Get A Huge "Yes" On The Airport Test
Today’s topic is very much on the “softer skills” side of things.
It’s about the part of the interview, largely unspoken, where the interviewer thinks, “If we get stuck in an airport together, will being with this person make it feel like 1 hour or 10 hours?”
The reality is that many jobs, particularly the type you’ll be targeting immediately post-grad, are highly competitive, and there are candidates who don’t get selected who could technically do the work.
But after the question of technical competence comes all the softer stuff, like their assessment of your judgment, your ability to manage clients down the road, and the fact that they’ll have to work with you.
And that is where we’re going to focus today.
Have you ever met someone who you are just fascinated to listen to because of what they read, what they know, or what they are into?
Now, I’m not saying you need to become like The Most Interesting Man In The World from those Dos Equis commercials from a few years ago.
But lots of job candidates want companies to be interested in them.
The fastest way to accomplish that is to be interesting.
How do you become interesting?
This sounds like a tall order, right? Being interesting on command?
Turns out it’s not as tough as it might seem.
You Have 2 Jobs - Be Interesting And Show It
We’re going to run through both of them.
Job 1 - Be Interesting
Being interesting is easier than it sounds but also harder than it sounds.
All you have to do is find things that really interest you and pursue them.
On the flip side, people who do this aren’t the ones who spend all their free time binging on Netflix.
That’s Unfair? Time For Some Tough Love
Now, some may say that this is unfair, that they need time to decompress, and that’s how they do it.
I guess the answer I’d offer is that you’re competing for high-level jobs that typically pay quite well, so it’s to your advantage to find a way. Besides this is what your best competitors are doing today, whether you realize it or not.
Others may argue that their personal situation means they just don’t have time to pursue any interests. This is probably true in rare cases, but realistically, only in very rare cases.
We can all point to people who have SO MUCH on their plate yet still get it all done.
It’s more likely that if you try to do things more efficiently, you can find pockets of time to pursue interests that will help you be interesting.
Some Tips
Ok, now that I’ve hopefully addressed some objections, let’s jump into some ideas…this is the fun part.
Example 1) Be interested in your chosen field:
This is a great approach for people who are especially busy. It combines being interesting with astonishingly good interview preparation.
It’s pretty simple, really – read, listen to podcasts, and follow Twitter accounts that are directly and indirectly related to your chosen professional field.
You can listen to audiobooks very inexpensively, access podcasts mostly for free, and use Twitter at no cost.
All three of these can be done while you’re doing other things, so they are very time-efficient.
As the icing on the cake, write summaries on your LinkedIn page about what you found most impactful about the books, podcasts, and Twitter threads.
This could potentially draw attention to you from prospective employers and other people with similar interests.
On top of that, it’s easy to highlight this on a resume (I’ll show you how below).
Let’s say you’re interested in a career in marketing. Read Ogilvy’s “On Advertising” (affiliate link) and write about what you thought were the most important takeaways as a person early in their career.
The next week listen to a Marketing Against The Grain podcast (or any one of a number of good podcasts) and write a summary of your key takeaways.
The next week, find the most interesting marketing-related Twitter thread (or LinkedIn post) and write some thoughts about it on LinkedIn.
Over that period, read and prep a summary of another book. This can be applied to literally any functional area you’re interested in.
Example 2) Seek to master a hobby:
Cal Newport talks about this extensively in his book How to Be a High School Superstar (affiliate link). He argues and demonstrates, with a series of examples, that high school students increase their chances of admission to prestigious universities by mastering one interest instead of having a series of other surface-level “activities”.
It’s also a lot easier to find the time to do it.
This is achievable almost regardless of what you happen to be interested in.
If you got into Rubik’s Cube as a kid, maybe try to achieve it in a really fast time.
If you love travel, maybe write a detailed travel blog about places you’ve visited.
If you love running, try to run a marathon on every continent.
One example Newport gave in the book which I thought was interesting was a high school student named Jennifer who became interested in Geminid meteors as a child. She continued to pursue that interest to the point where she was a minor expert and was known by many scientists in the admittedly small field.
Newport spoke with the admission staff that year and they highlighted that she was one of the most interesting candidates for admission that year. Of course, she had the academic qualifications, but many candidates who were turned down that year did as well.
The same logic applies to the job search. I promise that if this candidate had the basic qualifications that everyone else had, there’s a good chance she would stand out.
In this example, the candidate pursued that interest from a young age and seemed genuinely interested in it.
There’s no reason, however, that you can’t do this over a shorter period of time.
Example 3) Creating Content to Feed Your Passion:
This is one that I think represents a huge opportunity that few are taking advantage of.
Take your passion and start a podcast about it. The beauty of this is that it will help you connect with other people who share that interest.
Much more importantly (and a little sneakily, if I’m being honest), it will give you a really good excuse to contact people who you may have always wanted to connect with.
If your passion overlaps with your chosen career, these people might help you get your dream job.
Job 2 - Demonstrate You're Interesting
Think about friends’ resumes you’ve seen. That section at the bottom called Extracurricular Activities or Interests:
Reading. Travel. 1 of many volunteers for blah blah blah.
Listen, these are fine and better than nothing. But they sound relatively anodyne, appear perfunctory, and will likely fail to elicit a question. This doesn’t let them distinguish themselves from all the rest of the candidates.
Someone who lists travel on their resume is likely someone who has gone on a couple of trips and likes traveling. That makes them like almost everybody else.
It may be, though, that your resume says travel, but you decide to really dig into the culture and environment in places where you travel. Maybe you spend the six months leading up to your trip doing flashcards, learning the 1000 most common words.
During each of your trips, maybe you spend time learning to cook the local fare in a cooking class. Maybe you studied the history of the place you’re visiting and are incorporating that into your trip.
Maybe you blogged about the lead-up to your trip, showed the research you were doing, and then continued to blog about the trip itself.
Maybe you self-published an e-book about your trip and another on how to prepare for a trip like you did to get the most out of your experience.
That is so much more than” travel”. Instead, of simply putting “travel” on your resume, you can put “experiential travel blogger and book author”.
There is a very high probability that “experiential travel blogger and book author” will elicit a question from your interviewer.
And THAT is the goal here.
You want to tempt them into saying, “hmmm, that’s kind of interesting,” and asking you about it.
You want them to see your eyes light up when they ask.
You want them to give you the opportunity to get excited and animated, describing something you are fired up about.
This is what makes you interesting.
Notice that the example I just gave can be started and completed from when you arrive in September to when you return for the second semester in January.
You don’t have to fall in love with Gemenid meteors as a child to be interesting.
Oh, and by the way, can you imagine how many interesting people you’ll meet in the course of doing something so interesting, how many great experiences you’ll have, and how much you’ll learn along the way?
For Your Resume
As promised, let’s run through really quickly how you might mention the three examples I gave above on your resume that might induce a question where you can expand upon it.
Example 1 – Marketing Books/Podcasts – Frequent writer on LinkedIn
Example 2 – Competitive Speedcubing (Rubik’s Cube) or Marathon running (Multi-continent challenge)
Example 3 – {your interest} podcaster – 25 published podcasts
Closing Thoughts
Some of what I discussed is pretty self-evident, but other examples require a little creativity.
It helps to have conditioned your brain to think creatively about this stuff, so if you’d like some feedback on how you’re approaching this, please go ahead and reach out.
I’m happy to try to help.
