Impactful Interviewing:

How To Answer The Tough Interview Questions

by Beau Riche

Each interview has at least one, a question that you really don't know the best way to answer. It is the one that you agonize over for days and keep going over it and over it in your head and you ask others how they would have answered. There is not way to avoid these types of questions but you can answer them with confidence to give yourself peace of mind until you get a call back.

Do not feel that you have to answer immediately after you have been asked a question. You are not on a game show where the fastest contestant to answer wins. Your interviewers will appreciate that you have taken time to formulate your answer. If you are concerned by a prolonged silence - don't be, it is normal. If you have been asked a question that you do not know exactly what to say, ask for a moment to think of an appropriate answer. This is preferable to taking a long time to answer without explaining what you are doing.

If you really can't think of an answer off of the top of your head, ask if you can come back to the question in a moment - keep trying to think of an answer. Don't think that if you get to the end of the interview and you haven't answered the question that you are off of the hook. Even if your interviewer doesn't ask again, it has not gone unnoticed that you didn't respond to a question. The best-case scenario is for you to bring the topic back to the question and answer it accordingly. Thank your interviewer for giving you the extra time to come up with the right answer.

If it is a lengthy question that is broken into parts, break it down into, don't try and answer it all at once - you can always ask for parts of the question to be repeated.