Why knowing how to talk to strangers might be more important than your GPA.

"When we choose to talk to complete strangers we learn how to concisely give a summary of who we are, and we find avenues to speak about our passions and drives."

As a professional in the world of Talent Acquisition, I spend a large portion of my time speaking with college students that are ready and eager to make the transition to the professional world. Often times we have fantastic conversations in which they share their dreams and hopes, along with the struggles that they have overcome on their path to the career they want. Not as often, but still pretty regularly, there is the conversations that go for about three sentences and then collapse dead. Only for me to futilely pull out a conversation defibrillator to attempt to revive them. I do this for about three times at maximum, and then politely shake their hands, thank them for their time and move on to find a better conversation. You do not want this to be you! you do not want to miss on a fantastic opportunity simply because of a painful and awkward conversation.

So how can we avoid this potentially career aborting conversations? How can we make sure that it will not be us that is overlooked by an over eager recruiter looking for that standout candidate? or once in a career, how can we make sure that we are not passed over for the promotion by a more outspoken co-worker? We talk to strangers, that is how.

I have the reputation for being an extrovert, perhaps this is why I love a career that is constantly pinning me to environments surrounded by strangers that want to socialize. With that said "talking to strangers" comes easily for me, perhaps for you, not so much. And that is ok, I am not asking you to completely change who you are or to develop some type of fake persona. What I am asking you to do, is to step out of your comfort zone every now and again in order to sharpen a very crucial soft skill that will take you very far. When we choose to talk to complete strangers we learn how to concisely give a summary of who we are, and we find avenues to speak about our passions and drives. All things that recruiters and managers want to know about you when they shake your hand for the first time.

So here are some tips to help you start conversations with complete strangers that will be memorable and leave people with a great image of how amazing you are.

Observation.
The best way to start and actual conversation and not just a four sentence fumble is by observing the person that you are talking too and noticing the small things. The company logo on their shirt, their shoes, an accent, the magazine they are browsing, etc. When you observe people you can glean information without speaking to them and this could be a great avenue to start and actual conversation, for example. "I see the EPB logo on your shirt. Do you work for them?" this is a question that is welcoming the exchange of information and will give you a more fluid experience than the standard "How are you?" "Good, you?" "Good".

2. Open ended questions.

Once you observed something and started the conversation with it, make sure you follow up with open-ended questions. Do not ask anything that could be answered with a simple yes or no. This is the most common conversation killer, they tell you that they do work at EPB and then you ask "Do you like it there?" "Yea I do, it is great." And now you are panicking because you don't know what to do next. Instead, follow up with a "what is the best part of working there?" Not only this will give you the information that you are seeking but this will give the person the space to display some of their passions and drivers, which could be in common with yours, and now you have something else to talk about. For example "what is the best part of working there?" "I gotta say is the family atmosphere, I come from a big family, so it was important for me to have the same feeling at work as I do at home." Now you know that EPB has a great family culture and that the person comes from a large family, which leads me to my next point.

3. Serve it back.

A conversation is like a tennis match, not very fun if only one person is lobbing balls down the court and watching them slowly bounce on the ground to a stop. So make sure that you are serving them back. You just found out the person comes from a large family, that is information you did not have before, take it and use it to continue the conversation. For example, "Big family huh? I have no idea what that is like. how many siblings do you have? is it hard getting along?" Now you just showed the person that not only are you listening but you are actually interested in who they are as a person. This goes a long way, at the end of the day, we are all simply communal creatures looking to create relationships, and nothing forges relationships like simple acts that say out loud "I care about you." and nothing says "I care about you" like repeating what people just said and asking them to expound on it.

4. It is a conversation not and interrogation.

So you started the conversation and found out some details about the person. They freely gave you what information the wanted and now you know that the person has six siblings and that they all get along great. Should you ask another open-ended question? NO! There is nothing more exhausting than feeling like you are in a game show answering question after question. Give them a break and take this opportunity to say something about yourself, make sure that whatever you say is connected to the topic and not random. For example, "Wow! six siblings, I only have one brother and we gave my mom a hard time as it was. We also get along great, we try to go on a camping trip at least once a year, that's the good part about living here right? A 30-minute drive and you can be in the middle of the woods." Now you have given the person information about yourself that will allow them to do what you did earlier, pick information out and ask you a question. The person could say, "so you like camping huh? that is one of my favorite things to do." BOOM! Now you have yet another topic to talk about, do you see a pattern here?

5. Know when to end it.

So you have chatted it up for a bit, found out why your person loves working at EPB, a bit about their family and bonded over camping and the great outdoors. You laughed a couple of times and now have found a natural conclusion to the conversation. Some people say that this happens every 7 minutes, I have found this to be generally correct, but don't time it, just let it happen. Once it does, simply thank them for their time, tell them you enjoyed talking to them and if there was a goal to the conversation make it known. For example "that was great, I really enjoyed hearing about EPB and talking with you, I am a professional myself and would love the opportunity to work at a place like that, I hope to see you around and I hope you enjoy your next camping trip."

This is a friendly way to remind the person that you were paying attention, thus you brought up some of your past talking points, all the while making it known the interest you have in the company. Notice that you are not outright asking the person to set you up for an interview. Doing this will simply make the person feel like a means to an end rather than a person that you genuinely connected with. Don't worry about asking outright, if it is in a professional setting the person more than likely will follow up your closing statement with an offer to exchange information or to bring you up to a hiring manager. As long as your goal is clearly stated, The point that you want to work at EPB, the person will pick up on that and if they enjoyed the conversation will proceed with the rest. You may offer to exchange information yourself if you are in a specifically networking focused event. Outside of that, it might be weird for you to ask for that unless you had a really good connection with the person.

But what if they don't ask for your information? what if they just say "yeah, it was nice talking to you."? this leads me to my final point.

6. Don't panic, practice, practice, practice.

If you do all of this and the conversation just flops, or if you get too nervous and make the conversation awkward. Don't sweat it, consider it practice. The more you do it the more you will feel comfortable. This is ultimately why I recommend talking to strangers in just about every situation, not just in professional networking events. Talk to the guy next to you at the bus stop or the person next to you in the elevator. Worst comes to worst, you never see them again. Best comes to best, they end up being the CEO of a company and you just landed yourself a new job. Practice makes perfect and every stranger you talk to is one stranger closer to scoring the perfect conversation that gets you the career you are looking for.

So there you have it, I have used these skills to make key relationships to propel me trough my professional life, and I believe that they can help you too. Hopefully, next time we meet, I will not have to pull out my conversation defibrillator and try to revive it. Until next time, go be awesome and best of luck.

Feel free to share this within your circles, who knows, you might just help a friend out.