You're listening to Business English Pod, the business English podcast for professionals on the move.
As we've discussed in other episodes on job interviews, one goal of the person conducting the interview is to get you to let your guard down.
Often after a series of warm up questions, the interviewer will give you a tough question.
This will likely come out of the blue, that is, unexpectedly.
We call these types of questions stress questions, because part of the intention is to see how you react under pressure.
Common types of stress questions range from problems such as how to solve a business case study or even a mathematics question to behavioural questions such as how to deal with imaginary work situations involving conflict or communication.
The key with this type of question is don't panic, which is the theme of this episode.
We'll be looking at strategies and language that will help you deal with this type of query coolly and calmly.
Let's start with a bad example.
We'll return to Michael's first interview with the electronics store.
Now, here's another hypothetical question.
Say we have two lines of LCDs.
Two lines of LCDs?
That's right.
One sells very well, the other is a cheaper price, but it doesn't sell well because the brand is not well known.
What can we do to increase sales of the second brand?
Ah.
The problem is quite clear.
Good.
What's your suggestion?
So, in life, there are trustworthy things and untrustworthy things.
And everything is so because we will it to be so.
I'd say just put them in front of the shop, right in the window, or just cut the price or something.
In this case, what is required is taking practical action instead of speculation.
In this example, the interviewer has asked Michael a problem type of question.
How does Michael respond?
Though on the outside he doesn't seem to be panicking, Michael actually responds in a way that shows he is stressed.
First, instead of giving himself time to think, he answers quickly that the problem is quite clear.
How about the response itself?
Does it seem organized and clear?
Actually, Michael's answer is illogical.
He jumps around from point to point without making a clear conclusion.
The most interesting suggestion he has to put the CDs in the store window is buried in the middle of his presentation.
Because his thoughts are disorganised.
It seems that Michael is either nervous or not thinking clearly.
Actually, if you're like me, a natural response to a stress question is to get nervous.
Luckily, there's a couple of strategies that will help us deal with any stressful question without panicking.
Let's turn now to a good example.
Yala, who is interviewing for an HR manager position, is asked a tough question by her interviewer.
As you listen, try to answer the following questions.
1.
What is the interviewer's stress question?
2.
What does Yala do to give herself some thinking time?
3.
How does Yala answer the question?
Now I was wondering if you could describe a specific experience working in a group or team situation where there was interpersonal conflict.
So you mean how I approached the conflict?
Yes.
Maybe you could describe what worked well, what didn't, and what the outcome was.
Well, just give me a moment here to think about that.
That's okay.
Take your time.
Obviously, I think handling conflict successfully is an important part of being a manager, particularly when you have to deal with many groups of people.
Yes.
So how has that played out in a specific scenario for you?
There was a time a couple years back, the middle of 2006.
Uh-huh.
There were rumors that we were going to move a product line to another plant in Mexico.
And just bear with me for a second.
I was proactive and brought the workers' concerns to management's attention.
How did they react?
Well, I was tasked with resolving the situation, so we called a meeting with union leaders and I was able to get two key members of our executive team to attend.
Getting management buy-in in this sort of situation is important.
Yes, and we were then able to credibly refute the rumors, and we reassured workers by communicating about the production plans.
Uh-huh.
And we solicited opinions about how to improve communication to avoid the problem in the future.
So, what concrete actions came out of this?
Well, the two main steps we took were one, to set up a quarterly review meeting between senior managers and union leaders and two, create a local version of the company newsletter.
The first thing we need to do when we get a stress question is to take a deep breath.
Maybe take a sip from our drink and slow down.
Take control of the interview.
In the dialogue, Yala uses two different ways to give herself time to formulate a response.
What are they?
Let's listen.
Now I was wondering if you could describe a specific experience working in a group or team situation where there was interpersonal conflict.
So you mean how I approached the conflict?
The first thing that Yala does is clarify the question.
She says, First, she makes sure she completely understands the query.
Second, she buys herself time to think about her response.
Various useful phrases and strategies for asking for clarification and handling QA were dealt with in BEP 36 and 37.
Let's just review a few key phrases.
So, let me just make sure I understand exactly what you're asking.
That's an interesting question.
Are you looking more for a work-related experience?
Or can I tell you something from my general life experience?
Let me just run through the question again to make sure I understand all the parameters.
What is the second strategy Yala uses to give herself some thinking time?
Let's go back to the dialogue.
Yes.
Maybe you could describe what worked well, what didn't, and what the outcome was.
Well, just give me a moment here to think about that.
Here, Yala uses a specific phrase.
Well, just give me a moment to think about that.
To give herself a little extra time.
Interviewers generally don't mind if you do this.
It looks much better if you take control of the interview and give yourself some space to consider the problem than if you panic and just say whatever comes to mind.
Let's go over a few more phrases to buy yourself thinking time during an interview.
Good question.
Let me think a little bit about that.
Okay, just bear with me for a little bit.
Well, there are a couple of situations that come to mind.
Let me just think it through a little.
All right.
Please just give me a sec to organize my thoughts.
After Yala has bought herself some time to think, how does the interview continue?
That's okay.
Take your time.
Obviously, I think handling conflict successfully is an important part of being a manager, particularly when you have to deal with many groups of people.
Here, Yala has not yet formulated a detailed response to the question.
Instead, she begins with a general statement of principle.
