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Of all the dozens, or maybe hundreds, of martial arts myself and my close circle of friends and training partners trained/fought in / fought against / saw demonstrated in London in the 1970s, Shorinji Kempo was the most impressive. They sparred with gloves and body armour, full contact, using a closely-integrated mix of punches, throws, kicks and strikes. The throws were excellent and their specialised throw defence was also very capable. Later I came around to using that form of throw defence myself, and SK was the first time I’d seen it (the second-stage defence after being thrown). Note that the system we saw demonstrated in London was completely different to that seen in some filmed SK events: what we saw was well-padded all-round fighters using judo-type throws; this is clearly not the same as that shown in some filmed material, which appears to show a type of formalised karate with aikido-type throws.In a word, they probably had the best system for fighting, at that time, in England - because they did a kind of old-form muay Thai, unrestricted (no rules against throws), for real, in actual fights. That was as rare as hens’ teeth back then - most martial arts were a fantasy palace at that time. It was all a bit formalised but that is the drawback of martial arts as against combat systems with no allegiance to a syllabus set in stone; and that formal structuring was very much a sign of the times back then. Of course the result depends on the gym and having plenty of fights - but it helps to start off with something that has promise.We were extremely familiar with all the rest: shotokan, wado, judo, ITF and WTF TKD, tang soo do, Thai boxing, wrestling, kyokushinkai, boxing, kickboxing and so on: because that is what we were all doing at that time. Kempo was impressive because it was a sort of mix of all of them, done with gloves on so you could actually see what worked / who won. The loser was flat out on the deck, and that’s the only way you can tell - but it wasn’t exactly common back then; only WTF TKD and kyokushinkai did that, among the formal arts - but with a huge list of rules.All the east Asian martial arts followers despised boxing and wrestling (as they had never fought for real) and people were tied up in all kinds of fantasy like Bruce Lee and ninja stuff. People had no clue back then.I was already travelling down a kickboxing-wrestling-boxing road and saw no need to divert; but the Shorinji Kempo people were way more impressive than any of the other formal / single-system arts: they could fight and they could mix it all in without unnecessary rules. In particular they (or at least, the demo team we saw) were pretty much unique in that they could integrate punching / fighting / throws well. Modern Sanda does this, traditional English boxing did it, and Combat Sambo tries to do it.Why Kempo got nowhereI can only speak of England, as that’s where I live. I know it all intimately, from the 1960s on.Shorinji Kempo did not expand to the size other arts did here because they didn’t tick any of the boxes; there were also a couple of negatives.Popularity is based on fashion and marketing - not what works in a fight. Especially back in those days, of course, as people were clueless. At the time SK were trying to expand, in the 1970s, hardly anyone was interested in what worked in a fight. They were transfixed by what they saw in films, and the power and mystery of the big martial art machines of the time such as Shotokan - which people assumed worked well since that’s what hundreds of thousands were training in.Kung fu got a huge boost from the enormous kungfu film popularity here. Those films (and the TV show) were everywhere. It was a thing to go to the weekly kungfu film night that many cinemas had, which would be packed to the rafters with screaming fans. Hardly anyone did any actual fighting in martial arts back then, it was a dream world, so the kungfu films satisfied that aspect perfectly.Bruce Lee was a big star. As nobody much did any fighting for real, the film fantasy scored big with youth. Chinese arts all got a big boost from this.Ninja films and that kind of thing were big. The youth of the time naturally followed such things and if they wanted to train, Japanese arts with their inherent mystique and above all their big publicity machines got the benefit. Nobody was interested in reality, because the word was that the supreme masters taught these esoteric arts in a foreign language and strange foreign uniforms, and after many years you could become a superman. As no one had ever faced a boxer and got flattened, or faced a wrestler and got slammed or choked into unconsciousness, they didn’t know any different. And they had certainly never mixed it up with a boxer/wrestler.Karate was huge and each school had its own machine working on expansion and marketing. The Japanese Ryu sent their senior instructors to teach here, such as Suzuki and Enoeda. They built their English associations into giant organisations with huge memberships. They created 1st Dan black belts in 3 years and the job of those students was simple: go out and open a new club - to create more of the same.Judo was a giant sport, backed by schools, universities and local authorities. Children often started in judo and simply stayed with it.Some people did fight, but with crippling restrictions on the technique