The Interview and Advocacy Gap

Most conversations about preparing young people for interviews focus narrowly on the college admissions interview or the first job interview: a single, high-stakes event to rehearse for once. That framing understates the real shape of the problem. Between the first day of high school and the end of senior year of college, a young person accumulates a long, largely unplanned series of moments in which they must present themselves for evaluation or speak up for what they need: tryouts, scholarship interviews, coach conversations, teacher meetings, job interviews, internship rounds, and dozens of everyday moments of self-advocacy in between.