Editorial note: It didn’t take long for me to decide on the title for this blog post, but upon typing it out, I realize that it probably doesn’t make any sense to anyone else besides me. At some point, I will learn how to compose SEO-friendly, traffic-driving titles to reach more audiences, but for now, I will concentrate on the writing itself—the process of putting my thoughts onto the page, or to borrow from Dr. Kakali Bhattarcharya, the process of inscribing thoughts into matter.
This post was inspired by a fairly recent interview experience I had for an educational consulting job. It was one of the most intense interviews I had, with a series of rapid fire-like questions, no narrative arc, and little time to process. Did I prepare? Oh, absolutely! I studied the organization’s website and conducted content analysis of their publicly available documents. Content-wise, I was prepared. Prior to the phone interview, I had spent much time retracing my educational path, varied work experiences, and unique skill sets to articulate the narrative arc of my professional and personal life experiences. I was ready to share examples of my transferrable skills and how they align with the types of projects the organization pursues. I was prepared to acknowledge my potential shortcomings and areas of growth. I even practiced my answer to that dreadfully general prompt of “Tell me about yourself.” All of this interview prep was based on my past interview experiences prior to starting grad school and informed by my own approach to research interviews with youth participants (a totally different research ‘genre’ if you will!)—all of which I would consider my ‘book smarts’ approach for interviewing. By contrast, what I will focus on here is the ‘street smarts’ approach to interviewing that my husband coached me on the night before. And this is where tennis comes in.
“Hold up… What’s tennis got to do with it?”
It is fitting for my husband to bring up tennis as a point of reference, for this was the main sport he took up as a kid growing up in Germany, alongside soccer and skiing. I, on the hand, pursued lamppost climbing, forest wandering, and hopscotching while growing up Chinese in Sweden. These hobbies didn’t cost my parents a cent and I enjoyed boundless fun nonetheless. Having said that, I believe there are valuable lessons an individual learns through more organized play with an opponent that extend beyond the game itself to life in general. These are lessons in strategy, in conquering one’s mind, and in staying present in the moment that have direct applications to conducting job interviews, managing stressful timed assessments (like the dreadful SAT / ACT / GRE), and navigating tense arguments, alike. For now, I will concentrate on the job interview and how it relates to tennis matches.
Tennis is very much a mind game and it begins before the match even commences. Max shared a childhood memory of how an opponent team member (who wasn’t even that skilled at tennis compared with his own team members) intimidated everyone during warm-up and proceeded to win match after match because he beat everyone at the mind game. Prior to the official matches, this kid was lugging his bag of multiple tennis rackets around the court. He was ‘tuning up’ the rackets and then proceeded to practice his serves, slamming tennis ball after tennis ball. Everyone was reading into the bag of multiple rackets (e.g., “he must be a total pro if he owns not one but several rackets”) and so engrossed by the sheer force of the kid’s serves that they didn’t catch that most of the balls were out of bound. In short, this kid knew exactly what he was doing: he was flexing big time and trying to both distract and scare his opponents shitless. And his strategy worked. Before the matches even started, his opponents stepped onto the court already feeling nervous, inadequate, frightened. They had already lost the mind game.
Be aware of the pre-interview mind game
I entered my interview, framing it as a mind game. In my case, because it was an initial phone interview, I did not have to interact with other potential candidates. As such, there was less of the ‘pre-game intimidation’ if you will, to extend the tennis metaphor from above. I did not try to compare myself with other candidates based on what I was seeing, hearing, and feeling. All of this pre-information has the potential to shape one’s interview performance and so, it’s helpful to try to zone out, silence the ‘noise,’ and attend to what you are doing, not what others are appearing to do. Optics have a way of messing with our heads.
