You walk into the interview. Sit down. Smile.
Ask the hiring manager how they're doing.
"Good."
One word. No follow-up. No warmth. Just…"Good."
Now you have no idea what to say.
So you sit there. Awkwardly. While they shuffle papers, open the laptop, pull up your resume that they haven't looked at until this exact moment.
You can see them scanning it for the first time. The document you spent 6 hours perfecting. They're reading it in 6 seconds.
They look up.
"So…tell me about yourself."
You take a breath and launch into it. Your degree. Your first job. Your second job. What you were responsible for at each one.
You're reading the textbook to the professor who wrote it. They have your resume. They can read.
And the interview is already over. Not because you said something wrong. Because you said nothing. You handed the most valuable 30 seconds of the entire process to dead air and awkward silence.
I've watched this across 10,000 interviews. Every industry. Every country I've placed people in. 90% of interviews start exactly like this.
But get this:
Every once in a while, someone walks in and does something different. Instead of "how are you" followed by the inevitable one-word death — they say something else.
Seven words. Takes about two seconds.
The hiring manager's eyes lift from their papers. They weren't expecting it. And within 60 seconds, that candidate has extracted exactly what the company needs, how desperate they are, how many people they're competing against, and what the real decision maker actually cares about.
Before a single interview question is asked.
While you sat there fidgeting.
The 7 words, why they work, and what happens on the other side of the table when you use them — that's the opening move in Chapter 1 of 10,000 Interviews.
It's the first of 20 moves. And it's the one you'll use before the interview even officially starts.
https://unfaircareers.com/10000-interviews/
Kyle Mau