How to Get Hired and Ace Your Job Interview

Job interviews can seem like high-wire acts. You need to carefully listen to the interviewer so they know you're attentive. Yet, you also need to be preparing your answer. Fortunately, there are ways to do both with a little practice.

Stanford's Matt Abrahams teaches people how to do just that on the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast and in his book Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You're Put on the Spot . He joined LinkedIn News Editor Andrew Seaman on the latest episode of Get Hired to explain how you can be an attentive listener and a thoughtful respondent during job interviews and more.

You can listen to the episode above or on Apple Podcasts by clicking here . A transcript of the conversation is available below.

TRANSCRIPT: How to Get Hired and Ace Your Job Interview

Andrew Seaman: Do you get nervous before a job interview? What about a presentation at work? Or has a senior manager ever asked for your opinion on the fly? Well, we're talking all about handling those situations on today's episode. From LinkedIn News, this is Get Hired, a podcast for the ups and downs in the ever-changing landscape of our professional lives. I'm Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn Senior Managing Editor for Jobs and Career Development, bringing you conversations with experts who like me, want to see you succeed at work, at home, and everywhere in between.

I remember interviewing for a college as a high school senior. At that point, I wasn't keen on attending that school, but it was still a well-known institution and I would've liked to be accepted. I had also competed in impromptu speaking competitions. Yet despite all of that, I lost my voice. My anxiety got the best of me. Literally, I couldn't speak during the interview. It had never happened to me. I excused myself, got water and continued on. While that has always remained in my mind, I know I'm not alone.

Those situations, especially during the job search are common. You're anxious and worried about what you're going to be asked, what you'll say and more. Well, today, I'm joined by Matt Abrahams, who is author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You're Put on the Spot. He's also the host of the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast and a lecturer in organizational behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. We're talking all about how to breeze through job interviews and more. Here's Matt.

Matt Abrahams: I discovered communication as a field that you could study really late in my academic careers. I had some pretty traumatic public speaking experiences as a high school student, and when I saw that you could study this and actually help people learn to manage anxiety, that got me really excited. Then I came out with some debt. I ended up working for over a decade in high-tech and then really saw how critical communication skills are not just to get hired, but to be effective in your job. And I knew from my studies that we could really help people. So I came back to academics, which is my passion, and I've been teaching communication skills and coaching ever since.

Andrew: The students that you teach at the business school, they're basically coming to you saying, "I have ideas. I can implement them," but selling them, giving them to other people in meetings, that's where they fall down sometimes, right?

Matt: Yeah. So I don't know if you remember back in school where the evil mean professor would point at you and say, "What do you think?" And you had to respond. That cold call, some of the best and brightest young minds in the world really struggled with that. So through that need, I went about exploring lots of different domains and came up with a methodology that really helps people do exactly what you're saying, sell ideas, sell themselves, be confident in the moment, be it giving feedback, making small talk, answering interview questions. It's all really the same thing. It's that in the moment pressure that we have to manage.

Andrew: Yes. And it could happen to people in job interviews, especially if it's a make or break moment for you.

Matt: Absolutely. The anxiety we all feel when we're put on the spot is very real and it can have lots of detrimental effects where you literally froze in that moment. In other cases, people misspeak and say things they didn't intend to say or they drone on and on. So anxiety looms large, not just in spontaneous speaking, but planned speaking as well. The good news is there are things we can all do to prepare ourselves such that we don't get as nervous to even be more concise and clear and get our message across.

Andrew: Definitely, and the book goes through, I think it's six steps that basically say, "Here are the things that you should be doing to prepare for these moments." And I think the first one is actually tackling anxiety, right?

Matt: That's right. Yeah.

Andrew: I think that's something that is universal, but especially if you're a job seeker. So can you share maybe some tips to tackle that anxiety?

Matt: So a few things I'd like to suggest. One, that it sounds counterintuitive to actually prepare to be spontaneous, but it is absolutely possible and important to do. And I always challenge people to think about if you've ever played a sport or a musical instrument, you prepare and then you do it. So if you're a jazz musician, you're doing a lot of practice to be able to be spontaneous. When it comes to managing anxiety, we have to manage both symptoms and sources.

The symptoms are the things that we physiologically experience, and the sources are things that get in the way or initiate that anxiety in the first place. So let me give you two things we can do for either. When you have the symptoms, the shakiness, the sweating, the dry mouth, single best thing you can do is to take a deep belly breath, the kind if you've ever done yoga or Tai chi where you really fill the lower abdomen.