allowed: TKD and Kyokushinkai for example. In these arts you had to be an ace kicker or it didn’t work. The English had punching and wrestling in their DNA, and in the main were not great kickers; and so those two strongly kick-based martial arts were not a natural route to supreme fighting ability for a native.The same kind of thing applied to English combat sports that had originated in fighting arts years ago: boxing and wrestling. In one you could now only punch (no wrestling, which had originally been part of it), and in the other you could only wrestle (no strikes), and with no real submissions as they were banned. Wrestling had evolved to become a safe but almost pointless grind with no proper chokes or submissions as they were thought too dangerous for a sport. The mat effectively eliminated any real effect from throws, the opponent just got up and carried on. This is not the case on the pavement. I remember the hours I spent on perfecting the floor guard (on all fours: the four-point knee/elbow defensive guard) used in freestyle to defend against a shoulder pin - completely useless in fighting, as you lose instantly if you try that.So all in all most people were not interested in actual fighting and what worked: they were fascinated by and entrapped in the publicity machine of the ‘big’ arts like karate and kung fu; or drawn to the mystery of ninja-type schools. Young men in poor areas went into boxing, or comparatively far less common, wrestling.The two approaches - combat sports or martial arts - almost never mixed. Each approach had a fighting option (boxing; kyokushinkai) but the contest rules were so incredibly restricted that all you could do was for example punch, or kick. Nobody seems to have considered that perhaps there was a way to combine it all for some kind of decent fighting ability. At the end of the 70s muay Thai started to become popular for that reason; but it only attracted real hard cases at that time. Also, the general consensus was that no form of boxing was any use against a proper martial art. Mass delusion was the rule.Shorinji Kempo was the original martial art that combined it all under one roof (that we had seen, at that time), and did it in fights too. Nobody cared. It was just way too far ahead of the reality movement in martial arts. For example: my pals and I tried to start an MMA series in southern England in the 70s but it soon fizzled out - hardly anyone was interested in actual fighting in those daysThere was also the minor problem that people who had trained in the classical-style martial arts (most of which are fairly recent anyway, let’s be honest) got beaten in an actual fight with someone who had experience in something like boxing and TKD. Their instructors brought their club teams along for a couple of events, then never appeared again. You don’t put your guys in for something where they mostly lose, and lose badly - it’s just too embarrassing.In those days there was an authoritarian, paternalist approach to women and combat. The establishment tried to prevent women fighting. Jane Couch had to take the BBBC to court (British Boxing Board of Control), and won, which marked a major victory over the establishment - see:Jane Couch - WikipediaEssentially this resistance to allowing people to compete was part of the overall difficulty in seeing that if you train to fight, then fighting needs to be what you get to be good at - not some kind of pretend alternative. In those days people really couldn’t see that those who never fought would never be any good at fighting of any kind, in or out of a ring. It sounds insane now - but that was how it was.Thanks to Carl J who reminded me: the Shorinji Kempo organisation had a more religious and political base than other arts, which tends to restrict universal popularity. As Carl says, a cult image is not a route to universal acceptance. Something like Shotokan, in contrast, was open to all on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.John H also points out their gi insignia was a swastika or looked like it (a very old symbol, well before the Nazis used a similar version of it). That was also a bit of a problem :)The protective equipment worn for pre-arranged and any freestyle sparring was complicated and expensive so was another barrier to entry.SummaryShorinji Kempo came along before its time, in 1975, and it didn’t have a machine behind it; and to a certain degree it was restricted by its combination of religion-politics-cult status. Having a form of swastika on the gi probably didn’t help.It was good at something hardly anyone was interested in at the time: winning fights without many rules, and training properly for that purpose. It was another 40 years before the circle turned enough again for that kind of thing to be fashionable. (It all goes round in a circle.)When people eventually realised that those who train to fight will beat everyone else in fights, the day had passed when a mysterious martial art from foreign lands could rapidly achieve mass popularity; it had finally dawned on people that esoteric arts did not guarantee success when the chips were down. Kempo now suffered from the problem that it was foreign and mysterious, even though it was essentially a good fighting method - unlike many things of a similar origin, which had been proven to fail when tested for real.I think the closest equivalent today is Kudo karate, which combines boxing / Thai boxing / wrestling / BJJ / judo, all within a karate container; but without the religion/politics that Kempo espoused. Sanda isn’t that far off either: a realistic fighting method that includes good throwing ability as a core component.

