We have all been there, sitting in the waiting room nervous and uncomfortable waiting anxiously for an interview to start.  All of the questions you practiced in front of the mirror are jumbling together and then you scare yourself into believing you haven’t prepared enough for the barrage of questions that are going to be thrown at you.  As a gentle reminder, the interview has actually already started as you have already been in contact with a company’s first line of defense…the receptionist.

          Finally, you are sitting in front of an employer and you are cruising through questions, until you are hit with one you didn’t prepare for.  A question you have never heard before, one that requires a negative response or maybe one that doesn’t even have a correct answer.  Seconds feel like minutes as you panic to form some form of rational thought.  Here are some tips to push through the tough interview questions that may make or break your chances of landing your next great opportunity.

          The first question is often ‘tell me a little bit about you’.  Although you would like to talk about the car you drive or the buzzer beating shot you had in high school, this should be brief, touching on your education, qualification and experiences that pertain to your long-term goals and the job you are interviewing for.  This speech is a useful tool for networking when having a conversation with someone new. This is fairly easy to prepare for yet extremely valuable, because bits and pieces can often times be answers to other questions as well.

          Another trap you can find yourself in is with questions that are negative in nature or one that will induce a negative interpretation on yourself or others. A classic is ‘tell me about your weaknesses’.  A solid answer is one that turns a negative into a positive. For example, if you are slow at typing, you can talk about the strides you are making to better yourself in that area, such as taking a class. This can be followed up by the improvements you have made on your weakness. Obviously you do not what to admit to something that will have a negative effect on your job performance. So if you are interviewing for a data entry position, I would strongly urge you to not use the above example.  A trap to avoid is to use the generic answer such as, I work too many hours or I am too detailed oriented. The idea is to make yourself memorable and to standout. The person who interviewed before and after you will probably use the broad generic responses.

          Lastly, a common trick question is ‘tell me about the worst supervisor you have even had’.  By now you should know that this is a trap and is not to be answered literally. If you are going to talk negatively about a prior supervisor, years down the road, what is going to stop you from talking down about the person sitting right across from you?

          A quality response to this question is to describe differences that past managers and coaches have had. You could answer by talking about the different management styles you have been exposed to or different actions that managers have used to engage employees.

          Using these simple suggesting to spin negative answers into positive ones will boost the way you are interpreted by the interviewer. If you are stuck on a question you don’t know how to answer, don’t be afraid to say ‘I need a second to think about it’.  Remain in eye contact and answer in direct sentences regardless of how sure you are in your answer. The most valuable tip of all is prepare Prepare PREPARE! Have a general idea of what is good to say and what is bad. Being prepared will not only help with individual answers, but also give you the confidence to nail your next interview.