Too much focus on broad platitudes on why they’re a good leader instead of specifically talking about what they bring to the table and what do they want to accomplish in their section. On the director’s side of the interview, the questions directors generally ask in the interviews aren’t that great and aren’t asked in a way that makes kids comfortable with expressing themselves in an interview. Like for example, instead of asking generic questions like “why do you want to be a section leader?” (the true answer to this is: “because I want to be a section leader”), ask questions like “what ideas (big or small, social, musical or visual) do you bring to the band that’ll make this band better?” or even testing their instincts by asking scenario-based questions on things that can happen in a season. Tap into the kids buttons and make them go to work in the interview and see what they’ve got. In my band, we flat out skipped interviews altogether and literally had interested prospective section leaders lead the section under the observation of the directors and decisions were made off of that.