Dan Brown’s book is worth studying in order to understand how commercial fiction is constructed and how the US legal profession treats cases of structural plagiarism.Jack Dunn’s The Vatican Boys lost its copyright infringement case against Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code, but he hasn’t given up.Judge Michael Ponsor threw out Dunn’s claim in 2007, saying: “No prior case recognizing a theory of copyright infringement based on the sort of thematic or structural similarity posited by the plaintiff has been offered in his memorandum opposing summary judgment, nor has the court found one.”Dunn will try his case in the British courts next.Dunn said, “The claim in London is over the sequences of incidents in the respective novels which was not properly done in the United States because the judge disregarded what we gave him.”Dan Brown faces possible new plagiarism lawsuit over ‘The Da Vinci Code’Strangely enough, Judge Ponsor is now a bestselling crime novelist. Did they give him a publishing deal in exchange for a ruling?Jack Dunn’s case is important because authors these days are under the impression that copying other people’s novels is okay as long as they change enough, but enough is badly defined. I think that we can create a quantitative metric based on how human memory functions and based on the idea that if you needed to have the book at your elbow as you write, you did something wrong.To prevent my analysis of the similarities between Brown and Dunn’s novels from getting noisy, I wrote down the page numbers on which information is introduced to the reader for the first time in each book. Because Brown is writing for a commercial audience, he re-introduces information over and over, in a sort of echo that reminds the reader about what they need to worry about. Dunn was more to the point.Sometimes an event that occurred on one page in Brown’s book occured on two different pages in Dunn’s book. In those instances, I recorded two page numbers.An Italian man is murdered because of something he knew about the Catholic church. (Brown p. 15) (Dunn p. 1)A ruthless, well-trained mercenary is hired by the Catholic church to find a secret relic. (Brown p. 14) (Dunn p. 7)Thigh wounds from a cliche (an unusual torture device) are described. They represent the abusive, mental conditioning methods of the cult. (Brown p. 23) (Dunn p. 11)The mercenary is sent to search for the relic in a specific church in a foreign land. (Brown p. 24) (Dunn p. 52)We get a lengthy introduction to the perspective/lifestyle of the central character. (Catherine/Langdon) (Brown p. 27-44) (Dunn p. 9-42)We return to the mercenary’s perspective and begin to understand how the Opus Dei functions as a very wealthy and powerful cult that makes its members crazy. (Brown p. 45-50) (Dunn p. 43-46)We are introduced to a safe place of worship and a nun who is not in the thrall of the Opus Dei. (Brown p. 62-64) (Dunn p. 42, 67)We get an info dump about the history of the Opus Dei (Brown p. 63) (Dunn p. 75)We learn that the female lead is competent and knowledgeable about codes, the Opus Dei murderer, and the dangers posed to the protagonist. (Brown p. 76) (Dunn p. 76)We learn that the protagonist is being framed for a crime committed by others – a crime the protagonist was trying to avert/solve. (Brown p. 95) (Dunn p. 76)The female lead is disgusted with a man she had once idolized after seeing him engaging in something immoral. (Brown p. 106) (Dunn p. 77, 80)The mercenary reaches the church where information about the relic is located. (Brown p. 125) (Dunn p. 63)The mercenary discovers that the relic is not where he expected it to be. He has been tricked. (Brown p. 176) (Dunn p. 65)The female lead is haunted by the immorality she observed from the religious older man she respected. (Brown p. 196) (Dunn p. 77)The protagonist is on the run and in search of a treasure that only she can find because she knows where to find the codes. (Brown p. 200) (Dunn p. 78)The priest who hired the mercenary is upset that he still doesn’t have the treasure. (Brown p. 205) (Dunn p. 81)We learn that the treasure is hidden in a bank that deals with the church and the protagonist knows how to get to it. (Brown p. 231) (Dunn p. 77, 81)The protagonist learns that the people who want the treasure also want the sacred relic. (Brown p. 231) (Dunn p. 92)Through the eyes of the mercenary and/or his controller we learn that whoever controls the relic will control the Catholic church. (Brown p. 235) (Dunn p. 96)We learn that large sums of money were distributed from the Vatican Bank to the Opus Dei in order to secure the relic. The man given the money is using murder and torture to attain the goal. (Brown p. 234) (Dunn p. 98)The protagonist has the code to unlock a bank account that leads to the treasure sought by the Opus Dei. (Brown p. 252) (Dunn p. 105)We learn precisely why widespread knowledge of the treasure would upend Catholic teachings and power. (Brown p. 306-356) (Dunn p. 160)We learn how oppressive the Opus Dei has been of women. (Brown p. 306-365) (Dunn p. 98)A man pursuing the protagonist is taken hostage and given to a