What to Say If You Don’t Have a Good Interview Answer
Interviewers often ask you to share specific experiences or skills related to the job you are about to interview, but if you have not been in a specific situation or have used the mentioned tool, you can get confused. Here’s what to say to make you look like a good candidate even if you don’t have an answer that matches their particular question.
The experts from the Career Tools podcast (around 4:00 pm) offer a sample response that you can use to redirect the conversation to the relevant skills and experience you have.
Interviewer: “In this department, we sometimes have to make political decisions that other departments don’t like. Describe a decision you made that was not popular and how you implemented it. “
Answer: “Sorry, I have never been in such a situation. However, I had to deal with some customer refunds and sometimes we had to apply a policy where the customer wanted a refund but couldn’t get it. Would you like to hear about it? “
Of course, this is an example, so you should customize it for your interview. Here is the general formula your answer should follow:
- Admit that you cannot answer their specific question . You have to make it clear that you know your answer is not exactly what they are looking for, otherwise you risk being difficult to communicate or have poor listening skills.
- Share a relevant skill or experience . In a sentence or two, describe what you can talk about and how similar it is to what they asked. You want to connect them so they can see your qualifications.
- Ask if they would like to hear about skills or experiences that you really have to share . If they think the example you gave does not convey what they want to know, it’s not worth wasting time talking about it. Be prepared for them to say no.
If the interviewer doesn’t want to hear about your example, prepare a smooth transition so you can move on. Something like “In that case, I would like to tell you about …” might work. After all, your goal is to make good use of your interview time to showcase your skills and experience, so focus on redirecting to answers that you know set you apart as a candidate rather than being distracted by not being able to answer a specific question.