Now on YouTube:

Before & After Answers to Commonly-Asked Job Interview Questions.

This week’s question is about handling difficult situations:

Tell me how you handled a difficult situation. 

If you aren’t expecting this questions, you will probably make one of two mistakes (or both):

1- you’ll talk about a difficult situation from your personal life

2- you’ll talk too broadly about a general experience

This is what happened in the mock interview you see here.  The candidate was not expecting the question and gave a broad answer about a general difficulty he had experienced in his personal life.

Instead, the answer should be work related, tell a specific story and connect to the lesson learned that makes you a better professional (and in a real interview, the most qualified candidate for the position).

In his after answer, this candidate tells about his work taking care of children in a crisis nursery, where it’s easy to become overwhelmed and get sucked into a family’s crisis. He quickly learned to refer parents to the appropriate staff members so he could focus on his task–taking care of the children whose families were experiencing a crisis.

His after answer is:

• clear
• specific
• work-related

And in a real interview, he would explain how he would use that skill of focusing on the task at hand while referring others to appropriate personnel. It might look something like this: “At company X, this experience would inform my work in Y as it relates to Z.”

Throughout the spring and summer, I will add more of these “before and after” videos that contrast spontaneous answers to commonly-asked interview questions with more practiced, prepared answers.  Look for more next week…

Darcy Lear is a career coach specializing in academic writing, job search documents, professional school applications, and interview preparation. To schedule a campus workshop or for help navigating your career transition, contact Darcy: darcylear@gmail.com