brotherhood that is protecting the relic sought by the Catholic church. (Brown p. 369) (Dunn p. 82, 104)A chapter describes how the people chasing the protagonist are always one step behind. (Brown p. 392) (Dunn p. 108)The protagonist and an expert in sacred relics travel from Paris to London via private jet while carrying a sacred relic that can only be made known to the world through access to an encoded treasure. (Brown p. 394) (Dunn p. 151)The protagonist makes progress in tracking down the code that will unlock the treasure they seek. The woman knows the first set of codes and the password for the second layer of decryption is rather simple and deciphered by the man. (Brown p. 403) (Dunn p. 165)The head of the Opus Dei who is pursuing the protagonist and who had hired the mercenary flies/flew to London from Rome on a private jet in an attempt to catch the protagonist and secure the relic. (Brown p. 413) (Dunn p. 190)There is a confrontation betweeen the protagonist and the mercenary who was sent to collect the relic. A substantial sum of money is also at play. (Brown p. 472) (Dunn p. 177)They are searching for a clue to unlock the treasure when the mercenary’s employer sneaks up on them. (Brown p. 472) (Dunn p. 185)The mercenary employed by the Opus Dei priest has been poisoned. (Brown p. 503) (Dunn p. 177)The protagonist’s most trusted assistant had betrayed them all in favor of his personal agenda. (Brown p. 530) (Dunn p. 215)The Opus Dei’s hopes of taking over the Catholic church by using the holy relic are dashed because of the criminal actions of the priest and his mercenary. (Brown p. 544) (Dunn p. 208)The mercenary finds God’s love and is saved, no longer intent on murder and vengeance. (Brown p. 556) (Dunn p. 182)The betrayer ends up in the hands of the police. (Brown p. 555) (Dunn p. 216)The female protagonist discovers that the secret code to a treasure is in a place she had loved as a child. (Brown p. 574) (Dunn p. 121)The female protagonist returns to a maternal figure. (Brown p. 574) (Dunn p. 216)This type of plagiarism is similar to what I have observed in the five books that used mine as a template: A Post About a Rather Serious Problem… and I do analysis of control variables for all of these books, but I’ll keep what follows less technical.People liked Brown’s book not just because of the meaningful ending that revealed the story as an allegory about the pursuit of knowledge and love. They liked it because they felt like they were learning something about religious symbols. I was fascinated to learn that Venus traces out the shape of a star relative to the ecliptic every eight years and I also enjoyed the few pages Brown wrote about PHI.In constast, I liked Dunn’s book because of the plot and because I felt like I learned something about how banking criminals operated. Nevertheless, after reading both books, it is clear to me that Brown borrowed heavily from Dunn and lied about it. He used Dunn’s story as a template or road map and the lying is where he crossed a line, in my estimation. Then again, maybe his publisher wouldn’t allow him to tell the truth. I’ve heard that they can be bullies.The first key to understanding an author’s writing or copying style is to create a list of character substitutions, conflating or doubling up characters depending on whether you are compressing or expanding a story. For example:Whereas Brown created an Indiana Jones/Femme Fatale character duo to act as the focus or protagonist of the story, Dunn made a single person, Christine, the focus.Whereas Brown made Remy and the Albino into mercenaries, Dunn used a single mercenary named Jeremy.The second key is to identify the style of copying. Brown alternates betweenchapters that drive the story forwards,chapters that give a glimpse of the mercenary sitting around and being creepy,chapters about stupid police who are always one step behind,chapters that detail Langdon’s tourist guidebook-like experiences in hotels or in tourist destinations,chapters that remind me of Indiana Jones and the search for the Holy Grail.I find that if I delete the parts that don’t drive Brown’s story forward, what remains comes straight from Dunn’s book. I’m left with the impression that Dunn created the bones of this story — maybe even drawing from some real life experiences of people investigating an incident of church banking fraud in the 1980s.Conversely, if I wanted to automate the conversion of Dan Brown’s book into Dunn’s book and I had access to a trove of mythemes or scenes indexed according to content, I take the bones of Brown’s book and then do a little substitution trick, copying and pasting appropriate scenes from an out-of-print book into the same location in which they occured in Brown’s book — making substitutions for names and places. For example,The Holy Grail becomes the holy shroud,crime bosses and cops become priests and masons,Chicago becomes Rome,a mafia assassin becomes a Vatican mercenary.With such tools, I could write a book in the blink of an eye. Depending on the quality of my database and the quality of my outline, I might be able to write a bestseller with such a tool.Perhaps that is the true Da Vinci Code.Then again, to many people, this line of thought will look like a conspiracy theory.In general, we need a quantitative metric for diagnosing sequences of unique concepts, but it needs to be specific enough that it doesn’t flag Harry