With people often finding job searching difficult these days and interviews hard to come by, the last thing you want to do is ruin your chances at a job by bringing up something that you shouldn’t have mentioned. In that regard, here are some things to avoid bringing up during the job interview:

1. Stuff that you want: Money, benefits, vacation time, expense account, car allowance, overtime, etc. These are all things to avoid asking about during the job interview. Money and other tangible benefits will come up should the company want to make you an offer so it does have its place, but asking about it can often hurt you. I’ve heard of people asking what the job pays within minutes of the interview starting and this typically leads the interviewer to believe that the person is solely money-motivated and often this alone ruins the person’s chances at the job. Not only can asking about money and benefits ruin your chances at a job, stating what you’re looking for can result it you getting less than what the employer would have otherwise given you had you waited for them to bring the subject up first.

2. Personal stuff: While making a connection with the interviewer with small talk can often help your chances at getting a job, saying too much and getting too personal can hurt you. Talking about religion, political leanings and things of that nature serves no purpose other than to possibly rule you out for a job.

3. Gossip or bad comments: Gossiping or making negative comments about a previous employer is a big no-no. The last thing a company wants to do is hire someone they think will say bad things about them behind their back should they hire this person.

4. Spilling company secrets: These days, you can get yourself into a lot of trouble by violating non-disclosure agreements and things of that nature. If you’re in an interview and are asked to divulge things about your current employer that you aren’t supposed to, you don’t want to go down this route. If you find that you’re being pushed for this sort of information by the interviewer(s) you might wonder if this company really wants to hire you or just get information from you and if it’s the latter, you’ve probably discovered that this isn’t really a company you really want to work for after all.

5. Health-related stuff: You’re not required to disclose if you’re pregnant or are planning on becoming pregnant nor are you required to disclose health issues that you might have that have nothing to do with the job requirements. Bringing up things that can be used against you in a negative way can cost you job opportunities and serve no purpose for mentioning in the first place.

I recently came across an online product that offers customers 450 answers to popular interview questions and it got me to thinking about the value of such a product.

In general terms, many people think that memorizing answers to interview questions is a good way to ensure that you’re “giving employers what they want to hear” as if this is the purpose of an interview.

When I came across this product, even though the product wasn’t advertised in this way, this was the impression I got. I felt that many people who would purchase such a product would end up feeling like they needed to memorize the answers to the popular or common interview questions that give people trouble like:

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Why did you leave your last job?

How much money are you looking for?

Tell me about yourself (not even a question per se but something that does get asked quite frequently during interviews nonetheless!)

The problem with memorizing answers to interview questions is that quite often it becomes fairly obvious that you’ve memorized the answers and you come across sounding very scripted, something that certainly doesn’t help your cause in any way.

It also brings to mind other concerns that arise when you try to memorize answers or even use phrases and lines that were written by someone else and pass them off as your own:

People interpret things differently: Not everyone looks at things the same way. We interpret things differently, we place different degrees of importance on things and evaluate things differently from one another. Just because someone offers you an answer to an interview question, doesn’t mean the interviewer you give the answer to will interpret your answer positively. We already discussed this in December in an earlier post.

You can’t predict what you will be asked: Unless you are given a list of the questions you are going to be asked during the interview beforehand, how many questions do you plan on memorizing or “learning” the answers to to ensure you’ve covered all of them? Certainly, unless you’ve got a photographic memory, it’s going to be difficult to learn how to remember the answers to 450 interview questions in the case of the product I mentioned above.

Furthermore, what’s the point?

During an average interview, maybe you only get asked 10-15 questions anyways, so how you can figure out which of the 450 questions to concentrate on?

The best thing you can do is understand ahead of time how you will answer questions that you typically get answered during the interview process. In general terms a hiring manager wants to know how you’ve progressed during your career, what you’ve accomplished, why you have left each job, what you’ve learned, and what you offer them – the employer – if they were to hire you.

