Question and Answer Techniques
You practice in advance by going through mock interviews with friends, family or other unemployed executives. What you want to develop is your ability to answer the really tough questions. You also want to hone your ability to parry unwanted questions and to ask yourself for the information necessary to evaluate the company, the position and any offer that is made.
The general purposes of questioning are to collect information, to evaluate how someone thinks or feels, and to confirm facts and attitudes uncovered by other questions or sources.
Both you and the interviewer use questions to build rapport, understand the situation and move the interview along. Questions come in two major forms, open-ended and closed. Open-ended questions allow answerers to give free responses and to direct responses into areas of concern to them. They often begin with who, what, when, where, which, how or why. Either you or the interviewer can direct open-ended questions to a wide variety of uses:
- To open conversations and provide background
- To ask for information
- To follow up, to ask for elaboration
- To probe for causes, additional or related information
- To check understanding, determine awareness of pros and cons
- To ask for reasons why (Why do you suppose...?)
- To ask for suggestions
- To determine sources
- To check knowledge or memory closed questions, on the other hand, are questions that have only one or a restricted number of answers. They can usually be answered with a yes or no. You use these to narrow your field of inquiry, to get confirmation and to determine that you're on the right track with your questions.
In addition, you may ask or be asked semi-open questions which have only one answer, such as, "When can you begin work?" or "Which do you prefer, a straight salary or a lesser salary plus a bonus tied to your performance?"
You'll both answer and ask general and specific questions. Interviewers use general questions early in the interview to open topics, to begin exploring areas of common interest and to define areas of concern. They use specific questions later to focus on details, gather specific information and verify their understanding of what you've told them. You will ask the same kinds of questions of your interviewers, although to begin with, you're more likely to be the responder than the asker.
Two kinds of questions are particularly important to you. The first are strategic questions. Strategic questions are primarily offensive weapons.
You use them to uncover information about the employer's needs and attitudes. For instance, if the interviewer says something like, "I'm afraid you're overqualified for this position," a strategic question for you to ask might be, "The word 'over-qualified' puzzles me. Why do you say that, Mr. Ellis?" You ask a question on the offense, rather than becoming defensive-but without reacting emotionally or negatively. A strategic question, then, keeps you in charge. At the same time, you gain enough information about the needs and attitudes of the employer to deal productively with the situation.
The other kinds of questions you'll use are tactical questions. For example, the interviewer asks one of those really tough questions such as, "Why did you leave your last job? In the past 10 years, you've worked for several companies." Rather than answering the question outright, turn the conversation back on the interviewer by asking something like, "You mean you're concerned about the fact that I've held several jobs recently?" After the interviewer responds, you could go into the reasons why you took and left the various jobs, particularly if you took them to learn something new, you lost them through mergers or because you'd finished your assignment. (This last is particularly true for engineers and technical people.)
Both strategic questions and tactical questions can be used at any point in the interview where they seem appropriate. Either type can be open-ended or closed, depending upon how you word the question.
Questions to Answer and Ask
It is a good idea to keep the following guidelines in mind, according to James E, Challenger, the president of Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a national Chicago-based outplacement consulting firm:
The strategy for success in an employment interview is to be who the interviewer wants you to be. H is done by listening for clues as to what he or she wants and responding with the appropriate answer.
All interviewers are seeking the answer to the basic question of why they should hire you as opposed to at least six other candidates who are equally qualified. How well you address yourself to their image of the ideal candidate will usually determine whether or not you get the job offer.
Questions You Should be Able to Answer
The key to success or failure in a competitive employment interview often hinges on how you answer five questions, says Challenger. Those questions and why your answers are important to the interviewer are shown below.
- "Why are you interested in us?'' Most jobs that job-seekers accept have not been publicized and may not even have been created yet when the job-seeker comes to call. Rather than answer how you can fit in, tell the interviewer how good you are at what you do and demonstrate that you are so well qualified that the company cannot do without you. Let them figure out how you can best fit into their plans,
- "Tell me about your current and previous employers." Don't criticize current or former employers because it will reflect unfavorably on you. But don't go to the other extreme and give your superiors all the credit for your professional development. Take as much credit for what you've done as you can. This is what impresses the interviewer.
- ''Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses" Concentrate on the strengths and avoid the weaknesses. Even a seemingly harmless statement such as ''lack of patience with inefficiency" is dangerous. It from a press release, June 25, 1984. This comment and Challenger's list of the five questions you should be able to answer are still valid today. Can be read as a sign that you have a quick temper, are hard on subordinates or can't handle a difficult situation without losing your cool.
- ''What are the best and worst aspects of your present (or last) job?'' As far as you are concerned, there are no worst aspects. It is much better to talk in terms of the challenges that confronted you and what you did to meet those challenges.
- ''Tell me something about yourself responding correctly to this directive is very important to your success. Think in terms of what the interviewer wants to hear. He or she wants to know how good you are, but also if there is anything about you that could cause problems. Tell about all the good stuff, and avoid the latter.
The preceding questions are general and could be asked in interviews with applicants for almost any job. You will also be asked questions to elicit more details about the information, achievements, job responsibilities and duties you listed on your resume. Many of these will be strictly job-related questions. A person applying for a sales position, for example, might be asked questions such as:
- What kind of products and services have you sold before?
- What were your typical customers like?
- How would you go about selling our products (or services) to a typical customer?
- Which type of selling gives you a greater satisfaction: frequent small successes or many turn downs followed by a really big success?
- Do you think selling requires better health than inside work?