Potter as being too similar to a book about the Holy Grail and the Knights Templar. As in all things, the devil is in the details and, whereas an analysis of thematic similarity should be allowed in flagging similar works, we also need an analysis of unusually specific plot overlaps to corroborate it. For example, when Matt Haig discussed toxoplasmosis and being married to someone in another life, this made an unusually specific overlap with my book that coupled to the sequence of 55 structural/thematic similarities to make it clear he had used my book as a detailed template. If Dan Brown had showed his female protagonist removing the eye of a statue in order to find a clue to solve the mystery of the lost treasure, he would have created an unusually specific overlap that coupled with a lengthy sequence of structural/thematic overlaps to reveal that he used Dunn’s 35 point plot sequence without attributing it. If he had attributed it and paid for the right to use it, he wouldn’t have been accused of criminality. After all, you can’t just take property you don’t own and then use it to make 150 million dollars — unless someone with power decides that is how they want things to be.If only things were so simple. Dunn wasn’t the only author who sued Brown for plagiarism. There was a non-fiction book that objected to how much research Brown drew from their work.The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Biagent and LeighThere is a stretch of about 100 pages (250-360) in the middle of Brown’s novel that bears no resemblance to Dunn’s book and that does seem to be taken from wildly speculative non-fiction sources that claim Jesus had royal blood and he was married to Mary Magdalene, a woman of royal blood who bore her a child whose bloodline entered the French monarchy, thereby connecting all of the modern monarchies to Jesus by way of genetics.In a sense, Dunn’s plot forms the bread of a Mary Magdalene sandwich that has been seasoned with some Indiana Jones mayo and travel guidebook mustard.If the information in Brown’s 100 page Mary Magdalene segment is presented in the same, sequential order in both books, I can see why the non-fiction authors objected, but I agree with the judges’ assessment that one cannot copyright a set of facts. A sequence of facts, however, I believe is copyrightable if it is long enough and if the elements are unique enough.. There is no reason for an author to present a lengthy sequence of unique details in exactly the same order as another author, other than lazy copying. In any case, I ordered the book and will report back later about what I find.Another argument against the non-fiction authors was that there is little reason to suspect that Brown’s book negatively impacted their ability to profit… unless you think about things in a long-term context. If the non-fiction authors wished to publish a German translation of their work today, no one would buy it because they have already seen the surprising ideas presented by the more famous work of Dan Brown. That doesn’t seem fair.Perhaps if the ideas are presented in the same sequential order within a fictional work, they are copyrightable, but not if they are presented as non-fiction. Here again, we find an author who claims credit for being the first to present the ideas about women’s history in the church in a form from from which Dan Brown’s book drew far too much.Daughter of God by Lewis PerdueThis novel was written in 2000 and Brown’s publisher pre-emptively filed a court case insisting that the author of the earlier work retract all complaints and agree that Brown had done nothing wrong. What horrible bullies! Is this a publishing house or a mafia?I just ordered this book and will do the same analysis that I did for Dunn’s book. At a minimum, it should provide a control variable for comparison. We can’t have a copyright law that allows a person to copyright an entire genre: literature about holy relics or Jesus’s wife.*There is a longer form version of this article on my blog

The Interview: Be Prepared to Answer and Ask These QuestionsThe interview is a great opportunity to make a first impression.First impressions are often lasting impressions, and the interview is usually the first opportunity to make a positive impression on a potential employer. Make sure you’re prepared for interviews by practicing your responses to some of the most commonly asked interview questions. At the same time, don’t forget that you are, in a way, interviewing the employer as well to learn more about the position and organization. The interview should flow as a conversation, where both parties are trying to learn if the other is a good fit.And, as in any good conversation, you should make an effort to be concise. We’ve all been in a group where one person keeps talking and talking and talking. You don’t want to be that person. Similarly, in the workplace, you need to demonstrate clear, concise communication. Fortunately, you can rely on the STAR method, a widely-used means of forming succinct responses to interview questions. STAR is an acronym that stands for:Situation: Describe the situation that you were in or the task that you needed to accomplish. You must describe a specific event or situation, not a generalized description of what you have done in the past. Be sure to give enough detail for the interviewer to understand. This situation can be from a previous job, from