Starting with a broad statement like this both allows you to say something that you know the interviewer will agree with and enables you to take a few more seconds to think of a detailed response.
Consider a couple more examples.
So if you had two buckets, one that held three gallons of water and one that held five gallons, how could you use them to measure out four gallons of water?
Well, hmm, let me think about that.
Obviously, this type of problem requires a little creativity.
Can you describe a time when you had to change your communication style to deliver a message or get your point across?
That's an interesting question.
Please give me a few moments.
Hmm.
Well being able to communicate with different groups of people is, of course, absolutely critical to being a leader.
How does the discussion continue?
The interviewer wants to know how Yala's ability to deal with conflict between different groups of people has played out in a specific scenario.
In other words, how have Yala's conflict resolution skills improved worked in a particular example.
Yala begins talking about a specific time a couple of years back in 2006.
There were rumors that we were going to move a product line to another plant in Mexico.
And just bear with me for a second.
I was proactive and brought the workers concerns to management's attention.
Notice how Yala again uses a thinking time phrase to give herself a little break while she puts her thoughts together.
She then uses one of the vocabulary terms for positive personal characteristics that we learned in talking about accomplishments parts 1 and 2 to be proactive,
This, as you'll recall, is the opposite of reactive.
It means to solve problems before they occur instead of just reacting to them.
As Yala demonstrates, we can use the language we learned for describing positive personal qualities to help us to respond to behavioral-type stress questions.
Interviewers and HR people generally believe past behavior predicts future behavior.
By describing how our behavior demonstrates positive personal characteristics, we are speaking the interviewer's language.
How does the interview continue?
How did they react?
Well, I was tasked with resolving the situation, so we called a meeting with union leaders and I was able to get two key members of our executive team to attend.
Notice how the interviewer asks Yala for specifics.
From the HR perspective, it's important not just to be satisfied with general statements.
We need details so that we can get deeper understanding of the candidate's experience.
From the interviewee's perspective, adding details makes your story more believable.
How does the dialogue continue?
Getting management buy-in in this sort of situation is important.
The interviewer participates in the discussion by mentioning how important management buy-in is.
Here, buy-in means something like commitment.
The interviewer is pointing out that Yala has successfully gotten management's commitment to engage with the problem.
Making this sort of comment encourages Yala to keep going.
Next, Yala discusses how, working as a team with her management, they were able to credibly refute rumours.
That means believably disprove the stories.
In addition, they solicited opinions, that is, gathered feedback about how to improve communication in the future.
Finally, how does the interview finish off?
So, what concrete actions came out of this?
The interviewer is understandably interested in concrete follow-up actions.
If he hadn't asked her this, Yala would still have done well to talk about it.
It's not enough simply to deal with a situation.
We also have to think about how we learn from it.
These days, most organizations put a lot of emphasis on learning and improving processes.
So, no matter what kind of behavioral question we get, it's smart to emphasize the long-term results that came out of the situation.
How does Yala respond?
Well, the two main steps we took were one, to set up a quarterly review meeting between senior managers and union leaders and two, create a local version of the company newsletter.
Notice that Yala talks about the two main steps we took.
This is a good place to use an ordered list, such as first, second, third, and so on.
As we've learned in other episodes, this is called signposting language.
Of course, as we've discussed elsewhere, sequencing or signposting language is important when dealing with all kinds of interview questions, which are essentially prompting you to give a series of short presentations.
Here we'll just review a couple of useful phrases that can help get you out of a tight spot in an interview.
If you're like me, sometimes you can't think of anything to say, so you just have to start talking.
But then, halfway through your speech, you realize that you have a much better, much more important point to make.
What can you say?
You can try something like this phrase.
But actually, all of these points up to now, though worth mentioning, are rather minor.
What I'd really like to emphasize is...
If you feel like you are just talking nonsense, you can say Sorry.
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear.
If it was too fast and you sped through the main points too quickly, you can say Sorry.
Let me just recap on that.
If what you're saying sounds too complicated, you might try saying So.
Basically, what I'm saying is this
Now let's practice some of what we've learned today.
In a moment, you'll be asked a couple of stress questions.
Use the strategies we have learned today to give yourself time to think.
Start with a phrase such as, Can you just bear with me for a moment?
Or, let me just think about that for a second.
Then, make a general statement about the question to buy time as we've practiced already today.
For example, if you hear tell me about an assignment that was too difficult for you, you might say something like well, how people deal with difficult assignments really tells you a lot about a person's communication style.
Let's give it a try.
Tell me about a time when you faced a major obstacle at work.
Tell me about a time when you failed.
Okay, now let's listen to some example answers.
Of course, your responses may differ from these.
Tell me about a time when you faced a major obstacle at work.
Example answer.
Well, let me think a little about that.
How we deal with obstacles and what we learn from them is very important to job success.
Tell me about a time when you failed.
Example answer.
Hmm, good question.
Please just bear with me for a second.
Life has its shares of successes and failures, and how we deal with failures says a lot about us.
That's about all for this episode.
We've covered a variety of strategies and language for dealing with stress questions.
We've talked about giving ourselves time to think and ordering our thoughts when we answer.
The theme of today's show has been Don't Panic.
We can't be prepared for every question, but practicing strategies like these can help us stay cool and calm and take control of the interview.
Thanks for listening.
