What Candidates Reveal Without Realizing It
Interviews often contain significantly more information than what appears on the surface. Certain phrases carry weight, and other phrases compress experience into a few practiced words. These patterns aren’t meaningless. They are in fact major points of interest, and they indicate where to stop and explore more.
Listening for Metaphors, imperatives, absolutes, and repetition will help you find unspoken context and help you move closer to what matters.
Metaphors
Metaphors act as containers. They hold decisions, feelings, and events, and they are easy to miss because they replace long stories with single expressions. A candidate who says, “that was the last straw,” is describing a limit being reached. Everything before that is still untold. A candidate who says, “you can lead a horse to water,” is closing off further explanation. A candidate who says “we had to build something from the ground up” is leaving out a lot of details about what could be discussed.
Metaphors mark places where lived experience has been compressed. Sometimes they help candidates move past something they don’t want to discuss, and other times it’s an opportunity for the interviewer to learn a tremendous amount of details about the candidate.
Questions to ask:
Tell me more about that.
Can you expand on what led to that moment?
What did you try before that?
How did others respond?
Imperatives
Imperative language shows up when describing pressure. Phrases like “we had to,” “I needed to,” and “you must” present actions as necessary. The reasoning behind the action is often left out. The pressure may have been internal, external, or both. Certainly, when sales professionals are told they have to do something such as hit quota, that’s not worth stopping and exploring. But what if a candidate tells you that they had to quit their job to take care of a personal situation? Or what if a candidate tells you they had to transfer departments based on an issue with a colleague?
Imperatives mark turning points and decisions made under stress.
Questions to ask:
You say you had to that. Can you talk about what caused that to feel necessary?
What other options did you consider?
Who made the final call on that?
Absolutes
Absolutes appear as rules. Candidates use phrases like “we always,” “you never,” or “you have to.” These reflect conclusions drawn from prior experience. They are often formed over time, sometimes from a single experience repeated often enough to become a belief. When a candidate discusses absolutes, it’s an opportunity to explore their core beliefs and see how open they are to changing those beliefs.
Absolutes indicate where a candidate has stopped evaluating other possibilities.
Questions to ask:
When did that belief start?
Has that been true in every situation?
How do you respond when someone takes a different approach?
Repetition
Repetition draws attention. It shows where a candidate returns. A repeated phrase, idea, or value suggests importance. It may reflect identity, pride, anxiety, or something unresolved.
Repetition creates a trail. Following it reveals what’s still active in a candidate’s thinking.
Questions to ask:
What makes that point meaningful to you?
Where else has that come up in your work?
What does that say about what matters to you?
Follow the Compression
These patterns more than anything signal compressed meaning, and candidates often speak this way without noticing. Their language reflects what they carry from role to role.
Stay with these phrases. Ask one more question. Allow the moment to expand.
That’s where the real information is!