a volunteer experience, or any relevant event.Task: What goal were you working toward? What was the specific thing you were trying to accomplish?Action: Describe the actions you took to address the situation with an appropriate amount of detail and keep the focus on YOU. What specific steps did you take and what was your particular contribution? Be careful that you don’t describe what the team or group did when talking about a project, but what you actually did. Use the word “I,” not “we” when describing actions.Result: Describe the outcome of your actions and don’t be shy about taking credit for your behavior. What happened? How did the event end? What did you accomplish? What did you learn? Make sure your answer contains multiple positive results. Also, use specific numbers if possible (e.g., my actions led to 10% growth in sales for the second quarter).Most professional resources state that the STAR method is used primarily in “behavioral” interview questions. As the name suggests, these questions ask how you would behave in a particular work situation. For example, an interviewer might say, “tell me about a difficult decision you’ve made,” to which you would respond by discussing a specific situation, task, action, and result relating to a difficult decision.Questions you will hear during an interview may not at first seem behavioral. How could “tell me about your strengths” possibly relate to a behavior? In fact, many questions can be answered with the STAR method because your answers should be supported with examples of how you have behaved in professional situations. So you might answer the “strengths” question by saying something like, “I consider my greatest professional strength to be my adaptability. For example, I was once in a situation where…” You get the idea!The STAR method might seem like a lot of effort at first. However, all it takes is a bit of practice, and then you’ll be checking off the letters in your head as you form succinct responses to questions during an interview. Below, we’re going to present several common interview questions. Some allow you to consider how you might incorporate the STAR method. We’re going to call attention to these opportunities with a STAR method opportunity alert! Where you see this, take a moment and consider how you would respond by discussing a specific situation, task, action, and result relating to the question.Finally, at the end of any interview, you’ll have a chance to ask questions of your own. What you ask in this portion of the interview is arguably as important as your earlier responses. Good news: we’ll have some advice on this following the sample questions. Let’s begin!Aaaaaand we’re off!Image courtesy of PexelsSample Questions to Answer:1. Tell me about yourself. The employer is looking for a brief summary about you and is more interested in hearing about your educational and professional background than your hobbies and favorite foods. See if you can sum up your educational and professional background in about 60 seconds and ensure that you make connections between your background and the position for which you are interviewing.2. Why do you want to intern/train here? Focus on a few of the key responsibilities that are especially interesting to you or highlight aspects of the company that you find appealing or beneficial to your professional development. Be sure to include what you hope to learn from the position, but also explain what you would like to contribute to the organization as well. Absolutely avoid mentioning you want the position solely because of its location or because it is a requirement for your degree.3. What do you know about this industry? You may not have a lot of experience in the field yet, but make sure you have researched and are ready to discuss current trends – particularly what’s happening in the U.S. and in your home country. It’s also extremely important to refer to specifics from internships or work experience you’ve had in the past or topics you’ve recently studied in school.4. What do you know about our company? A potential employer wants to know that you have researched their company. You don’t need to know everything about the company, but you should be able to discuss the basics. Find out what the company’s mission statement is, who the biggest clients are, etc. Research recent news articles about them. The company’s website, blog, and social media is also a great place to start.5. What is your biggest weakness? This is one of the most challenging questions to answer. You obviously don’t want to say something negative about yourself to a potential employer, so the trick here is to turn a negative into a positive.STAR method opportunity alert! You might say, for example:Situation: “Staying organized used to be a challenge.”Task: “In 2019, my former supervisor asked me to take on an additional project, Project B, in addition to my current workload, Project A. I realized that I needed to develop my organizational skills in order to succeed.”Action: “I developed a time management system that works for me and that has really helped keep me organized: I started breaking down tasks into hour-by-hour chunks.”Result: “As a result, both projects were successful. Projects A and B represented, respectively, 15% and 10 % growth compared to the same projects previous year.6. Tell me about your strengths. Many people are inclined to recite a list of