The other obvious thing you can do is ensure that you can comfortably discuss everything that it is actually contained in your resume! This may sound obvious but I’ve interviewed people who were taken by surprise when I referred to something in their resume and they suddenly remembered that they’d made a change to their resume and had forgotten that they’d mentioned the point that I was referring to. Certainly, interviews can be stressful but you need to ensure that you are familiar with all the dates and numbers and accomplishments that you’ve quoted in your resume otherwise you risk looking like someone who is embellishing or flat out lying.

In summary, looking to see how other people have answered various interview questions and getting advice from them is not a bad thing assuming the person you’re getting the advice from knows what they are talking about but at the end of the day, no one knows you better than yourself. Your answers to interview questions should reflect you and not simply be a mishmash of quotes and lines that you’ve lifted from other people.

When I was in business school, I recall doing a group presentation one evening in front of our professor. It was part of a year long project for our Business Policy class and consisted of a meeting with our professor to present our results so far to ensure we were on the right track.

The five of us in our group had designated two people – myself and my colleague Paul – to do the Powerpoint presentation but the five of us were expected to take turns answering questions that our professor might have and to all take part in the session.

Our professor was a good one, a guy I really liked. He was new to the school but had a reputation of being somehow who was tough but fair and among other skills, was very skilled with presentations, interviewing and things of that nature.

At one point during the presentation, he asked us a question and I decided to answer it after a few seconds of dead air where no one else in my group had taken the opportunity to answer it. I inhaled and took a deep breath, paused for a second, and then answered the question.

Our professor responded not by critiquing my answer itself but responded instead to how I answered it. He noted that I’d taken an audible breath in before answering the question and it was loud enough that it indicated to him and to my colleagues that I was about to answer the question!

His point was that I’d used a cue to indicate that I was about to answer the question so that some or all of my four colleagues didn’t all try to answer it at once.

He also commented that after making the audible cue, I paused again before answering the question rather than just blurting out an answer. I didn’t really plan to do this or even consciously do it but he noticed it and referred to how he thought it was a good technique.

It got me to thinking about verbal and non-verbal cues that we give as well as cues that we give either consciously or subconsciously that can help us in some cases and hurt us in others.

In many respects answering a question without listening to what was actually asked can be worse can answering a question incorrectly. Too many times in interviews, people blurt out an answer barely a split second after the interviewer has finished asking it and often, they never really understood the question in the first place. As in the personal example I mentioned above, a second or two of dead air that indicates to the interviewer that you are actually thinking about the answer to their question is not a bad thing.

I can think of numerous interviews where I’ve asked a person a specific situational question – similar to ones they’d actually get asked during an interview with a hiring manager – and they respond by blurting out a generalization to quickly tackle the question and put it behind them rather than giving a specific example.

Typically it involves asking something like “can you give me an example of a time where you did XYZ” and they respond by saying “I can do that” or “I’ve done that many times” as opposed to answering with something specific like “3 months ago I was working on an important project with three other people where….”

It gives interviewers the impression that you’re not a good listener and seem more interested in answering questions quickly than than accurately.

I’ve found that people who answer questions like this often do so to hide a real lack of actual experience and skills in the areas involved. By glossing over their responses, they’re trying to hide their inexperience and lack of knowledge but this tact rarely works.

Sometimes it also causes the person to come across as being too desperate, as they quickly tell the interviewer “I can do that” in response to every question rather than actually showing them what they’ve done.

To give you an idea of how bizarre the topics of job searching and career management can be, I will refer to an article I just read from a “career expert” who was trying to explain “How to answer the ‘tell me about yourself’ interview question.”

First off, “tell me about yourself” isn’t a question. It’s a statement and a very open-ended one at that. There is no “?” at the end of the statement because it is not a question.

“Tell me about yourself” tends to be used by people who don’t understand much about interviewing. As a recruiter, I have never sat down in an interview with someone and began by saying “tell me about yourself” because it’s irrelevant and a waste of time. The questions I ask that relate to the job at hand and your skillset and experience will tell me about you and in a far more relevant and direct way than simply throwing out a general statement and hoping you can read my mind and figure out exactly what I want to know.

