The first 30 seconds of your interview answer matter more than the rest

A few months ago I was interviewing a backend developer. Mid-level, solid resume, clearly knew his stuff. I asked him: "What's the difference between SQL and NoSQL databases?" And he started with: "Yeah so, that's a good question. Basically, um, there are a lot of differences, but I think the main thing is..." He talked for about two minutes. The answer was actually decent — he covered schema flexibility, horizontal scaling, trade-offs for different use cases. But by the time he got to the good stuff, I'd already written "communication — needs work" in my notes. I'm not proud of that. But that's just how it works — the first impression gets made before you even get to your actual point, and I've realized most interviewers do the same thing without even thinking about it. The thing is — I do the exact same thing. Not just in interviews. In meetings, when someone asks me a question I wasn't expecting. In regular conversations, even. This "so basically..." warm-up before getting to the ac