You’ve probably already read a dozen different lists of “things not to say during a job interview” but in my experience here a few things that interviewers tend to notice that you said during the interview and not for a good reason:

Your appear money motivated: People who tend to talk a lot about money during the interview are often seen as money motivated and that isn’t a good thing if the interviewer figures you’re simply motivated by money. They’re worried you’ll take the job and then quit and go elsewhere as soon as someone offers you more. It’s best to let the interviewer bring the issue of money up first.

You keep asking about benefits and the expense account: As per the first point, interviewers tend to wonder why people start asking about benefits, expense accounts, and stuff like this during the interview and wonder if there is something you’re not telling them about why you’re so interested in these topics. As with money, it’s best to let the interview bring this topic up first if it’s applicable.

Criticizing your former employer: When you start to get a bit too comfortable in the interview, you can start saying things you shouldn’t such as criticizing a former or your current employer. The interviewer tends to wonder how long it will be before you start the doing the same to them. It’s just not professional.

Giving vague answers: This one happens quite frequently. After the interview, the person tells me that they thought they did a great job and answered all the questions they were asked during the interview. Then the hiring manager calls and tells me that the person answered all the questions with generalizations and didn’t seem to really know their stuff. When you avoid answering the question or give vague answers you tend to give the impression you don’t understand the question or simply don’t know the answer.

What is your biggest weakness?

This is one of those difficult interview questions that interviewers ask from time to time. The way you handle your response to the question might be as important if not more important than what you actually say.

The question is how to answer the question without making it look like you have a weakness that might prevent you from getting hired.

At the same time, you don’t want to mention a weakness that isn’t really a weakness and simply tell the interviewer what you think they want to hear.

Trust me, an experienced interviewer has heard every clichéd answer to this question and will know when you are feeding them a line.

The purpose of asking this question is firstly to see how you handle a stress question and secondly how you actually respond to it.

Here are some guidelines for responding when an interviewer asks what about your biggest weakness:

1. Answer the question honestly. It’s always best to answer any interview question honestly (obviously) but this is an especially important one. Making up a weakness that isn’t really a weakness will most likely be very noticeable to the interviewer. If they think you are lying, they may ask you for another weakness which will cause you even more trouble trying to think of one off the top of your head.

2. Don’t mention a big weakness that could cost you the job. Your goal here isn’t to lie of course, it’s simply to present yourself as best you can. We all have weaknesses but it doesn’t mean we tell an interviewer everything that we do wrong. If for example you are interviewing for a project manager job, it’s probably best not to mention that you have trouble getting along with people since you’re going to be constantly working with others.

3. Don’t evade the question. Don’t try to avoid answering the question. Also be careful about giving a clichéd weakness (ie. I work too hard) and then quickly stating how you deal with it. That looks too scripted and the interviewer has probably heard it one million times before. Admitting a real weakness but then stating what you are doing to improve yourself is preferable ie. “My presentation skills are not as strong as I’d like so I signed up for weekend presentation skills classes and also joined a Toastmasters club.” Remember that the specific job you are interviewing for will help to determine how you answer the question.

4. Keep your answer factual and brief. Typically, stress questions such as these that put us on the spot tend to cause us to ramble on and speak for longer than we should especially if we’re nervous. The best way to answer the question is to be well prepared and to know how you are going to answer the question before the interview. This will avoid you trying to think off the top of your head and saying more than you need to which could hurt your chances of getting the job.

5. Be careful about using “my biggest weakness is my biggest strength” as your response. Saying that “I’m a perfectionist” or something like that is another of those clichéd answers that people often give to this question. It will probably come across as being scripted and the interviewer will most likely determine that you got the answer from an interview tips book.

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.