And what's so important is that the exhale be longer than the inhale. All the magic happens on that exhale, and if you do that just once or twice, you will actually begin to feel those symptoms abate. The other thing you can do is to really remind yourself that you are in service of your audience. You're there because you're trying to help them solve a need. When you're interviewing, the company or the person you're interviewing with has a need and they've chosen to interview you because they believe you can bring value.

And when you remind yourself of that, that can reduce a lot of those symptoms because it's not about you being judged, it's about you helping them solve a problem. In terms of the sources, many of us want to do our interviewing or any spontaneous communication right. We want to get it right. I've been doing this for decades, there is no right way to communicate. There are better ways and worse ways. And putting that pressure on ourselves to do it right actually reduces the likelihood that we're going to do it well.

So I encourage people to just focus in the moment, answer the question that's asked, and that frees up cognitive bandwidth to actually do it really well. If you're judging and evaluating, "Is this the right way to say it? Should I use these terms?" That all gets in the way of actually doing it. The last thing I'll say is the more present oriented we can be, the more it helps. Many of us are made nervous because we're afraid of a potential negative future outcome, "I'm not going to get the job."

But if you think to yourself, "I'm here to connect with this person, I want to listen to what they're saying" and get yourself in the present moment, then you can actually do better. And there are lots of ways to get in the present moment, do something physical before you go into the interview. Count down from 100 by a difficult number like seventeens, that causes you to be present oriented. So if we address sources and symptoms, we can be much better in the moment. So when you begin to manage anxiety, all these other effects take place that actually help you. You slow down, you listen more, you connect better.

Andrew: I interview a lot of people in my role, and it's funny because a lot of times I'll talk to someone maybe before they're a guest on a live show that I do, and it's always really interesting because I'll talk to them beforehand and they'll be fantastic. They'll answer at the right pace, they'll know exactly what to say, but then when the live camera turns on, they speed through it.

And so it's always really interesting to see the effect of anxiety from one day to the next. If you can tame that anxiety, I think a lot of the issues people are most worried about end up solving for themselves. The next question I have is actually listening. How do you actually listen to someone while they're talking but also getting prepared to answer?

Matt: That's a great question. Listening is hard. Most of us listen just enough to get the gist of what somebody is saying, and then we begin rehearsing and planning and judging and evaluating, and that gets in the way. So a couple of things I'd suggest. When somebody is speaking, first and foremost, listen to understand the bottom line of what they're saying. So when somebody asks you a question in an interview or somebody asks you for feedback, what is it that they're really asking?

What are they really looking for? And when you listen that way you listen much more intently. There are three steps that I think can really help all of us be better listeners, and I borrow these from a colleague of mine at the Stanford Business School. His name's Collins Dobbs. And Collins teaches a critical crucial communication class, but this methodology applies I think beautifully to listening. Three steps, pace, space, grace.

You have to slow things down. Just like you mentioned, a lot of us move very quickly when we're nervous or we just want to get through it. If we slow down, we can actually pay better attention and really look for that bottom line. So we have to slow the pace down. We have to give ourselves space. You have to give yourself permission to be present instead of saying, "Oh, what's the next answer going to be, or the next question? And how did I do in that last one?"

You have to be present to really listen. And then you have to give yourself some grace. And grace, by that I mean you have to pay attention not only to what's being asked of you, but what does it bring up for you? If somebody asks you a question, you might have an intuition that, "This is a good place for me to use that example." And instead of judging and evaluating, listen to that. Now how can I buy myself a little time so I don't have to respond right away?

People feel like when they're in an interview or they're in a spontaneous speaking situation, they have to respond right away. You can pause and in that pause you can think. You can also ask a clarifying question to buy yourself some time, or you can paraphrase where I summarize in my own words what you asked. All of those are what we call a lower order cognitive skill, which means I can do it, but I can also be thinking about my answer.

Andrew: Yes. And also something that I noticed in your book that I sort of thought to myself, how can I use this in what I do, which is repeat yourself? Because in your mind, you'll think, "I'll sound like a lunatic if I repeat myself," but in reality, it's going to actually sound like it's more important and it buys you time to think, "Okay, what was I going to say next?"

Matt: Oh, absolutely. I'd like to take a step back and just say, whenever you're interviewing, part of your job is not just to convey why you're a good fit and why you want the job, but it's also to equip the interviewer with this ability to represent you to others in the firm. Most of the time you don't interview with the person who says yes, you interview with somebody who then goes talks to somebody, and then a team gets together and they decide.

