I regularly post “before” and “after” videos of commonly-asked job interview questions to my YouTube channel.

For the “before” video, the candidate is asked to answer the question without any preparation whatsoever.

Then we workshop the answer as I do with clients who have purchased the face-to-face QuickCheck package.  The “after” video shows a prepared answer to the same commonly-asked job interview question.  

Before a real interview, you would practice and polish all your answers to the most commonly-asked job interview questions (posts about those questions are here and here).

This week’s question:

“I see on your resume that you…[speak Spanish]. Tell me about that.”

If you put it on your resume, you have to be prepared to talk about it. Don’t be caught off guard by your own resume.  In this “before” answer, the interviewee shows that she does indeed possess the qualification (speaking Spanish), but she’s also taken by surprise by the question.  She talks exclusively about herself. You have to connect every answer to the job you’re applying for, the specific company, and, in this case, name the constituent groups with whom you might use foreign language skills. 

In the “after” interview, you see that she is prepared to speak in Spanish, she connects her personal story to the workplace by addressing the professional contexts in which she’ll use her language, and she names specific constituent groups (not just employees, but also colleagues, supervisors, customers—she understand linguistic diversity!). And she does  all this in only 16 second more time than the “before” answer.  Well done!

Darcy Lear is a career coach specializing in job search documents, professional school applications, and interview preparation. To work on your “before” and “after” answers to any 3  job interview questions is $50. See details here. For one-on-one support in preparing for your job search or to set up a campus workshop, contact Darcy: darcylear@gmail.com