“Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.”

—Frederick Buechner--

This practice can apply to any kind of interview where we (feel) we are being chosen for something—jobs, schools, internships. All of these situations set up a power dynamic—the chooser and the chosen—that can rattle us, make us feel desperate, make us feel like we have to brag about ourselves and our accomplishments. We can fall into the “pick me!” mentality, rather than picking ourselves.

Please let that go.

Aside from the basics (to make enough money, to get experience and education), why are we applying for this opportunity? Usually, it is to find a great fit for what we want, what they want, what we have to offer, what they have to offer.

RESEARCH

Well before the interview...Read on.

Last week I wrote about high and low intentions for those in public service. For those of us who are not in public service, our intentions may not be so aspirational, but the rule of thumb still guides us: intentions that are FOR others are high intentions; those intentions that boomerang the attention back onto ourselves are low intentions. Imagine we are interviewing for a job. Or hoping to make a sale. It might be tempting to choose a LOW intention: To get the job; To make the sale; To make them like me; To impress…Read on.

In last week’s post, Persuading a National Audience, I talked about the communication skills of great leaders. One hallmark of great leaders is that their overarching intention or purpose benefits others, mostly those with the least power. These are what I call, “high intentions,” as opposed to intentions that benefit the speaker, which I call “low intentions.” For public leaders, examples of high intentions are: “To give hope,” “To help,” “To support,” “To elevate,” “To shine the light on.” Examples of low intentions are: “To control,” “To convince,” To extract,”…Read on.