Part of what you have to do is equip people so they can tell your story. One part of that is repetition. If you say it again in a different way or you give more detail the second time through, that's empowering the person you're interviewing with to be able to more accurately capture who you are and represent you. So absolutely repetition is a good thing. I think I've just said that three times in this answer.

Andrew: Yes.

Matt: Right? But the other thing has to do with if I blank out and I don't know what to say, you can give yourself some time by asking a question. I teach the same strategic communication class twice a quarter every quarter. I've done that now for 13 years. I sometimes forget, "Did I say that here?" And when I have that moment, I simply pause and I ask my students a question. It's a very generic question, "How can you take what we just covered and apply it in your life?"

And when I say that to my students, they don't think, "Oh, Matt forgot." My students think, "How can I apply that to their lives?" And while they're doing that, I'm thinking of what's next. In an interview, you can do the same thing. If you blank out or you need a little more time, simply paraphrase, repeat something you just said and it gives you that opportunity to collect your thoughts.

Andrew: And a pause is always going to seem much longer to you than it does in reality.

Matt: Absolutely right. There's a time warp that happens. We are not the best judges of our own communication, nor are we the best judges of time. When I pause, it feels like an eternity, but you're actually doing work. You're processing your thinking of the next question, et cetera.

Andrew: Will we'll be right back with Matt Abrahams.?

Andrew: And we're back with Matt Abrahams the author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter.?

What is your advice to job seekers who have to maybe prepare for an interview? How do they know what they should be prepared for? Should they rehearse their answers? What's your advice for them?

Matt: Preparation is absolutely key, and I have some very specific advice for people who are interviewing on how to prepare. First, you have to do your due diligence and vetting of the company. What's it about? Look into what they do. Look into the roles, looked on LinkedIn to see who's done roles similar. What are they saying? There's a lot you can do to get a lot of information. Then think about what are the key themes or ideas you want to get across relative to this role.

So you might want to say, "I am somebody who is a very creative problem solver." That's a theme. Have three or four themes that you have thought through before you go into the interview. For each theme, stockpile some evidence and examples that support it. Maybe you have a story you could tell. Maybe there's a testimonial from a previous boss who said, you're really good at something like this.

Maybe there's some data you can share. You saved your organization 25% on something. So you have these stockpile ideas that are related to a theme you have. This notion of structure, I'm a big fan of structure When we communicate. A structure is like a recipe. Your themes and stockpiled information are like ingredients. In the moment of an interview, all I have to do is assemble, makes it so much easier for me.

So I get your question. I think, "Ah, that question's a good example of where I can pull in this theme, pull in this particular evidence that I've stockpiled and I'm going to assemble it in a particular way through a structure," and all of a sudden it becomes very easy for me. Therefore, I can actually connect and let a little bit of my personality come out instead of being panicked in my head about how am I going to answer it.

So doing that kind of preparation is really important. I'm still not sure where I'm going to land on this generative AI thing and communication, but it can be a really useful tool for interviewing. I encourage my MBA students to do this, type in the name of the company, the job type, and say, "Generate five typical interview questions for this job at this company." When you see those questions, practice answering them. So it's like an in the moment test. So that kind of drilling and practice will really help you when it comes to interviewing.

Andrew: I think those are all really fantastic pieces of advice, especially doing the research and then say, "Okay, what are the themes that I need to get across?" And obviously you mentioned structure, and this is something that I sometimes struggle with because there might be something in my head that I'll say, "Ooh, I want to get this in there," but it would feel odd to just blurt that out. So how can people rely on structure but also seem extemporaneous?

Matt: Yeah. So I actually think structure allows you to be extemporaneous. And so let me define what I mean by a structure. Structure to me is just a logical connection of ideas, a beginning, a middle, and an end. Many people when they interview or just deal with any spontaneous situation like giving feedback or even small talk, they'll just itemize and list thing. Our brains are not wired for lists.

For the book I wrote, I interviewed several neuroscientists who all said, our brains are wired for story. In fact, long-term memory is often called episodic memory. Episodes, those are stories. So if I can package up what I'm saying in a logical, coherent way, not only does it help me prioritize what I'm going to say, but it helps you take that information in and in turn be able to talk to other people about it. So I have a structure I really like for answering questions, and I have an acronym for it.

