Description
- Detecting Defensiveness: Harrison discusses subtle signs and body language cues that indicate defensiveness during interviews. Examples include frowning, grimacing, and a change in demeanor when addressing challenging questions.
- Self-Awareness: Candidates are advised to be self-aware and avoid coming across as defensive. Being prepared for potentially damaging questions and practicing positive responses is crucial.
- Handling Inappropriate Questions: Candidates may face inappropriate questions about personal matters. Harrison emphasizes the importance of reacting carefully, turning negative questions into positive opportunities to present oneself effectively.
- Role of Attorneys: Drawing parallels from the legal profession, Harrison highlights those attorneys, when questioned, must turn negatives into positives. This skill, learned early in legal education, is vital in interviews to garner positivity and empathy.
- Critical Insight: Successfully handling challenging questions is a fundamental skill for attorneys. Turning negatives into positives is crucial, and candidates should practice this approach to make a lasting positive impression during interviews.
- Continued Learning: Harrison points out that despite learning these skills in law school, candidates may need to remember to apply them in interviews or practice. Continuous awareness and application of these skills are essential for success.
- Building Rapport: Candidates are encouraged to make negative aspects of their background favorable, fostering a connection with the interviewer and showcasing resilience and adaptability.
- Conclusion: Harrison emphasizes the importance of mastering the art of turning negatives into positives during interviews, aligning with the foundational principles learned in legal education.
Transcript:
Okay, when appearing defensive, are there any subtle signs or body language cues the interviewer should be aware of? How can candidates become aware, self-aware, and avoid? Potentially coming across as defensive. If you're asking a question about something, being defensive means that you're almost angry with a person for asking, and your face frowns along those lines.
I'll just tell you a quick question. I will, or a quick thing that happened to me. I was interviewing this girl not too long ago, a couple of years ago. To be a personal assistant. She had. This kind of gap was on her resume, and the interview was going great. She was selling herself. She was just on fire.
And anyway, she was asked something about, she had this gap on her resume, and I asked her about it, and her whole demeanor changed. She frowned, and she became. She was just upset, and she grimaced at me. And so that's what defensive is. And so that particular person got mad about something. So, you should be prepared for anything negative that comes across.
There's a Pink Floyd song where they say exposing every weakness, no matter how carefully hidden. And that's what attorneys do, and their attorneys their job is to pull up this sort of information. You need to look at that and be careful whatever they say. You can come across with a good answer and be aware of anything.
And the second you're defensive that creates problems. So, people become defensive about a lot of things. Your job is to get a job. Sometimes, people will be asked inappropriate questions, like about marriage or children or different things that just shouldn't be asked about. And then they become defensive.
If an employer does, that's. Not some, you don't have to work there, but if you want to, if you want to work there, you need to be very careful about how you react to that. If you say to someone, I'm not comfortable with this, I'm not, that will hurt you, and you will not get the position.
So, people will do inappropriate things. People ask you questions about things that are weaknesses in your resume. If you still need to get a grade point, they'll ask you about your grades. If you don't have, if you have a gap in your resume, they'll ask you about that. If you, if you're, I don't know, appear like you, anything that you can think of, they will ask you about.
It would help if you were very careful. And anytime you're asked those questions, you want to make sure that you're aware that you could ask them and just rehearse answers that you can think of that are positive in your background. And the final thing I just want to say, and I. Heart apologize for spending so much time on this question.
But the most important thing that you have to understand is anytime a a judge asks an attorney something in an oral argument, the attorney needs to turn it around and make it look like whatever is harmful. Answer or negative aspect of their cases that it's a positive. This is the most essential thing that attorneys do.
It's what you learn when you're in moot court. It's what you learn when doing briefs and things that are the first year of legal writing or arguing. So, this is the first requirement of an attorney that you learn very early. It's to take any negative statement and anything that's questioned and turn it into a positive or give a perfect answer that makes the person like you believe in it or empathize with you.
So, this is what attorneys do. And your inability to do that will create issues. And so many things like attorneys forget like you learn this stuff when you're in law school, but then you need to remember it and stop doing it when you're interviewing or practicing.