traits such as “dependable” or “creative”, but it’s especially effective to discuss experience or skills that are directly related to the internship/training program to which you’re applying. For example, if you’re applying to intern/train in Sales but have no previous sales experience; highlighting your presentation skills might really impress an employer. Or you may want to provide an example of how you were able to persuade someone to do something since that is the foundation of the sales industry. Again, provide actual examples rather than a list of attributes.STAR method opportunity alert!7. What specific skills do you have that would relate to this position? Make sure you’ve thoroughly read the requirements for the position and confirm that you meet them. Refer to specific responsibilities of the position and tie them to your educational and/or professional experience. If you aren’t applying to a specific internship/training opening and are proposing the program to the employer, be sure to explain that you have a strong foundation for training in this industry. They will understand that they will need to teach and train you, but they will also want to know you have sufficient preparation to be successful.STAR method opportunity alert!8. What makes you a good candidate for the position? Discuss your qualifications, including your educational background (include specific coursework or projects), internships and professional work experience. You may also want to include some personal characteristics (e.g. motivated, hardworking, get along with many different types of people, etc.), but do not simply list positive attributes. The interviewer is more interested in how you demonstrate these skills or attributes.For example, instead of saying you are motivated, provide an example of how you proactively identified a need at a previous company and subsequently led a project to meet that need. This will prove that you are motivated without you just saying, “I’m highly motivated.” If an employer ever asks you to “tell me about a time…” this is the type of response they are seeking. They don’t want to hear that you are good at time management—they want you to provide actual examples of your time management skills.STAR method opportunity alert!9. Why should I hire you for the position? Give specific examples of your accomplishments and why you are the best person for the position. Talk about the responsibilities of the position and the skills you possess to fulfill them. Be sure to restate your interest in the position!10. What are your goals for the future? An employer wants to know that the position relates to what you hope to do in the future because it’s a sign that you will be motivated to learn and work hard in the position. Talk about your goals and explain how the position would help you achieve those goals.Sample Questions to Ask:Let’s be real. Of course an interview should be a two-way conversation. And of course you want to learn more about the organization. But, at the end of the interview, when you’re asked if you have any questions, this is yet another opportunity for you to impress - or fail to impress - your interviewer. Asking certain questions will make a good impression.Conversely, asking some questions will make you seem foolish. Your school teachers may have taught you that there are no stupid questions. Well, that’s not the case here. We want you to succeed, so learn to ask the right questions. ;)Now it’s your turn to ask questions!Image courtesy of Pexels1. What is the overall structure of the company and how does your department fit within that structure? This is a good way to get a sense of how the company operates and what each department does so that you can see how your role as an intern/trainee would fit into this organization.Bonus points: Ask the question in a way that shows the interviewer that you’ve already done some research about how the different departments relate to each other. For example, consider the following question: “I saw online that there are three departments reporting to the Director of Programs. Do these departments interact on any projects?” Such a question shows that you’re aware of some basic company hierarchy already: you know the role of the Director of Programs and that this person supervises a certain number of programs. Asking this kind of question makes you sound informed, and your interviewer will note that you’ve done some research. Where might you have done this research? Most organizations’ websites have an “About Us,” “Our Work,” or “Our Programs” page.2. What will be my day-to-day responsibilities? Can you give me an example of a project on which I would be working? You should ideally know the major responsibilities of the position before interviewing, but this question will help you get a better sense of the more specific types of tasks you would be doing and the anticipated level of your involvement within the organization.Bonus points: Ask about a project that’s currently ongoing within this department. You might be able to find a calendar of events on the company’s website, or a list of projects on the page of the program to which you’re applying. You could say, for example, “I saw that the annual spring fundraiser is coming up; how would I support that in this position?”3. Can you describe the work environment/office culture? Is it casual? More corporate/formal? You will want