It's A-D-D for adding value. You answer the question, you give a detailed example that supports that answer, and then you describe the relevance for that answer to the job that you're applying for. Because you're hearing that structure and you've heard me talk about it, you can sort of tick it off and you're immediately thinking, "Well, isn't that going to sound scripted?" But in fact, when you don't know that I'm deploying a structure, you just hear a coherent argument or a answer.

I used to be a hiring manager. I used to interview people and it was so frustrating to me because they would answer questions and I could not figure out why they were saying what they were saying or why did they go in this tangent and that tangent. I actually would teach them this methodology. So they would come in and I would say, "You have a wonderful resume" or "A wonderful LinkedIn profile.

I want to ask you some questions to see if you're a good fit. I want you to answer the question. Try to give me an example so I can really understand it, and then explain how your answer's going to make you a good fit for this job." I taught them ADD, all of a sudden the interviews got so much easier for me and they left saying, "That was so much easier because I knew what to say and when to say it." You can practice that structure and it can really help. Answer the question, give an example, explain the relevance.

Andrew: And also if you're a job seeker, I think the value we touch on is that you're going in prepared, and most cases the interviewer isn't. So they're going to be there listening to you and you have the benefit of preparation to know, "Okay, I'm going to touch on these themes. I'm going to follow this structure." So you can go in there almost armed in a way to say, "I can tackle this." And that will also increase your confidence and hopefully ease your anxiety.

Matt: And I will also say that part of interviewing, at least in my experience, is not just the answers I get, but the confidence with which those answers are given and the demeanor in which those answers are delivered. And if you go in with this preparation like we've talked about, and you give tight, clear, concise, relevant answers, you're somebody that I could feel really comfortable seeing, doing whatever the role is that I have versus the person who's fishing for answers and rambling.

Andrew: And even I think that applies throughout the world of work. When I talk to people about the best managers and the best bosses I've had, they are direct. They don't waffle on decisions, but then if they're wrong, they admit they're wrong and you move on. And while that is a character trait, that's also a very important communication strategy.

Matt: I think that's absolutely right. We have to be confident and convicted in our specific course of action or the things that we assert, but we also have to be able to recognize when they don't go well and learn from it. In fact, in the book I make a distinction between mistakes and what I call missed takes. Many of us are very nervous in our communication about doing it wrong, and that prevents us from many cases, from doing it well at all.

If you see your communication that doesn't go the way you want, not as something that's wrong or bad, it's just the way it was, and you move on. You know how in making television, in movies, they do multiple takes of any scene. In fact, they have a clapboard that comes in, take one, take two. If I do something that I'm not proud of or didn't go as well as I want, I just say to myself, that was my first take.

Next time, maybe it's the next question that comes in, I'll do it a little differently. Maybe it's the next time I interview. But if we see these mistakes as missed takes, it changes our perspective and it makes us more willing to step up and say, "Yeah, that didn't go the way I wanted, right? And now I can learn from it." So really important to acknowledge the mistakes you make, but also see them not as being wrong, but just being better for the next time.

Andrew: Yeah. The next thing I want to talk to you about is whenever I talk about interviewing is always something that people come back at me with. They'll say, "What about when they ask you something that's completely out of left field?" And when I was reading the book, it was perfect when you started the first chapter with this is you were in a job interview, and the first question was, "If you were an onion and I peeled back the first layer, what would I find?" How do you suggest people deal with something like that?

Matt: So this was the final interview for a job I really wanted, and I was meeting with the CEO. I sit down, he looks at me, he says, "Thanks for being here. If you were an onion and I peeled back," he said, "The first three layers, what would I find?" And I panicked. I was like, what the heck is this question about? And what I did is what I recommend people do, I latched onto something. I said, "Okay, this is a question to decide or understand something personal about me.

That's why he's talking about, peeling away the layers." And I had this moment of, okay, I can give a trite answer. You're going to find somebody who works too hard or somebody who's striving for work-life balance. And those are trite answers, the banal, they don't really inform. So what popped into my mind is I like to cook, but whenever I chop onions, I cry.

And so I said, "If you were to peel back three layers of an onion, I would cry." And I turned that into a conversation about how in my previous managerial jobs, I really encourage everybody to bring their full selves, their passions, their emotions, and sometimes we laugh with each other, sometimes we cry, et cetera. And it turned into a wonderful conversation about psychological safety and how to set up an environment where people actually can work together.