Back to this article, the “career expert” went on to say that the wrong way to answer the “question” of “tell me about yourself” is to respond by asking “what would you like to know?” Or something similar to that.

Now, that’s a question! “What would you like to know?” ends with a question mark because it is a question. How odd that the first person to ask an actual question in an interview would be the interviewee and not the interviewer!

But according to this “career expert” this is the wrong thing to do. According to him, asking this question would (his words) show him that you hadn’t prepared for the interview and that you’d be equally unprepared for the job.

Huh?

That’s one of the silliest things I’ve ever read.

How can trying to focus on exactly what interests the interviewer be proof that you haven’t prepared for the interviewer or aren’t right for the job?

He then went on to say that when an interviewer says “tell me about yourself” they don’t want to hear about your childhood and where you lived as a kid but that they want you to…

focus on exactly what interests the interviewer(!).

Uh, isn’t that accomplished by asking the interviewer to confirm what it is exactly that interests them, as I just mentioned above?

One of my business school university professors who helped prepare us for interviews used to tell us that if it was him in that interview and the interviewer said “tell me about yourself” he’d take over the interview because it was proof to him that the interviewer didn’t know what they were doing and that he was going to be the one to lead the interview and not the interviewer.

Unless you have extrasensory perception (ESP) you can’t read the mind of the person interviewing you and can’t figure out exactly what they want to know when they say “tell me about yourself.” The logical thing to do would be to then ask for clarification.

Unfortunately, doing so when being interviewed by the likes of the “career expert” who I mentioned above would undoubtedly ruin your chances at the job and for no good reason.

In that regard, your best bet is to know in advance how you will answer this “question” should it arise and it probably will sometime in your career.

Focus on your main accomplishments and how it relates to the job you’re interviewing for. Focus on 2-3 things that highlight your suitability for the job and keep your answer brief, perhaps up to 60 seconds in length. You want to answer the “question” but not give them your life story.

You’ll probably also feel like telling the interviewer that you can’t read their mind but you’ll have to bite your tongue instead.

One question that job searchers often wonder about is what questions to ask during an interview.

In other words, when the person interviewing you asks you what questions you have for them, what do you say in response?

Typically, you want to stay away from asking about money and other compensation issues until the company brings it up first. If you start asking about money, benefits, vacation time and stuff like that, the hiring authority might mistake you for being simply money motivated.

Besides, at this point you’re still trying to learn about the job and the company. In that regard here are some possible questions to ask during an interview that you might find handy:

1. What attributes have successful people who’ve previously held this position brought to the table? By asking this question, you can find out about the skills that you’re going to use in this job that the person interviewing you finds important. Now you can give them examples of how you’ve exhibited these skills during your career to show them why you’re the right person for the job.

2. What is the single most important thing I could contribute within 3 months/6 months of being on the job? By asking this question, you not only give the person interviewing you a chance to tell you about what you’ll be doing for the first few months on the job to ensure you understand the expectations, you’ll show them you’re thinking ahead and are a planner. If you’re fortunate, the hiring manager might start to already envision you in the job too.

3. What could I immediately contribute in this position that would make your job easier? [Assuming you’re speaking with the hiring manager] By asking the hiring manager this question, you’re basically letting them know you’re a problem solver and a doer. When I think back to jobs I’ve interviewed for, the job was open because the hiring manager had a problem ie. they needed more sales, they needed more work done and didn’t have enough staff to do it, they needed something that a new staff member would address. Often, when they are short of staff, the work either falls on existing staff members in the group or on the manager themself so you’re letting them know you’re here to fill that need and fix the problem.

