Over the past 6-7 years, I’ve probably completed roughly 12+ final round interviews.

I’ve passed interviews that landed me roles at BlackRock, KPMG, Accenture and Wellington Management

And I’ve also failed many interviews at the likes of Bain, Deutsche Bank, RBC and a long, long list of other companies

But looking back across all of them, there has been one consistent factor that I felt heavily influenced my outcome - the ‘conversationality’ of the interview.

Yes I just did make up the word ‘conversationality’ (let’s roll with it) . To define it, conversationality is the ability to turn an interview into a conversation.

When it comes to interviews , most people focus on motivational, comptency and company preparation and rightly so as it is important. But what many people fail to also fail to understand is that interviews are a conversaiton between 2 people so they don’t prepare to treat it like a conversation.

When companies are interviewing you, they are not only checking to see if you’re competent for the role, but also whether they can see themselves getting along with you aka ‘culture fit’.

So when you go into interviews you should also try to make the interview go from a ‘Q&A’ to a two way conversation between you and hte interviewer. You can do this in very subtle ways such as initial small talk at the start of the interview, to throwing questions back at the interviewer after they ask you or ask thought-provoking questions strategically throughout the interview.

What this will subconciously do is demonstrate likeability to the interviewer and make them look upon you more favourably.

One of the best examples of this was my wellington management interview where as a graduate I interviewed for a role which required 3 years of experience. I was able to bond with my interviewer over our joint interest in american basketball (she was a new yorker!) and I learnt a lot about her journey from america to UK. When I got the role in the end, one of the key feedback points was how ‘personable’ I was and how much the interviewer (head of department) liked me which made them overlook my relative lack of experience!

So next time you go into interview, focus on turning into a conversation and watch how it flows!