The Attention Reservoir
One of the most common mistakes I see in Behavioral Interviews.
Picture this.
You’re in a behavioral interview. You have 30-60 minutes to tell someone how awesome you are at your job. You’ve been preparing for this for days.
The interviewer falls right into your trap and asks the question you’ve prepared for the most.
It’s go time.
You dive in, traversing the peaks and valleys of your story, weaving through the obstacles and riding the burn down ramp like... Tony Hawk? IDK this metaphor got away from me.
But your story doesn’t get away from you- the STAR method hates to see you coming. When you’ve finished detailing the ins and outs of your rockstar architecture and ninja-level project management skills, and the dust settles, you look over at the interviewer to bask in glory......
Wait, are they playing Balatro? No they definitely are, I see it in the reflection of their glasses. But how? And why do I only have 2 minutes left in the interview?
This dramatized re-enactment might be a little over the top and cheesy but what I’m trying to say is....
Stop Talking So Much In Interviews
This one is on you. Interviewers go into the call with every intention of giving you their undivided focus, but look at it from their perspective:
They were up til 2 am cleaning up a mess from last week’s Sev 2.
They’re on their 4th interview call in a row.
They’ve been a steady stream of DMs and texts from the CEO about an overdue project they didn’t even know they were supposed to be working on.
Their dog ran in right before the call and puked on the rug.
And that’s what we call a good day in 2026.
Bottom line, interviewers have an attention reservoir and you have to be careful not to deplete it (something I likely have already failed to do in this post). When was the last time someone talked to/at you for more than 2 minutes and you caught a single thing they said?
Next time you’re in an interview, try this. Start with the movie-trailer version. Just tell them the exciting, high level story. Take the book you could write about this project, and start by just describing the chapters- what are the high level sections that you could talk about? After that, ask them what they want to know more about.
Remember that every interview needs to be a conversation, not a lecture.
If you find yourself talking for more than 2 minutes, wrap that shit up. When you’re planning your responses, always have a point you want to land on, a “so what?” statement. This is kind of like Aesop’s Fables- if you missed the point, the author tells you at the end what the “moral of the story” is.
Yes, I’m telling you to pretend that your interviewer has the attention span of a 5 year old.
If you’re having trouble doing this then a good practical tip is to go buy a small 2 minute hourglass (minuteglass?) and put it on your desk. Flip it when you’re about to start responding and when you see the sands of time have run dry, wrap it up.
Keep your stories short. Keep them engaged. Be mindful of the attention reservoir.
