How to Talk to People, According to Terry Gross
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Also, results are not all that matters; you can be a critic of the methods even if they bring the desired outcome.
I think if you define interviewing in the strictest sense, then sure. But personally I find this all pretty applicable. I do far better in conversation (with strangers) when I apply most of this. One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given was "nobody cares about you, but everyone loves speaking about themselves". If you can get someone to open up and _start_ talking, and you are genuinely curious without seemingly like you're looking for an opportunity to talk about yourself, in my experience that person goes away with a generally positive opinion of you.
I suppose you could also argue that any conversation with someone new IS an interview - be it date, work, new friend. Ultimately you're checking as to whether you want a second encounter with that person, right?
Asking about work seems to define the direction of the conversation, and some people don't work, which makes it a little awkward. Everyone does _something_ so this gives whoever you're talking to an opportunity to pick what they want to talk about - "I work in marketing" or "I'm trying to get my black belt in karate". Then you just starting picking around that topic and ever so often drop in a short annecdote or story of your own (followed by another question - "has that ever happened to you?!") to keep the conversation going.
"Tell me about yourself" is something else entirely. I look forward to your description of how it goes with strangers.
Edit: by badly, I mean badly for me. I'm getting a bunch of downvotes above - obviously this is just my opinion, based on my interactions with people over the last few years.
And I know people for whom this question is really anxiety inducing.
I’ve known people who have tended to respond to that question with sarcasm or hostility. They also tend to be the most socially shut out. And then they wonder why people don’t like them. It’s one of those things where you expect society to be better but it isn’t. The choice then is either to become bitter or to redirect it into something more positive and gracious.
If one is unemployed or one doesn’t have a career a good neutral response is “I’m in transition”. Any number of creative responses will work, and will keep the conversation going. But one responds with hostility because one hates that question, one will invariably pay the social costs and may be killing potential budding friendships. I can tell you, most of the time it is not worth it. The downside is greater than the upside.
On the initiator’s part, a good alternative to it is “what keeps you busy?”
I would encourage others to avoid asking "what do you do?" As well. Ask what the person's favorite book is, their favorite trip/place, their favorite memory from childhood, etc. I promise the resulting conversation will be much more interesting and also give you a better view of the person.
If you don't want to give an answer it's very easy to demur in a polite and conversationally enjoyable way. All of the conventional advice on getting people to like you emphasizes getting people to talk about themselves.
I'm a little astounded that so many find such an inquiry so abnormal.
>Tell me about yourself?
At best that question is a clear demonstration of lack of both and a plain vanilla diplomatic type question.
At worst it tells me this person doesn’t care and is just waiting to be asked the same question to rattle off their prerehearsed answer which will no doubt incorporate some fine oneupmanship (in other words that questions tells me that person is just waiting for their time to talk).
The only proper answer to such a question: “I live off the fat of the land, how about you?” Then as they struggle to begin their prerehearsed response, excuse yourself to a more interesting conversation.
Certainly when talking to people we won’t have the same resources and ability to research the person we speak with the same way Ms. Gross has with the persons she interviews. And in the context of “talking to people” I don’t think this particular question is going to make a good reflection on the asker. If you have literally nothing else to say, then fine, but again that typically shows lack of wit and charisma. I’d recommend starting with a personal observation of the person that is clearly meaningful to the person you engage, in which you have a guinuine interest.
here's something for the "cave dwellers" to ponder: do you think maybe the tone and body language with which you say something like "tell me about yourself" mediates the effect?
As a testament to this, I usually check the comments before clicking through to an article. As a result I virtually never click through to the article -- I just end up reading all the reasons it's wrong.
Also reminds me of an anecdote. Talking with a tech VP from a telco recently, I offer an opinion to advance the discussion and his response was simply “No, that’s wrong, you’re so wrong.” Period, full stop. End of discussion, no explanation, no offer of what direction he might agree with. All that mattered was that I was wrong and that he had the right answer. Great talk.
HN is like UChicago. Cerebral, academic, rigorous and always ready to shoot down sloppy thinking.
Quora is more like Northwestern. Intelligent, emotionally savvy, and projects a sense of polish.
There is a thin line between critical and contrarian, and HN has good days and bad days.
Unfortunately, if you spend too much time in the comments then it's easy to leave with an unfair impression of a topic or author: "Gosh, {topic/author} sure is (misguided|hyperbolic|reductionist|obvious|ignorant|wrong|malicious|unnecessary), tsk tsk"
As for how to fix it, I dunno.
