Never challenge your prospective boss's challenge
After an interviewer has raised a question about your background, the worst thing you can do is to tell him point blank that his concern isn't justified. You're in effect telling him he's stupid for having brought up his question. And there's no need to do this even if the prospective boss's concern isn't the least bit legitimate. Instead, why not tell your interviewer that you can understand why he might have asked the question that he raised. Show him that you appreciate his intelligence by letting him know his question is reasonable, even if it's not a legitimate question in your case. How easy it is to say, "I can see why you might have raised this question," just before you offer your answer to it. When you do, your prospective boss must think to himself that you are a reasonable person, if nothing else.
Avoid 'Buts' and 'However' whenever possible
In the thousands of practice interviews I've conducted with clients, I usually throw in a challenging question just to see what kind of response I get. Ninety five times out of a hundred my clients answer by saying something like: "I know I've only had three years experience and you said you required a minimum of five. But that's not a problem. You see, etc. etc. etc." The moment you use the word "but," you're automatically picking a fight. It's a word that says "what you just said is wrong." How can you avoid "buts" in your answers (or "however," which are almost as bad)? Listening back to a tape of a practice interview a number of years ago I discovered an answer. Say nothing. Pause in place of "but" and go right on to answering the challenge your interviewer raises. For example, your prospective boss might say he's a little disappointed that you haven't got an MBA. Why not respond to him like this. "True" (Pause) "Right now I manage five people who do have MBA's. That hasn't been a problem." In pausing, you eliminate the need for a "but." And you avoid calling your interviewer's attention to the fact that you've just disagreed with him.
Keep your responses to individual questions short, plausible, and positive
For some reason or other, when job seekers find their backgrounds or abilities challenged, they feel that the best response is to offer every possible explanation of why the challenge isn't important. I've heard answers that include five and six explanations of why a particular weakness is in fact no weakness at all. The result is a five or ten minute answer when a thirty second answer would have done just as well, if not better. When you bring out all the cannons to shoot down a question your prospective boss has raised about your background, you are declaring the challenge is all out war. Had you given a simple, direct answer you'd have kept the challenge a simple skirmish, and have been done with it. Keep in mind that your goal is to provide reassurance that the challenge raised isn't so important that it could offset what you've proved that you have the experience to answer the needs your prospective boss has in filling the position he's now hiring for. As a rule of thumb, try to keep your responses to difficult questions to one, two, or three sentences. If you go on beyond that, chances are you're going into more detail than was called for, and you're probably raising more questions in your interviewer's mind than you need to. What if you have three or four explanations for a particular weakness in your background? Shouldn't you give all the reasons, if you have them? Why bother? If your potential boss is seeking to reassure himself about you, why not just offer the single, strongest, most plausible explanation and leave it at that. As long as you set your prospective employer's mind at ease, you've overcome the hurdle. As a case in point, the answer that the non MBA candidate gave earlier"Right now I manage five people who do have MBA's. That hasn't been a problem" is short, to the point, plausible. Even if he had five other answers to the challenge, he couldn't have done better than use the one sentence response shown above. But don't take my word for it. Try a short, direct, plausible response the next time your experience is challenged. I think you'll be delighted because it works!
