 |
THE
CAREER DOCTOR
STUMPERS |
 |
Q:
I'm going for an interview but I'm worried that
they will throw a question at me that I won't be
able to answer. What should I do in that situation?
|
It happens sometimes – they hit you with a question
that, despite all your hard work, you just don’t know
the answer to. Maybe you should know it. Now that you hear
it, it seems so obvious. How could you have overlooked
that in your research? And all the while the interviewer
is looking over at you expectantly, pen poised. What are
you going to do?
You
can (a) admit ignorance, (b) bluff or (c) try to divert
the question off into something that you do know. I don’t
recommend (b) or (c) for obvious reasons, but there is also
a less obvious reason: Machiavellian interviewers who deliberately
ask a Stumper just to see how you will respond. They know
that you couldn’t possibly know the answer, but how
will you deal with it …?
How
about this? “Well Mr. / Ms. Interviewer, ya stumped
me. Maybe I should know the answer to that one, but I haven’t
come across it in all of the digging and preparation that
I did for this interview. So let me answer as I would if
I were on the job. If you walked into my office and hit
me with that, I wouldn’t try to bluff you on it, I’d
go and find out the full and correct answer and I’d
get back to you as soon as I had it. So, that’s what
I’m going to do here – can I have your fax number
/ e-mail address and I’ll send you through a response
on that later on today?”
Interviews
are all about trying to identify patterns of behaviour in
the candidate that will carry through from the selection
process to their working life. How do you think an answer
like the above would bode for you? Slightly better than
a transparently obvious bluff maybe?
Rowan
Manahan is MD of the career management firm Fortify
Services and author of Where’s My Oasis?
Visit www.fortifyservces.com or telephone 01 230 1313.
Irish Independent,
Jobs & Careers supplement, February 24th 2005.
If you have
any job problems you would like answered by our panel of
Career Doctors, please email: careerdoctor@whitespace.ie
or write to Jobs & Careers, Career Doctor, Whitespace
Ltd., Top Floor, Block 43B Yeats Way, Park West Business
Park, Nangor Road, Dublin 12.
