Decoding messages during the interview process can be hard. It’s often hard to tell if the interviewer is sending a positive, neutral, or negative signal. For example, if the interviewer describes the department in depth and what the role is, that could be either neutral or positive (do they do this with everyone, or are they thinking about how you would fit in?).

But here are three distinctly positive signals:
1. The interviewer consistently uses the word “you” when describing the role, like “you would be doing X here.”
2. The interviewer starts selling the benefits of the job or company to you.
3. The interviewer says, “I’d like you to come in and meet the team.” This is a home run and not said to everyone!

And here are three negative signals (beyond the unambiguous one of cutting an interview short):
1. “The interview process is very long.” The interviewer says this without caveats for you.
2. “We are at the beginning of our process.” Again, not a good sign if they don’t follow this statement up with anything else.
3. “We think highly of you but you should do what’s best for you.” This is in response to your message that your timing is getting short. They may well like you but are unable to speed things up to be competitive with any other offer you are getting.