7 Jaw-Dropping Things Introverts Taught Me About Better Interviews

Intro­verts taught me every­thing I need to know about how to ace an inter­view. Yes, intro­verts. Sur­pris­ing from an extro­vert like me, I know.

Because I am eas­i­ly the biggest extro­vert you will ever meet in mil­i­tary life. Nor­mal­ly, extro­ver­sion is a huge advan­tage in the job mar­ket, espe­cial­ly when it comes to net­work­ing at a giant con­fer­ence or social event. I prac­ti­cal­ly fizz in the com­pa­ny of large groups of strangers. So many peo­ple. So lit­tle time.

Yet my extro­ver­sion turned out to be a dis­ad­van­tage when it came to job inter­views. Even though I could nat­u­ral­ly think on my feet and keep the con­ver­sa­tion going, I kept blow­ing it in the inter­view — until I start­ed tak­ing lessons from the intro­verts.

Who Thought Up the Interview Process?

I’m pret­ty sure we extro­verts are to blame for the whole idea of think­ing the best can­di­date for a job could be iden­ti­fied from a first impres­sion. The research shows this is def­i­nite­ly not the case.

Yet we keep rely­ing on the tra­di­tion­al prac­tice of the inter­view. For­tu­nate­ly for all of us mil­i­tary job seek­ers, the intro­verts have it all fig­ured out. Here are the lessons intro­verts can teach to us all about acing the inter­view.

1. Introverts Know This Is Not a Conversation

As the tran­si­tion mas­ter coach for Military.com, I’ve helped more than 21,000 vet­er­ans, tran­si­tion­ing mil­i­tary mem­bers and spous­es with their job hunts. I can tell you that the fatal flaw of most extro­verts is that we don’t pre­pare for the inter­view. After all, it’s just anoth­er con­ver­sa­tion.

Intro­verts know an inter­view is not a con­ver­sa­tion. An inter­view is a pre­scribed series of ques­tions that you can pre­pare ahead of time.

Accord­ing to the research, inter­view­ers judge the qual­i­ty of the spo­ken answer to see whether it is intel­li­gent, qual­i­fied, struc­tured and straight­for­ward (not ram­bling). You don’t get that kind of answer by wing­ing it or “look­ing over the ques­tions” 10 min­utes before the inter­view. You pre­pare ques­tions like an intro­vert.

2. Introverts Prepare in Writing

When you think “pre­pare,” think like an intro­vert. Intro­verts are more like­ly to pre­pare for the inter­view, because they are uncom­fort­able with the idea of think­ing up a ran­dom answer on the spot.

Write down answers ahead of time. You are not going to read the answers ver­ba­tim. It is the act of writ­ing that pre­pares you and decreas­es the chance of draw­ing a blank dur­ing an inter­view ques­tion.

3. Introverts Dissect the Job Listing

We extro­verts do not read a job list­ing. We skim it. We think we are sav­ing time, but real­ly we skim it because the whole process trig­gers all of our secret anx­i­eties.

A skilled intro­vert will study the job list­ing, pulling it apart to iden­ti­fy the top skills they are most like­ly to be asked about and pre­pare an answer.

Find out more about how to answer inter­view ques­tions effec­tive­ly in our FREE mas­ter class, “How to Nail the Job Offer: Inter­view Skills for Vet­er­ans.”

4. Introverts Identify what the Interview Wants

Extro­verts typ­i­cal­ly don’t ana­lyze what the inter­view­er wants, then fig­ure out how they can give it to them. Extro­verts focus on what they will bring to the job.

Intro­verts are already anx­ious. They try to get inside the head of the hir­ing man­ag­er, fig­ure out what they want and iden­ti­fy what they might talk about that would deliv­er that result. Here is a hint: The top three skills list­ed in the “what you will do” sec­tion are the things hir­ing man­agers want most.

5. Introverts Practice Being the Hiring Manager, Not the Candidate

When I prac­tice inter­view skills with my intro­vert­ed clients, I do it dif­fer­ent­ly than with extro­vert­ed clients. Instead of putting them in the hot seat as the inter­vie­wee, I make them play the part of the hir­ing man­ag­er first. I make them come up with the ques­tions, not the answers, and I try to answer.

Then I flip it around so that they are the inter­vie­wee. It is amaz­ing how well-pre­pared they are dur­ing the sec­ond round.

6. Introverts Access AI Tools

Intro­verts do not pre­fer to think out loud or try out new skills in pub­lic. That’s why they are more like­ly to use AI inter­view tools such as Prep­per, Chat­G­PT or LinkedIn.

These tools will offer you sam­ple inter­view ques­tions for a par­tic­u­lar job list­ing. You give your response either in writ­ing or oral­ly. They give you feed­back so you can improve your answer before you inter­view with a real per­son. It’s that sim­ple.

7. Introverts Get the Insurance

Every intro­vert I ever met has at least one ques­tion that they wor­ry the inter­view­er will ask — the ques­tion they most want to avoid. It can be any­thing, but you wor­ry about this ques­tion all the time.

• What if they ask me about why I only had this assign­ment for three months?
• What if they ask me why I did­n’t have com­mand?
• What if they want to know what kind of salary I expect?

The solu­tion? Pre­pare an answer to the worst pos­si­ble ques­tion. It is amaz­ing how once you have pre­pared this, every­thing else comes easy.

Inter­view­ing is a skill most mil­i­tary and spous­es have not had to learn so far, but those skills are absolute­ly essen­tial in the high­ly com­pet­i­tive job mar­ket. Whether you are an intro­vert or an extro­vert, you can learn the skills you need to ace the inter­view and land the job. Check out our FREE mas­ter class about inter­view skills and next-lev­el nego­ti­a­tion to learn all the tech­niques that help our mil­i­tary com­mu­ni­ty the most.

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