Uncomfortable situations

You may have difficulty communicating your thoughts clearly and concisely, especially when you are not sure how to respond to a question. The key is to remain calm and positive and focus on the question. You may request clarification if you’re not sure what the interviewer is asking or pause and politely ask for a few moments to consider your response. After a brief pause, if you still cannot respond to the interviewer’s question, you may ask to defer your answer to the end of the interview.

If you simply don’t know how to answer the question, be honest with the interviewer(s) and demonstrate your enthusiasm and willingness to learn.

If you’re asked about a skill that you don’t have, demonstrate that you have the transferable skills necessary to succeed in the position.

If the interviewer doesn’t respond immediately after you answer a question, try to remain calm and collected. Though it often feels this way, silence is not always a negative sign. The most common reason that an interviewer will remain silent following your response is that they’re processing and writing down your response. The interviewer may also be considering the next question they will ask you.

In response to uncomfortable silence, do your best to avoid the pressure to fill the silence by elaborating on your response as you might say something you didn’t intend to.

Making brief notes during an interview is appropriate if you need to record important information or a point that you want to remember to mention during the interview. You may also choose to make brief notes if the interviewer(s) ask a complex or multi-part question and you are not provided a copy of the questions in advance.

Usually interviewers take written notes, but some may choose to type their notes on a laptop or other device.

Interviewers will often ask negatively phrased questions to assess your perceived weaknesses and strengths.

Even though the interviewer is asking a negatively phrased question, focus your response on positives. It’s important to be honest in your response to these types of questions and avoid using examples of weaknesses that would commonly be perceived as strengths (e.g., “I’m a perfectionist…” or “I work too hard…”). The interviewer is trying to assess how you deal with negative situations and they’re unable to do so effectively without real examples. Be thoughtful about the examples you choose (e.g., if the job heavily involves teamwork, you might not want to say that teamwork is a major weakness of yours). Choose a real work-related weakness or past event that would not negatively impact performance for the job you are applying for.

Do your best to end your response to a negative question on a positive note by indicating what steps you’re taking or have taken to overcome the weakness and/or to prevent a situation from occurring again.

While increasingly less common, you may be asked about having a number of short-term jobs and/or gaps in your employment history during a job interview. If you're early in your career, e.g. completing a degree right after high school, it's usually expected that you won't have a lot of experience or long-term jobs since you've been a full-time student. While some folks may have concerns about gaps or many short-term jobs, it is increasingly uncommon for interviewers to ask about these. Gaps in your employment history can occur for many other reasons, some within and some beyond your control: short-term positions, lay-offs, health or personal concerns, raising a family, extensive travelling, completing a degree, unemployment or time for career planning.

An employer might ask these types of questions if they’re concerned about the reasons for your frequent job changes/employment gaps (e.g., have you been let go from a number of positions for poor performance?). During the hiring process, the employer is trying to reduce risk to their organization (usually financial) while finding the best person for the job. Frequent employee turnover can be costly to an organization.

If you are asked these types of questions, the following are some suggestions for how to respond.

• Be honest and describe the reason(s) for your job changes or employment gaps

• You can also describe what you did during the gaps if it’s related to the job you are interviewing for (e.g., taking courses)

• If applicable, you can spend a bit of time relating your experiences during employment gaps to the job requirements (e.g., taking courses in X (e.g., statistics) will help me to do Y (e.g., regression analysis) in the position)