I just came out of an interview with a stakeholder. It didn’t go as well as I wanted.
I was nervous; I hadn’t been nervous in a while. I spoke in a tangled way, that didn’t happen to me last year.
I only had half an hour. I gave context that apparently wasn’t necessary. If I don’t explain context, people get lost, but if I give context they already know, I sound condescending.
I need to learn to be more to the point. More to the point, more to the point. Clear about what I want. About what I want to ask. Two stakeholders have already told me this, and it embarrasses me.
It was really good to have been able to do interviews from the start of the semester; otherwise, I’d be worse off now.
They told me they would put me in contact with someone else and send me documents. Honestly, I feel culturally suspicious, is this just a polite way to dismiss me, or is it really going to happen? If they haven’t sent me anything in a couple of weeks, can I write to them again? Funny to see me this dubious about myself.
I see this like when I trained for debate: I have to focus on one small part and improve it.
In this case, it’s:
- Learning how to do an informational interview.
- Being precise and clear about what I want to ask, rehearsing more.
- Doing more interventions to be clear on what I want.
It’s not easy to do this in another language, on a new topic, with a different culture.
In the end, as with everything in communication, it all comes down to preparing and rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. I didn’t rehearse.