If you are like most nominees, your hearing will probably be swift and uneventful. It may be an event for celebration. Nominees customarily bring their spouses, parents and children along. You will also be accompanied by several stalwarts from your future department, who may themselves be walking encyclopedias of information. However, it is what is in your head that the senators will be after, and you will face the microphone alone.
Hearings are formal events.
You will be sworn in, although the rules of evidence will not apply senators can ask whatever they want. Be deferential at all times. Don t be surprised or disheartened if senators drift in and out on the way to other meetings, or if just one or two senators turn out to hear your opening statement and pose questions. That doesn t mean you should be curt or give cryptic answers. But if you can engage the senators in a friendly dialogue well, like most politicians, they like to hear themselves talk.