In some ways, the intimidation phase for me started well before the interview. It began at the time of preparing my cover letter and resume for the position. I recall studying the job description, reading each line of the required qualifications, and feeling my heart sink each time a bullet point exposed a potential gap in my work experience or knowledge base. I had to physically pinch myself and actively remind myself of the striking statistics that women are x-y-z percentage less likely to apply for jobs compared with men (different reports / studies disagree on the actual numerical value, but the trend is consistent) because they do not feel qualified. I want to emphasize the feeling qualified piece, because this is where the mind game begins and where the disadvantage sets in. Many of us women enter job situations with certain internalized scripts and gendered narratives that restrict us. This is not our fault but part of how girls and young women have been and (unfortunately) continue to be socialized. Layer onto this other identity markers like race, sexuality, language ability, personality traits, and so forth and you can imagine the complexity of this mind pre-game. But I digress…
Keep your eye on the prize, one point at a time
There’s an ordinary scene in The Half of It (a coming-of-age film from 2020 that centers the experiences of a queer Asian American teen growing up in a remote town in the Pacific Northwest) that comes to mind: Ellie Chu and Paul Munsky are in the basement playing a friendly game of ping pong. It is through this shared hobby that Ellie teaches a nervous and awkward Paul the foundation of a conversation: keep the ball in play, one swing at a time.
During the actual interview, there were moments when I struggled the keep the ball in play. I remember one specific “Tell me about a moment when…” question mid-interview that threw me off course because I could not recall a specific moment to illustrate how I navigated a scenario. I bought myself some time by responding “Let me think about it for a moment” but an extended silence quickly pursued. And it was uncomfortable. Eventually, I let the discomfort pass through my body and proceeded to respond (swing back, return the ball), however delayed: “I can’t recall a specific moment at work when I had that exact dilemma; however, if I may, I’d like to offer what I would do, should I encounter a similar problem.” I continued by outlining some possible causes of the dilemma and how I would troubleshoot each case. More importantly, I related the specifics of my response to character traits, work practices, and people management skills—the stuff that the hiring team was really after.
My return swing wasn’t pretty but it did the job. I kept the ball in the air and this meant the match would continue. Although I probably ‘lost’ that point to my ‘opponent,’ I did not succumb to the intimidation game. There would be another point to win, independent of this point, and that was vital for me to keep in focus. Each question during an interview is a fresh opportunity to score a point. If we hold on to the negative feelings from an earlier question (a very natural human response!), this will likely affect our performance in the present. In tennis, a single point has the potential to change the course of a match, for better or worse. I’ve witnessed on the screen how a player’s early frustration (from missing a serve, from returning a ball into the net) spirals into anger and a complete loss of control. I have also witnessed how confidence builds from slowly, steadily, and unnervingly tackling one ball at a time.
Remember it’s your choice how you play
A game takes two to play. At least. Likewise, an interview is a dialogue between individuals, a literal exchange of (inter) perspectives (views). And while there are guidelines that the players must agree on, the real rules of the game in practice are more fluid.
There was another memorable moment in my interview. The interviewer posed a question in which I had to recall how I handled the analysis of a large data set. I responded. One point at a time, Catherine! They followed up on my response, unconvinced of my answer, remarking “I don’t see how this example applies to the question because your data set is not large. Can you try again with another example?” I was baffled. And, frankly, annoyed. Here, I was presented with a choice: A) I could play the interview game on their terms and follow through with another example involving a large data set (following their set definition), B) I could maintain my answer and shift the dynamic of the interview, and C) I could choose to not engage further in this question and move on to the next ‘point.’
I ended up choosing B: set the rules of how I play this game.
After, once again, letting the emotions quickly travel through my body, I chose to act on my terms. I respectfully pushed back, insisting that I maintain my example involving a “small” data set. I quickly followed up with my rationale: my data set may not be the kind their organization typically works with (acknowledgment of a ‘limitation’), but the analytical skills are the same and highly transferrable to their work context (pivoting to core of the job description). In essence, I had to build my case, one piece at a time, helping the interviewer see my perspective. In teaching language, I needed to scaffold the interaction, so that they could better receive what I had to contribute.
