As I stared across the interview table into empty space, there was only one phrase that seemed appropriate for the conversation: “My name is Kousha, and in Russian that means cat urine.”

The bus stop has been replete with conversations relating to jobs and internships. It seems like that time of year when underclassmen are looking for internships, juniors are starting to think about their job hunt next year and seniors like me are desperately clinging to anything that seems like it will legitimize their undergrad education (please hire me! I will do anything for your company! I’ll be a crash test dummy for Toyota if it means I can tell my mother I’m employed!).

An integral part of getting a job is interviewing. Even though they’re necessary, I think interviews make us act less like people, and more like products for someone else’s consumption. For this reason, it is important for us to separate our worth as human beings and our success in the job market.

Last week I learned this lesson through my encounter with cat urine. I went to New York for a potential job. Even though I had prepared responses about my interest in the company, the job and my experience, the interviewers started in a totally unfair way: They asked me to talk about myself. In my bewilderment, the only thing I could think of was the funny coincidence a friend once told me that my name meant “cat urine” in Russian.

Now, whether introducing myself as cat-pee-guy was a good choice is highly debatable. But it reflects a danger many are susceptible to in interviewing: I tried to present myself as an image that I thought others desired. I could have said a lot of things about myself, but I decided to talk about my name because it seemed like the best way to project an image of humor. Am I actually funny? Another debatable question. But I sure wanted my interviewers to think so.

I don’t think I’m the only one with this desire. We are often given two competing pieces of advice when job hunting: always sell yourself, yet always be genuine. So, I try to come across as the ambitious down-to-earth independent team player that always looks at the big picture while I get my satisfaction out of paying attention to the details. If this described my everyday behavior, I’m pretty sure even simple tasks like brushing my teeth would make my head explode.

So how do we project a certain image while remaining true to oursleves? Well, in the best case they match up perfectly; we find a job we want that fits exactly with who we are. But what about the other 95 percent of the time when the job I’m applying for isn’t an ice cream taste tester? (Unfortunately, I probably wouldn’t even get a phone interview after answering the first question on the interest form: “Are you lactose intolerant?”).

Maybe the trick is just coming to terms with the fact that there are some unavoidable concessions we make when we interview. Your employer is looking for something specific, and we need to be willing to present ourselves in a way that clearly fulfills the specificity, even if it means generalizing our identity in the process.

And we come to terms with this by realizing that job interviews are not meant to judge our worth as people, but to judge how well the product we’re offering fits with the needs of the customer to whom we’re selling. In that same cat-urine interview, it turned out that they couldn’t hire me, because they had a policy of not hiring recent graduates. Does that mean I’m a bumbling and heartless fool? No. There’s plenty of other evidence to prove that, but not in this case.

So whether you’re set for life, set for summer or don’t have anything set at all, remember that the process of interviewing does not judge the quality of your character. And try leaving cat urine out of the conversation.

Kousha Navidar is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Tuesday.