I'm always disappointed when these dismissive appeal to authority ad-hominems [1] are not only posted on HN comments but voted to the very top. These types of comments take no effort and don't add any information to the discussion. Isn't HN supposed to be better than that?
Why not instead respond to the actual specific arguments people have put up in objection to Terry Gross's advice? Then the insufficiency of her experience is plain to see: She has 40+ years of experience indeed, but in a relatively narrow form of conversational interview, and commenters here are rightfully pointing out that her advice doesn't generalize.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
> "DH1. Ad Hominem. ... Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come from outsiders. The question is whether the author is correct or not. If his lack of authority caused him to make mistakes, point those out. And if it didn't, it's not a problem."
Sorry, couldn’t resist a jab at the HN community.
It’s arrogant and belittling, unless you are in a position of power (like a famous interviewer). Even then it’s rude. Don’t say it unless you know the person a little already or are interviewing them and literally giving them a platform to tell the world about themselves.
Wouldn't do it in Japan, Germany or Scandinavia; would do it many other countries.
With a person who is higher status than you, they invariably have a life story that they are practiced at and enjoy telling, and know how to answer this question in a really satisfying and engaging manner because it's been asked so many times. That's the easy one, and pretty much no high level person will be upset if you ask.
It's toughest with someone not used to answering this question, or someone who thinks of you as higher status - in those cases, you can't just say "tell me about you", you have to make them comfortable and coax them into getting excited to tell you about things they care about. That requires active attention and listening, and is not necessarily easy.
Asking people to tell you about themselves is never rude, in any case. If your conception of "rude" includes that, then you're gonna have a rough time in all but the most wonky parts of business.
Yeah the point is you have prepared and practiced an engaging "sales pitch" for yourself. If you are experienced in networking or interviewing this is second nature to you. But it would be pretty rude to ask outside of a professional or networking setting IMHO. You are challenging the person to "sell themselves" to you, which is highly inappropriate outside of business.
The discussions where the other person don't expect me to be the one who has to reveal all details or where I get to ask questions too are more comfortable.
That said, I've never really tried. Do you literally say "tell me about yourself"?
Yup! Or “what’s your story?”
"Hi!!! Tell me about yourself :)"
"Heya, nice to meet you. Can you tell me about yourself?"
In every question, there's an implied order to deliver the answer. Some people might perceive "What would you like my audience to know about you?" as less demanding, but it's fundamentally the same thing.
This kind of open-ended request for information isn't a good fit for a lot of conversations, but it's a good fit for a biographical interview and similar situations like a job interview or a blind date. I don't think it's rude in these contexts, as the purpose of those kinds of encounters is to get to know a lot about the person in a short time. It might be too intrusive in other contexts.
How fragile is someone's sense of self and ego if that is a powerful trigger? It's a great weed-out for PC individuals honestly, if you think that's belittling then I probably don't want to talk further with you.
It can be seen as intrusive, however, for Europeans. In fact even a question like "tell me about <x>" is not taken well by Europeans. They see it as a demand to be entertained and is considered lazy and thoughtless.
On the other hand, Terry Gross is a spectacular interviewer. SHE could get away with asking almost anything to anyone and even it is a disastrous question is able to recover from it. I think someone who is able to read cues and think on their feet has much more latitude in what they can get away with as far as questions go.
It phrases in the form of “what’s your story” in most European languages. Same thing, though. The question does seem to be one which separates high-status and low-status people in many societies.
I've been trying to switch to 'tell me about yourself', but it's somehow harder than I thought.
The neutral small-talk intros (travel-to-venue, number-of-people, weather) segueing rapidly to how-you-know-host, and then on to learning about the person without asking them to come up with a narrative usually does well in that setting.
The key is to induce load on your conversational partner at the level that they are willing to accept and not to put a disproportionate load on them. "Tell me about yourself" is high load IMHO. They need to figure out what aspect of themselves they wish to represent.
Then again, perhaps I inhabit different social circles from that of a top-flight radio host and things are different there.
In an interview, I like "tell me about yourself" as a starter but not with passive listening for the most part.
In fairness, I probably shouldn't start every interaction with "So what was it like collaborating with Philip Glass?"
This tracks with my experience as well.