4. I’d love the opportunity to show you what I’ve capable of. Can you give me an example of a situation you’re facing currently that we could spend several minutes discussing? With any luck, the hiring manager might make reference to a situation they’re facing currently and you’ll be able to possibly suggest some avenues moving forward, a perspective offered by someone on the outside looking in. True, you don’t yet know the company or their problems but if you’re confident to give an answer that shows you as a problem solver and a thinker, this can help you stand out from other candidates who are interviewing. This can be a good question to ask when you’re with a hiring manager who is open and honestly talks about their company and their issues and challenges.

5. Do you have concerns regarding my ability to do the job? If the hiring manager has a concern about your ability to do the job, by giving them the opportunity now to ask you, you can address it right away. Too many times I’ve seen a hiring manager tell me following an interview that they have a concern with the person they just interviewed for the job but didn’t really give the person the chance to respond and defend themselves. The best time to handle a concern of the hiring manager is during the interview when you are in front of them.

Your company doesn’t really care what you think about them.

Case in point, the exit interview.

The interview that your company (often) conducts after you’ve resigned and are about to leave their employment to work somewhere else.

This is where an HR-type (usually) asks you all the questions you wished they’d have asked you while you were still there so they could have made the improvements that might have caused you (and possibly other staff members) to avoid looking for a job elsewhere in the first place.

It’s sort of like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

If your company really cared about what you thought about them, they wouldn’t wait until you quit to ask. At this point, what you think of them doesn’t really matter since you won’t be there to notice or care.

Mind you, the alternative could end up being worse. At one company I worked for, one of the people I worked with quit the company to change careers and go into HR. She came back to the company to interview staff members like myself (with the permission of the company owner) to help her get her new HR career started. She and the company owner agreed that she could speak with staff members confidentially regarding what we liked and disliked about the company and what we’d like to see improved.

The key here is that she told us that the conversation between her and each staff member would be confidential. I was a bit hesitant but I agreed to spill my guts and ended up telling her some of the things that the company needed to do better as well as mentioning some of the things that most of us in the office had agreed were embarrassingly bad and really needed to be improved.

Guess what she did then? She went and told the company owner about all the bad things I said about the company and mentioned that it was me who said it. She thought she was being helpful. I thought she was simply dishonest.

Another time I quit a company to work elsewhere, I was told that the division manager (who was travelling at the time) would call me to wish me the best and that the company’s VP of HR would call me to do the customary exit interview. Neither of them ever called. I’m not certain but I think I got snubbed.

Why do most companies wait until after you’ve resigned to ask your opinion on what it’s like to work for them?

It’s sort of like giving you a few drinks to loosen you up and get the real picture once you’re tipsy. They might have been afraid of hearing about how you really feel about them while you were still on the payroll and figure that you might now let loose since you have nothing to lose and can’t get fired for telling the truth.

The question is, what – if anything – are they going to do about all the things you tell them they need to do better?

Interviewers who ask what animal you’d like to be are not really interviewers. They are people you should feel sorry for.

Just because someone is conducting a job interview doesn’t mean they actually know how to interview. Dumb interview questions come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and so do interviewers.

“What animal would you like to be” is one of the classic dumb interview questions that non-skilled interviewers who are trying to kill time might put in front of you and not realize you have stopped taking them or their company seriously upon being asked this meaningless question.

Sometimes you’ll attend interviews where the person interviewing you genuinely seems interested to learn about you and asks questions to learn about you as a person. Other times, you’ll take part in interviews that are strictly business where the only questions asked relate to the job and your ability to do it.

When I was first looking for a job as a recruiter, the co-owner of a well-established recruitment firm I was interviewing with started asking me questions about my family which I thought was odd since interviewers generally stay away from questions like this for legal reasons. I didn’t mind answering the questions but I did find it odd, especially coming from the co-owner of this successful recruitment company who probably should have known better. Besides, he was looking to hire me, not my family.

At the end of the day, getting asked silly interview questions is probably something you’re probably going to have to deal with at one point or another. Especially if you happen to really want the job you are being interviewed for.

For the record, if I was an animal, I’d hope to be human because I assume the company I was interviewing with was planning to hire one.