Today’s job market is being called historically unusual because of how challenging it is to get hired. As a result, nurturing your career and cultivating the unique factors that make you a great hire—current or future—are very wise. They are helpful not only for career stability, but also for career growth.
One of the ways to improve your chances to set yourself apart is to be interesting. We gravitate to the people who inspire us and keep us engaged. And when people feel positively toward us they are more likely to recommend us and advocate for our career advancement.
Think of being interesting in broad terms. You want to be someone that others want to be around, someone who is engaging, and someone others want to interact with. When others view you this way, they are more likely to offer meaningful support. Importantly, being interesting is largely based on being interested in a few key areas.
1. BE INTERESTED IN OTHERS
Many times, we think of being interesting as knowing a lot or offering great ideas. While these are meaningful factors, people are significantly drawn to those whom they perceive to be curious and who ask questions.
Good listeners are perceived as warmer and more humble, according to research published in the Royal Society of Open Science. Asking questions, focusing on others, and being interested in the other person drive these perceptions.
We want to be around people who are interested in us and care about us, and when people inquire about our experience, our expertise, our opinions, and our perspectives, it builds the relationship.
When you’re interacting with colleagues at work, ask questions, including follow-up questions, and listen well. Also be humble and assume others have views that are important and helpful beyond your own opinions and perspectives.
2. Be open to following a conversation wherever it goes
Another way to be perceived as interesting is to be flexible in the topics you’ll discuss. Improv is a terrific comparison. The best improv is characterized by partners who say, “yes, and” to the other person’s overtures. And in a strategy known as follow the follower they allow themselves to be led by their improv partner and influenced by their choice.
To be interesting, you can follow the conversation in the direction of the other person’s interest. Perhaps you were pursuing small talk about vacation destinations, but the person you’re speaking with is especially enthusiastic about the motorcycle trip they took and the new bike they rode. Or you were discussing project management tactics with someone on your team, and they wanted to steer the discussion toward the merits of the company’s new requirement for project management training. Go where the other person wants. Listen, continue to ask questions, and lean into an area that may be new for you.
Of course, in order to be flexible about lines of discussion, you need to be curious and a good listener. It also helps to have a wide array of appreciation for many topics, information, and issues.
Stay aware and informed about news and ideas that are circulating. Learn both broadly and deeply about topics that interest you, as well as related topics. Explore things going on around you and seek more information about those that are relevant to your work and to other aspects of your life.
Also think in terms of association. Even if you’re not an expert on a topic someone is interested in discussing, you can advance the conversation by talking about something that is adjacent.
3. Don’t be afraid to share
Another way to be interesting is to be open and accessible. You’ll ask questions and align with the other person’s interests for the discussion, but you’ll also need to share some details about yourself. If you tip the balance too much toward asking questions, you’ll be perceived as interviewing others, annoyingly. But when you also divulge details about yourself, it suggests a willingness to trust and invest in the relationship.
In fact, research published in Psychological Bulletin found that people who disclose more about themselves tend to be liked more than those who don’t disclose as much. And when we’re sharing, we’re more likely to disclose to people we like and in response to others who have disclosed to us.
We also tend to be sensitive about the ways we disclose. When someone shares a failure, we’re likely to share our own failure as well, but we’re unlikely to talk about a success. The reason is that we believe asymmetry in sharing could cause the person to feel worse about their own failure.
Instead, we’re more likely to communicate a success after someone else has talked about their success as well, according to research published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Make these conversational choices for yourself, sharing in ways that demonstrate empathy and alignment with what the other person has divulged.
All of this speaks to our human patterns toward reciprocity. We share a bit and then the other person communicates something about themselves. Then we disclose more and so on, until we’re both comfortable with our levels of openness. When we match our sharing in terms of content and in terms of openness, it builds relationships.
When you’re perceived positively and as someone that others want to interact with, you’ll contribute to your sense of connection and community, but you’ll also drive career success with a network of people who feel good about you, think you’re interesting, and who will want to help and support you in your growth and advancement.
