I'm not a very talkative person. Which doesn't really matter most of the time. I just say what I need to say, or if I'm silent someone more garrulous will happily babble away to fill the void.But there's one situation where not talking is a definite negative. Namely, the job interview. If there's one thing that's called for here, it's plenty of words. And fast.
You know how it is. They ask you all those appallingly open-ended questions like "How good are you at acting on your own initiative/ working as part of a team/ meeting tight deadlines/ advanced brain surgery?" and you're expected to prattle away effortlessly about all the impressive things you've done, the extraordinary skills you possess, your boundless versatility and ingenuity, and your willingness to commute 100 miles to their flea-ridden office next to the landfill site.
So I trot out a few likely things and they dutifully scribble them down in their alarmingly empty notepads that they hope to fill with my dazzling and pertinent replies.
At this point I dry up, my mind goes blank, but they're still gazing at me expectantly as if I must have lots more to say. I rack my brain feverishly for inspiration but nothing emerges. My work with baby elephants? My stint in the funeral parlour? Perhaps not quite what they're looking for. Surely I've said enough? Haven't I convinced them yet? What more do they need to know?
This is where the naturally loquacious just carry on spouting, as if every experience in their entire life clearly equips them for the job, starting with conception and leaving the womb. They could go on all day if the interviewers didn't frantically call a halt and move on to the next question.
How do they do it? How do they find so much to talk about? It would be handy to have a little switch somewhere that made me talkative on demand. For when quietness is a vice and not a virtue.
Yes, I had a job interview. And no, I didn't get the job. Ah well, c'est la vie....
See also: Interview pitfalls, Panel game