Even though in the moment, I was unsure of how the interviewer would interpret my move, I am glad I chose the proceed the way I did. It took strength to maintain my direction, and it took flexibility to communicate my stance in a way that they could accept it. To use Max’s soccer terminology (sorry, switching sports here), I had a standing leg and a swinging leg. My standing leg provided the anchoring strength I needed to maintain the course of the interview on my terms. In other words, I have things to tell about myself and you will hear it. My swinging leg offered the dynamic play that supported my movement out of a potential stuck corner and, in doing so, allowed the ball to remain in play. One point at a time, Catherine!
Beyond the interview: What tennis has taught me about life
Phew—what a loaded heading! I could probably come up with something more nuanced, but then I’d probably lose half of my readers. Conclusions are my least favorite sections to write in both academic and non-academic contexts, because nothing—in my view—is ever neat and can be tidily wrapped up. Nonetheless, I believe I can offer some ‘implications’ and accompanying reflections that extend beyond the subject at hand: the interview (game).
While tennis is not a sport I grew up playing, it is a useful metaphor or ‘lens’ to understand bigger things in life. What I have shared about navigating the interview in a game-like fashion can also be applied to other stressful contexts.
I applied to grad school during a time when the GRE was a non-negotiable requirement. As someone who dreaded the SAT, I went into my first GRE session highly emotional and vulnerable. I did not enter with the framing of a ‘mind game’ and boy, oh boy did the GRE screw with my mind! The 3+ hour exam was an emotional rollercoaster as I let feelings from one section spill into the next, clouding my ability to think strategically. I let my stubbornness get to me and I spent all this time solving a single problem in the quantitative reasoning section because I needed to prove to myself that I could answer it with hard work and perseverance. As you can imagine, the heart-less computer did not care and I missed out on many easier problems worth the same number of points. This resulted in my next quantitative set of questions being easier to solve—an observation that quickly settled into the grave realization that I had performed poorly previously. Naturally, as the sensitive individual I am, I allowed this realization to penetrate every cell in my being and the consequence of it all was a very sad Catherine. By the end of the GRE, I was fighting back tears.
I will spare you the details, but you can believe me when I write that I approached my second GRE session very differently. I brought my full self to the session—emotions and all—but I kept them in check as I reminded myself to play a numbers game: it’s how many points you earn overall, not the individual points you miss here and there. Fight for each point. Each point is a new opportunity; it has no memory.
Fighting for points is not the ultimate life takeaway here, but what it is is a reminder to myself to keep things in perspective and to keep things in motion. It’s easy for me to get stuck, to become hindered by impasses, to experience blocks (especially writer’s block), and to feel lost. This is true for all aspects of my life—personal, professional, and everything in between. Whenever I find myself at a halt (e.g., a personal conflict with someone I care about, lack of drive to keep going with my dissertation), I pause, collect myself, and take small steps towards “keep moving.” Because movement inspires more movement, and that’s how momentum builds. Part of the impetus for movement comes from perspective—wisdom acquired from accumulating experiences, knowledge contributed by friends and family, etc. Seeing things in relation helps, because then nothing is finite, absolute, fixed. Dichotomous, binary thinking can be useful in sorting the world for general sense-making and increased comfort, but this form of thinking is ultimately harmful to our personal evolution and connection with others. (Obviously, my own opinion and I can already imagine my husband formulating his rebuttal.)
But returning to the topic at hand, all of this relates to “life in general” in that, we always have a choice. Even when we feel as though there is no choice, there are choices / paths. How we choose to move—or, how we choose to swing, how we choose to keep the ball in play—is powerful in that it has the potential to shift the dynamic of the moment for a different iteration of the future.
Remember this, Catherine, the next time you find yourself in an argument, in an unhealthy relationship, in a stressful interview, etc.