Many nerds and introverts (myself included) detest small talk and want to jump into deep conversation straight away.
But life experience has taught me that guiding the conversation from shallow to deep produces a much better effect in most cases, even with other nerds and introverts. (except at conferences, where there is already a shared assumption of interest/knowledge)
I prefer something like “so what are you spending your time on these days?” It’s a question that can be answered with something work-related while not making the person feel that they’re defining themselves by their work. It also allows them to talk about their hobbies (or things like video games or Netflix) if they so choose.
I'm fairly introverted and it gets the conversation going well in every case so far.
Interestingly, not everyone answers "tell me about yourself" with "what do you do." How someone parses the former can actually be more interesting than the answer itself. For example, some people answer with their family, their country of origin, their company (versus profession), their title (versus company), a description of their role, or–quite plainly–discomfort. (Crudely, I've noticed peoples' enjoyment with this question roughly correlates with their social competence, perceive social status and general curiosity about people. New Yorkers answer with a profession. Europeans, more frequently, with a town of origin. The oddest pattern I picked up on was in Montreal, where I kept getting a detailed description of what the person did or ate that day.)
It's also fun watching yourself answer the question, particularly when your parsing varies given the company you're with or context you're in.
I'm surprised by the pushback on HN. "Tell me about yourself" is a guiding principle, not a literal tactical prescription. "Those that are interested are interesting", as the saying goes.
Asking people to share what they enjoy / experience they really liked is another opportunity for them to re-experience what they like. A absolutely love questions that allow me to re-live a moment from my vacation, or to share an idea that gets me excited!
If you ask, as you see the person's response - if their face isn't overcome with an expression of excitement, you could continue ... "or something interesting you've seen this year ... or any new place you've been ..." etc.
It's hard to come up with a good one-question strategy that would fit all. As you know more about the person it gets easier to ask fitting questions. For example if they have a child, that's a whole basket of good things to ask - let them be proud about the kid's first steps / first year in school / etc.
You are dead on about dialing questions in after you get some responses though. But being incredibly vague and simple helps to open the conversation up. They have the ability to run any direction with the response. It works for personal relationships and professional interviews. Let the person talk and follow up from there.
If someone were to ask me what I'm excited about, my two options are "Nothing much" or "I'm trying to use Kubernetes for HPC....". Both are conversation stoppers unless the other party is a nerd.
For me, "what's keeping you busy?" works 80-90% of the time. It reaches into raw memory rather than the analytic side of a person. One can get to the latter eventually, but it needs to be a guided process.
Or maybe my southerner is just showing super hard in this thread, ha.
Does it really? One can do other things than work.
If you don't know the person, then yes, you have to ante up with small talk, let them warm up to you, and all the usual stuff. The point is that open-ended questions let other people drive the conversation, and it usually works better that way. Plus, you can't accidentally bring up an awkward topic if you don't choose one.
Big no-no in some parts of the world (yes, even the Western americanized world).
I remember an article on HN describing how the usual "So what do you do for a living ?" was very insensitive and an American woman had it hard striking a conversation with her husband's african dad (or something like that).
As a European I find this opener extremely aggressive, even in a friendly setting. It's the first line used by HR in a job interview. Not a pleasant way to start up a conversation.
This reminds me of the valuable reminder I got while studying to be a math teacher: many students don't have a mother or a father - so telling kids "have your mom sign this paper" would be insensitive. Similarly, assuming a person you're talking to has a partner of an opposite sex isn't very sensitive.
I'm glad for this whole HN discussion!
I like being asked such questions because they let me guide the conversation and decide how much I want to disclose, which is the reverse of how many people here interpret these questions. Beats getting stuck in a shallow conversation that neither party really cares about. You have to actually be interested though and open for any response. I’ve had great conversations about everything from Warcraft to politics to medical school just by being interested in what the other person is saying
I'd go with the flow of the setting and let conversations unfold. Normally the host or others should kick-off the conversation and include you at some point. No matter what they shouldn't disclose sensible things about you to jump start the conversation (and certainly not a "Tell me about yourself").
Now if you are digging for stories, I find that listening to conversations and going from there with a question about a specific does the trick.
Also, you could very well be there for the humane experience of being in a group, not necessarily disclosing yourself or trading interesting stories. Sometimes shallow conversations are OK for the mind because maybe you just wanted a casual stress-free interaction with a human being you don't want to sell anything to.
2) smugly agree with them