Many years ago, I read in a magazine about "taking charge of the interview". Preparing for my next interview -- I was working, but interviewing to keep in shape, etc. -- I studied both the company, the department to which, the technology at hand, etc. etc., and when the day came I told the interviewers all about it. We amused ourselves with animated conversations in which the details of their requirements and opportunities were vigorously explored. Much of an afternoon went happily down the drain.
But in succeeding days I heard nothing. After a week, I finally called the headhunter. "What did you tell those guys?" he yelled at me, "They won't talk to me!" I told him how I had "taken charge of the interview" and showed them how I understood not only the work in general but their company and department in particular.
"Oh, never do that," he replied, "They think you want _their_ jobs -- and are smarter than they are." So after that I have let myself be much more diffident and submissive -- girlie, you might say -- in approaching employers, figuring they want to pretend to know what the job is much better than I. Indeed, they have often waxed orotund thereon, saving me the effort of investigation, composition and declamation. They tell me, and I say it back to them, and everyone's pleased. It's about power, no?
So it may be your hotshot salesman is really shy, just as your connoisseur of sweaters is probably afraid of women.
-- Gordon