Preparing for Silence
Launch library · evergreen read
Knowing in advance that silence will arise, and deciding beforehand how to sit with it rather than rushing to fill it, is itself a form of preparation many interviewers overlook in favour of simply preparing more questions to ask instead. Most interviewers never consciously plan for silence at all, treating it instead as something to simply endure.
Practising this in low stakes settings, ordinary conversations where a comfortable pause can be held rather than filled, builds the muscle needed to do the same thing under the greater pressure of a formal interview, where the instinct to fill a gap is considerably stronger.
An interviewer who has genuinely made peace with silence in advance brings a calmness into the room that a subject often senses and responds to, even without either party naming the dynamic directly. That calmness tends to be sensed by the subject as well, even when neither party names the dynamic directly out loud.