to know the office dynamic before accepting an internship position with the company. Can you see yourself training in a similar environment? How does this office compare to offices in your home country or previous positions you’ve held?4. What do you like about working here? Be curious and inquisitive! Show that you are interested in the interviewer’s background and experience at the company. You will learn about the advantages of having an internship with them and get some firsthand insight. Note that both this question and the preceding one, about the work environment, are both commonly used by prospective employees. It’s good to memorize these as backup questions for the interviewer. But if your intention is to impress in the question phase of the interview, ideally you’ll go with one of the other inquiries.5. Why are you interested in hiring an intern? This is a great way to gauge the employer’s motivation for having an intern in the first place. You can better understand what they might have you working on and what type of role they envision you having.6. What is the typical career path for interns or employees in this department? You can relate this question to your long-term career aspirations by mentioning where you see yourself in a few years and how this position ties into those future professional goals. Maybe the employer will mention a previous intern. Do you share a similar background with that intern? This is a great way to learn about what a typical or potential career track might be. However, be cautious not to imply that you only see the position as a stepping stone to another role. Your employer will want to have faith that you’ll focus on the tasks your position entails.7. What would you consider to be the most important aspects of this internship role? You can use this question to really emphasize your strengths and draw on your education and/or previous experience. The better you are at understanding the expectations for the position, the better you can show them how you will meet those expectations and be an exceptional intern/trainee.Bonus points: Use the responses given by the interviewer to sell yourself. For example, after hearing the interviewer’s response, you may say something like “I’m pleased to hear that; I helped a previous employer in that area.” Then, of course, give a succinct explanation. Remember that all stages of the interview are opportunities to demonstrate your ability to excel.8. What do you think is the most challenging aspect of this position? This interview is an opportunity to really learn about your employer’s expectations for the position. You can also turn this into a conversation about challenges you’ve faced in your previous positions and how you have overcome them. (Hopefully very well!)9. Does the company participate in any team-building activities, traditions or events? The purpose of the Career Training USA program is cultural exchange. The program is a really great way to learn more about U.S. culture and to share your culture with Americans. This question allows you to learn about opportunities or activities for you to get involved in with the company.10. What are the next steps in the interview process? You don’t want to be pushy about when you will find out if they have offered you the internship, so this is a good way of asking what happens next.What NOT to ask:1. What does this company do? Show that you have done your homework! The interviewer will think you are wasting their time if you ask questions that you can easily find the answer to yourself, such as on their website.2. Can I change my schedule? What salary, vacation time and benefits do I get? Wait until you are offered the internship before negotiating things like salary and vacation time (if applicable). You certainly want to have these things agreed upon before accepting an offer, however you don’t want to give them the impression that you only care about the perks of position instead of the position itself.3. Did I get the position? Be patient! You can follow up with them via email after the interview, perhaps a few days later, to inquire about next steps. When you do follow up, don’t directly ask whether you got the position. We get it: it’s normal to be anxious and want to know. However, pointedly asking whether you got it can sound pushy and off-putting.Instead, follow up with a simple thank-you email. This is your last chance to make an impression and it’s also another way to reiterate your strong interest in the position. Did you think of another question you didn’t get a chance to ask? Put it in the email. Better yet, you can include more examples of your work discussed in the interview. Maybe your interviewer made a casual reference to an article you wrote for a student newspaper. Include it as an attachment. Show them that not only did you pay keen attention when speaking with them, but you also took the initiative to follow up.Bonus points: Send your followup email to every person who interviewed you. You might have to do a little digging. Sometimes, you find employee email addresses on an organization’s website. Perhaps that website has a staff directory you can search. Searching Google for an employee’s name, along with their organization, will sometimes result in links that provide their email address. However you find them, send your thank-you email to the original person you spoke to, and CC the others.