you clear the bar of skill and intelligence required to make it through an interview process, your long-term success (in the program and far beyond) will be determined by how well you can function in the organization’s culture—that is, how well you rally support, win friends, influence people, and gain the respect of your peers. In other words, how likable you are.
Organizations are looking for a portfolio of candidates, so they will take the set of applicants that they like from the overall pool and then choose the subset that’s most qualified from the set of applicants they like. This decision process isn’t scientific, and it’s also why they need interviews in addition to your resume and sometimes even essays and additional recommendations.
The point of the interview is not just to validate that you are who you say you are on paper; it’s to ascertain if you’re likeable and will be a culture fit.
This is why it’s possible to get into prestigious roles even if you have a terrible test score. Because who you are as a complete human being and how that fits with organizational objectives and culture is more important than the parts of you that can be reduced to a number.
I’ve asked thousands of people about their biggest interview concerns. Most interviewees are concerned about things like looking good, saying the right things, impressing the interviewer, appearing to be the perfect candidate (or at least a strong candidate), not being boring—and, my personal favorite—seeming awesome without seeming arrogant.
These kinds of fears are pretty universal and, honestly, pretty well-founded. Whether you’re conscious of it or not, you probably know that one of the most important aspects of a successful interview is building rapport.
At BCG, we actually had a thing called the “Airport Test” that was a big part of candidate assessment. It goes something like this: If your flight was grounded and you were forced to spend hours on end with this prospective coworker (or classmate), would you enjoy yourself? Take it from me—the question every interviewer asks themself is this: “If I’m snowed in at O’Hare with this person, am I going to want to gouge my eyes out or will it be a pretty good time?”
What you might not realize, however, is that these fears (and the all-too-understandable desire to seem perfect) often get in the way of establishing rapport with your interviewer.
It’s more like a test drive. The organization is evaluating the user experience of being in your company. They need to see how you interface with other humans, how you communicate and bond. They might even decide to test you under difficult conditions to see how you perform under pressure. That’s why some interviewers give you a poker face. They want to see how you respond. Can you maintain your cool? Can you still be inspiring?
It’s not about being a sterling conversationalist. The specific hobbies or interests you have, the particular idiosyncrasies or conversational preferences you’ve developed, your personality type and communication style are irrelevant.
Even if you fear that you might be too shy, awkward, or introverted to be singled out as a “likable” candidate, the ability to make a genuine human connection is a gift we all share. It doesn't all hang on a firm handshake and persistent eye contact. Likeability is something we’re born with. Likeability is the consequence of being an authentic and decent human being who connects with other people.
This is why it’s not really fair to call the Airport Test a test. It’s not about right or wrong. Self-expression and connection won’t make you perfect—and they don’t need to!!
That’s where the Friendship Mindset comes in. We’ve established that the interviewer isn’t a robot and there’s no objective criteria for likeability. So, what does all of this mean for you and your mindset in the interview?
Instead of focusing on getting the answers right, looking smart, seeming cool, or being the ideal candidate, focus on making a genuine human connection.
The Friendship Mindset is simply this:
Imagine that you are already friends with your interviewer, and you are just going to have one of many future conversations. Your only job in this conversation is to help your friend get to know you and your experiences a little better. If you aim to create a valuable relationship with your interviewer by being your authentic self, you’ll reveal your personality, genuineness, and vulnerabilities.
The Friendship Mindset has the very important added benefit of putting you totally at ease. At least, this is what I’ve found.
So how do you get into the Friendship Mindset? How do you treat the interviewer like they’re already your friend when they’re actually a complete stranger?
In order to get into the Friendship Mindset, you have to forget about your ultimate goal or objective of “getting the offer” or “getting in.” (It’s only for a little bit—promise you can do it!) That may sound completely counterintuitive. But here’s the logic: To some extent, whether you get into a program or not is out of your hands. You have no control over who else is applying, and ultimately no control over the interviewer’s decision. If you focus on your goal and on the high stakes involved, you’re back in the testing mindset. You’ll inherently feel judged, which will make you feel less inclined to strike up a friendship with the person sitting across from you and more inclined to defend yourself against imagined slights.
So just set aside the goal of getting “in” and instead focus on building a genuine relationship with every interviewer you encounter. Treat the interview questions as invitations to continue a conversation that the both of you are already enjoying having.
I’m not suggesting you put your feet on the desk and tell fart jokes. Be professional, but be yourself. Act how you would act on a normal day if you were already part of the team.
This way, best case scenario, the interviewer feels like they know you, trust you, and want to go to bat for you. They’ll enjoy the experience of talking to you, and want to have you in their working team.
Worst case scenario, you’ve made a professional friend. Life is long. You never know when old friends will be helpful to your future career steps.
It’s a win-win interview strategy, and attitude, and helps you to build a supportive community of professionals who are eager to support you and one another.
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