Become a Young Successful Entrepreneur

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You will notice that I write “stories” when I talk about interview answers. This is because stories are fun, conversational, and most importantly:

Stories Stick

When you talk with your best friend, you speak in statements and stories. An interview by nature is a question then answer, question then answer. You must break out of the typical question then answer format by creating a story with your answers. For example:

Interviewer: “So tell me about a time that you started something new.”

Me: “During my Winter quarter of 07 at UCLA, I established UCLA’s first consulting focused organization - Bruin Consulting. We had 12 board members, and we took it upon ourselves to start the monumental task of creating a stronger business presence at UCLA. I organized two board meetings every week so that we could discuss, argue, and fiercely debate how we would create a stronger business presence. Some of my board said that we should give recruitment tutoring lessons to individual students; it was a good idea, but we would never reach outside of the university this way. Other board members suggested that we should invite professional speakers every week to speak at UCLA; again, a great idea but every professional organization was doing the same thing. And then, it dawned upon me. What motivates students to try their hardest to gain recognition? A competition does. What are other schools currently organizing and participating in that UCLA Undergraduates are missing - a case competition. We decided to organize the first UCLA Undergraduate Case Competition. Case competitions require students to work in teams and are not limited to a specific year or major. Most importantly, they allow us to invite other schools to compete at our competition, and in turn, be invited to other case competitions which will accomplish our goal of creating a national business presence at UCLA.

This story is compelling and engages the interviewer because she eagerly awaits the outcome of the story. I set up the story with a need, a pain that undergraduates at UCLA had. I then described our methodology for finding the solution to the pain. I ask her questions such as, “What motivates students…” so that she feels like she is a part of my story and not just listening to it.

So now you have excellent eye contact and are telling stories to your interviewer. The final engagement strategy is to turn the interview into a conversation.

Lectures are boring!

There’s a reason why you fall asleep in class; a lecture is a one-way street. We usually don’t participate in the lecture which leads us to doze off and daydream about something much more exciting.

Similarly, if the interviewer is only asking you a question and then listening to your answer, there will come a point in your interview when she’ll start daydreaming about what she’s going to do after she gets off of work. In contrast, a fully engaged interview is a two-way street where you are answering her questions, adding comments, and asking her about her experiences. She in turn gives her input as well. In order to fully engage the interviewer, you will need to make her add comments and tell things about herself so that you can make a connection.

Here is an example of turning an interview question into a conversation. Let’s say the interviewer asks me a question. I respond by telling her a story about how I had to multi-task efficiently during the quarter that I was pledging for Delta Sigma Pi. I can easily turn this into a conversation after I tell her my answer by asking her, “Did you join any Sororities or Fraternities while you were in college?” It is that simple. This could create a conversation in multiple ways. I’ve even had an interviewer ask me how she could be in a Fraternity, and I follow by explaining that Delta Sigma Pi is a coed business fraternity.

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