Be a well not a waterfall..

I recently heard this phrase on a random podcast whilst out on my daily walk; a habit I can highly recommend by the way, alongside lifting heavy weights and sprint (not actual sprinting, hyper short i.e. 30s intervals going all out on e.g. an exercise bike, or indeed sprinting if you enjoy that!) interval training a couple of days a week. Physiologist Stacey Sims is my go to guru with her growing collection of female specific research data! I’ve toned up even more whilst loosing 24Kg over the past 2 years!  

I thought be a well not a waterfall was the perfect description of an antidote to the number 1 problem that plagues every single person I’ve ever coached prior to a grant interview. We always want to say far more than interviewers need to hear to be satisfied relative to the question they are asking and interviewers invariably report being more impressed by candidates/teams where they’ve been able to get through all their questions than those with whom they’ve had longer discussions on fewer topics. Remember that it’s typical for interview panels to have a set of core questions to be asked in all interviews in the series, and a small number of application specific queries emanating from expert reviews, or their own thoughts if the funder uses expert rather than generalist interview panels.

Invariably when coaching either individuals or teams, part of our preparation includes building a library of questions that are likely to come up and answers to those. Grant schemes have clear objectives and assessment criteria so with just a few minutes though it’s easy to imagine yourself in the role of interviewer and come up with a list of questions you’d want to ask based on what the funder has set out as the objectives and criteria for the scheme. Note that you MUST do this from the perspective of the interviewer, someone who doesn’t know your application as well as you do. Work from the published scheme objectives/criteria NOT what you’d ask after having read your proposal i.e. from general to specific. If you find this tricky because you’re so familiar by now with your proposal have a trusted colleague help. Give them the scheme details and ask what questions they’d ask of all proposals to be able to compare and contrast. Then and only then give them your proposal and ask what specific questions they’d ask.

Once you’ve got your list of questions it’s time to add answers. My advice is to take a multi-pass approach. First brainstorm everything you’d like to say in answer to a particular question. Then work your way through the other questions. You might find commonality of what you want to say, that’s ok, those are probably the most important things you want to say about your application and/or there are lots of ways of phrasing essentially the same question. Next leave your answers for a time, preferably overnight, but it could be longer, allow your brain to do a bit of “subconscious marinating” of the responses; you’ll be amazed at how much nuance of responses, or additional points come up when your just letting your thoughts wander in the background, or how other discussions trigger new thoughts! Then revisit your long answers and ask yourself from the point of view of an interviewer what are the absolutely key points that they’d like to hear, and remember it’s NOT about what you want to say, it’s about what they need to hear to rate the application highly against the assessment criteria. When developing short points/bullets for each response your guiding principle should be a meaningful and efficient answer, think important NOT squeezing everything in so that you end up saying nothing of any substance.

The building and refinement of the library should be a gentle, iterative progress as you prepare for interview. The purpose isn’t to give you a set of responses to memorise, you’ll come across as wooden, rehearsed and just not the most confident, capable version of yourself! The purpose of the exercise is to prevent you from having to do first principles thinking on the interview, your subconscious will recall what you want to say and if you’ve focused your points down to 3 key bullets it will help you convey the most important aspects; you’ll be a well from which interviewers will draw more if they want, not a waterfall, which interviewers find overwhelming, and are unable to work out what info they need to take note of and which is irrelevant.