How did I get to that place? I committed to first realizing I wanted to take this question for what it was, an opportunity to go deep on something personal. Once I made that commitment, I then had to say, "Where's the entry point to reveal something about myself?" And with onions, it was crying. So it was through emotion I did that. But I encourage everybody, when you get a question out of left field, immediately make a choice of, what about myself can I reveal in my answer to this question?

And then once you figure that out, latch onto a story or some kind of statistic or testimonial that can be your into to how you describe it. So instead of panicking like, "What's going on here?" Lean into it. Many of us see spontaneous speaking as threatening and challenging rather than seeing it as an opportunity. And once you take that opportunistic mindset like, There's something good I can do here, I can convey something about myself," takes a lot of the pressure off. So embrace it, find a hook, and move forward with it.

Andrew: I think that's incredible advice because at that point, especially if you're meeting with the CEO of the company, if you've been through several rounds of interviews, they've asked you all the questions, they know you can do the job. So this is your opportunity to almost be playful, I think.

Matt: I agree. And so lean in, give yourself permission to be playful, to be disclosive, and to see where it takes you. Wonderful things happen in those moments of spontaneity if you embrace them.

Andrew: Definitely. This interview was sort of spontaneous and came about in about 24 hours, and we can obviously talk for quite a while about the various steps in your book. But is there anything else before we go that you think is really important to pass on to people who might be in the middle of a job search process?

Matt: Thank you for giving me that opportunity. And this in and of itself, the person who is interviewing, asking the person being interviewed, "Is there anything more?" All of us have to be prepared for that. At the end of most interviews, people will say, "What questions do you have for me?" And you should have some questions. The answer is not, "No, I don't." Because of course you should have some questions.

So I encourage everybody think about what would you ask. I want to share my question that I always ask when somebody did that for me. When somebody came in and said, "Do you have any questions for me?" My question is always, "When you were being interviewed for your role, what question do you wish you would've asked?" And this is such a huge unlock. People share so many insightful things. It could be very tactical, like, "I really wish I would've asked about the benefits plan about X."

Or other people would say, "I really wish I would've better understood how these two different organizations worked with each other because they depend on each other." I gained so much insight because the reality of interviewing for a job is you're not just being interviewed, you're interviewing them to see if it's a fit. And so I love that unlock. To get back to the book though, there is one thing I think is important for interviewers.

The final chapter in the first part of the book, which is a six step methodology, is what I call the F word of communication. It's not the naughty one, it's focus. Many of us ramble on and on when we answer questions or in these spontaneous speaking situations because we're taking our audience on the journey of our discovery of what we're saying while we're saying it. Concision is key. We have to be clear, we have to be concise.

So before you start answering a question, I'd like you to do just what I recommended when we talked about listening. Think to yourself, "What's the bottom line of my response?" And build your response from that bottom line. And as you're doing it, remind yourself, "My answer needs to be relevant to the person I'm talking to and to the role I'm interviewing for."

And if you remind yourself before you answer, "The bottom line is this, I am a person who's a creative problem solver. This is a job that requires a lot of creative problem solving around X." Build your answer around that using the structure and the stockpiling we talked about, and you will be much more focused. We remember things that are focused and concise. We don't remember rambling. So it's critical in an interview situation, in giving feedback, anything that's meaningful that has high stakes to be concise.

Andrew: I think that is such great advice, especially coming from the journalism world where everyone loves to write long, and I'm like, "Don't give me a story that's 10,000 words when 400 will do."

Matt: That's exactly right. Many of us when we speak aren't as focused as we should be.

Andrew: Definitely. Well, thank you so much for your time, Matt.

Matt: This was great, Andrew. I enjoyed our conversation.

Andrew: That was Matt Abrahams, the author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter. Remember, it's up to you to put our advice into practice. Still, you always have a community backing you up and cheering you on. Connect with me and the Get Hired community on LinkedIn to continue the conversation. Also, if you like this episode, please take a moment to leave us a rating on Apple Podcast.

It helps people like you find the show. And don't forget to click that follow, subscribe, or whatever other button you find to get our podcast delivered to you every Wednesday because we'll be continuing these conversations on the next episode right here, wherever you like to listen. Get Hired is a production of LinkedIn News.

This episode was produced by Alexis Ramdaou. Rafa Farihah is our associate producer. Assaf Gidron engineered our show. Joe DiGiorgi mixed our show. Dave Pond is head of news production. Enrique Montalvo is our executive producer. Courtney Coupe is the head of original programming for LinkedIn. Dan Roth is the editor-in-chief of LinkedIn. And I'm Andrew Seaman. Until next time, stay well and best of luck.