interview Quotes

“The people we interviewed from the good-to-great companies clearly loved what they did, largely because they loved who they did it with.”

“But chances are you’ll lean forward a little less, turn away slightly from him or her, close your body a bit, be a bit less expressive, maintain less eye contact, stand a little farther away, smile a lot less, hesitate and stumble over your words a bit more, laugh at jokes a bit less. Does that matter? Of course it does. Suppose the conversation is a job interview. And suppose the applicant is a Black man. He’s going to pick up on that uncertainty and distance, and they may well make him a little less certain of himself, a little less confident, and a little less friendly. What this unconscious first impression will do, in other words, is throw the interview hopelessly off course.”

“I showed up on time for my eleven A.M. interview and didn’t panic until I encountered the line of leggy, Twiggy types waiting to be permitted to board the elevators. Their lips never stopped moving, and their gossip was punctuated only by the sound of their stilettos clacking on the floor. Clackers, I thought. That’s perfect.”

“I didn’t know until later, until I hovered on the periphery of being one of them, just how much they had laughed at me between the rounds of the interview.”