 |
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.
