If you prepare well for an interview and tick the boxes in terms of required skills, then the whole process can run smoothly and you’ll walk away with a great offer and an attractive opportunity.
However, you sometimes get asked a question that leaves you stumped and lost for words.
Here are 5 examples and what to do to help you handle tough questions and get out of a tricky situation.
- When you’re asked about your biggest weakness
- When you’re mind goes totally blank.
- When you don’t have the exact experience required
- When you have no idea how many apples could fit inside an aeroplane!
- When you know the answer after you’ve left the interview
Read on for what you can do…
1. When you’re asked about your biggest weakness…
Sometimes interviewers ask questions that get you to highlight something negative about yourself such as your biggest weakness, your biggest mistake, how you coped with a difficult colleague, a challenge that proved difficult to overcome.
This can put you on the back foot because you’re trying to sell yourself and on the face of it, this question looks like it gives the interviewer reasons NOT to hire you!
The way to tackle this is to re-frame and share a turnaround story. Nobody is perfect and in the early stages of your career, you can’t possibly be the expert and know everything. The interviewer knows this and expects you to be humble and to be aware of your shortcomings at that time.
The worst thing you can do is say that you’re perfect and have never made mistakes and you’ve got top marks in all of your exams. Let go of ego!
Instead, share a story where you recognised a gap and that you have learnt something from it and talk about what you now do differently. Emphasise the learnings and leave the interviewer with no doubt that you have improved.
For example, you could explain how your first project delivery caused anxiety because you did not give stakeholders enough time to consider the impact of a change you were making. You can then say something like:
“Since then I have developed a process whereby changes are presented at a SteerCo meeting and members are given 2 days to complete a signoff form, which increases transparency and stops problems from happening next time. This checkpoint save us X hours or Y dollars each month.“
2. When you’re mind goes totally blank…
Interviews that flow, where you have continuous dialogue are of course what you would wish for, but sometimes you’re mind goes blank.
Its perfectly fine to take a moment before answering. In fact, some interviewers look for the ability to slow down, understand, reflect before you answer – engage brain before mouth!
But that does not mean you should just sit there in silence whilst you think – that can be awkward because the interviewer might not know if you are really thinking or whether you’ve become detached from the question.
Always respond – something like these for example:
- “That’s an interesting / powerful question…” – makes the interviewer look good and buys you time.
- “Let me think about that for a moment…” – you are clearly communicating that you are thinking of a great answer (and buys you time).
- “Just so I’m clear, are you asking xyz?” – again buys you some time and you are making sure that you’re going to answer the right question.
Hopefully, the extra 5 or 10 seconds, will give you enough time to formulate a coherent answer and still keep the dialogue flowing.
What you mustn’t do is waffle, go off on a tangent and not answer the question. In other words, don’t do what politicians do – they never answer the question being asked – instead they just spew out what they want the public to hear. That’s a sure fire way to end up with a negative outcome at your interview.
If you do start saying a lot without answering the question, then stop and call it out – let the interviewer know that you are self aware, humble enough to acknowledge your mistake and can correct yourself in real time – that is a valuable skill in its own right.
If you really can’t come up with a meaningful answer, then recognise that and ask for permission to tackle this later with “Can we come back to that at the end as nothing is coming to mind at the moment?“
Avoid deathly silence – keep the flow and rapport going.
3. When you don’t have the exact experience required…
Its quite likely that you won’t have the absolute exact experience required for the role. But that should not be a problem otherwise you wouldn’t have been called up for an interview.
With complex roles and demanding environments, its almost impossible to find the 100% perfect candidate these days – and interviewers know this. Your job at the interview is to show that you are 95-99% there and have the ability to close the 1-5% gap.
In fact, if you are 100% perfect for the role, then maybe the role is not going to stretch and develop you, so it might not be the next step up for you.
Where you don’t have the exact experience, then interviewers are looking to hear how you faced problems, challenges and tough situations in your previous roles – they want to hear how you ‘closed the gap‘ in the past – how you developed, grew and stepped up.
So prepare a handful of stories from your previous career to highlight your different experiences. This will allow you to become unstuck at the interview – and show that you can pivot when faced with a blocker.
Examples of how you could respond could be:
- “This reminds me of a situation where we wanted to do X, but then Y become a problem, so we compensated by developing Z” – that will show how you are able to going round obstacles and overcome challenges.
- Or, “I’ve not faced that exact situation, but for a similar issue, this is what I did to succeed…“
Often times, the interviewer knows that you’ve never experienced the situation before (they would know if they’ve read your CV) – what they are looking for is what you would do – in the future – in the face of a brand new unfamiliar challenge. The future is often uncertain – interviewers are looking for people who are adaptable, can think on their feet and create solutions as challenges appear – that’s what makes you future-proof
You can also make sure that you reinforce your experience and transferable skills like this: “I haven’t had that experience, but in my 4 years of leading a project at ABC investment bank which created xyz, if I were to face that situation, this is how I would handle it…“
Leave the interviewer thinking that you are the right person for the role.
4. When you have no idea how many apples could fit inside an aeroplane!
Sometimes, interviewers appear to be somewhat naughty and ask questions that seem totally unrelated to the role…
- How many apples could you fit in an aeroplane?
- How long would it take to build a stairway to heaven?
- What would you do if you were the president for a day?
The interviewer is trying to determine your approach to solving the problem – not the answer.
They want to see how you logically break the problem down, what assumptions you make, what information you need, how you handle unfamiliar situations..
Because business is like this – the future is uncertain and what you think won’t happen will eventually happen – how will you lead and respond then?
5. When you know the answer after you’ve left the interview
This is annoying but it always happens. You always think of a better answer or you think of something that you should have elaborated on or asked.
Remember that the hiring process does not end when the interview ends. There is the follow up…
Send an email to thank the interview for their time and express gratitude, but use this email to do more – to your advantage.
State that upon further reflection, you want to add something powerful or mention another story
Or mention something new that wasn’t asked or where you didn’t have a chance to articulate – perhaps something which you know would make you irresistible.
Your turn…
What’s the worst question or situation that you’ve faced at an interview and how did you recover from it?
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