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.