3 Painless Ways to Overcome a Bad Interview Answer

Can you avoid a bad interview answer?

Wow. Where did that interview answer come from?

Why am I still talking??

You might have one or more of these thoughts run through your head during an interview. Most likely because it will be true. We all have moments like this.

It’s okay! What’s important is how you respond to these moments.

You don’t need to stop the interview, pack your things, and politely excuse yourself. You just need to know how to recover if you take a misstep.

I recommend taking a proactive approach to interview preparation before, during, and after the interview itself. This includes being ready to pivot mid-interview if you find yourself in one of these situations.

It’s better to address the situation head-on than hope the hiring manager didn’t notice. (Spoiler alert: they did).

How to overcome 3 common interview answer mistakes

While there are many mistakes candidates make, here are three common interview answer mistakes:

1. Talking too much
2. Not directly answering the question
3. Forgetting to share a critical example or key point before you leave

1. Talking too much

I get it. You want to make sure you tell the hiring manager everything about you.

You want to share your skills, your experiences, why you’re a good fit for the role. And all those things are vital pieces to share during any interview. Trust me – I find it important. Check out “The Top 3 Things Every Hiring Manager is Looking For” to see for yourself.

However, talking too much in any one interview response is a problem for a few reasons, which we’ll explore below. Granted, not saying enough can present its own challenges, but more candidates ramble too much rather than too little.

And it compounds on itself, question after question.

Problems with talking too much

• You’ll lose the interviewer. If you ramble too long, even if it’s “good” content, the interviewer will lose interest and stop paying attention. This is especially likely to happen during the beginning of your interview. You’ll be nervous, and when asked “So, tell me about yourself” you’re likely to over-explain, sharing everything from your most recent job experience to your second-grade teacher’s favorite pet.
• The hiring manager will assume that you can’t prioritize. If you can’t plan ahead, condense ideas down and share the important points, how effective will you be at prioritizing if given the role itself?
• You’ll run out of time. This is huge – and super common. If you provide long-winded answers to every question, your interviewer won’t get to ask you all the same questions as the other candidates. You could be missing out big-time on sharing critical intel on your qualifications as a candidate.

What to do if you talk too much

• First and foremost, prepare ahead of time for the interview. This can eliminate a lot of the reasons why someone rambles – lack of preparation. I mentioned before that it’s common to ramble at the beginning of the interview. Check out this resource to Confidently Answer ‘Tell me about yourself‘ or to prepare more generally for the interview here.
• Recognize the warning signs in the moment:
  • The interviewers keep checking their watches
  • The interviewers make comments like “in the interest of time, let’s move on to the next question.”
  • You, yourself, feel like you’ve been rambling. That’s okay if you take action and don’t repeat.
• Take action.
  • If you’re getting signals that things are taking too long, simply shorten your answers. Caution: Don’t attempt to cram the same content into your answers by speaking more quickly. That’s not any better. Simply be more concise and purposeful about what you choose to share. If the hiring manger needs more information, they’ll ask.
  • Prepare ahead of time for questions you know you’ll get asked, such as “Tell me about yourself” and “Why are you the best candidate?” In addition to preparing, practice out loud and time yourself. You’ll be surprised by how quickly time goes by. Limit your response to say, 2 minutes. Then you can prioritize what to share.
  • If you feel you’re rambling, address it head-on. Say something like “I realize I just shared a lot of information and spoke for a while. Here’s the main point to answer your question.” This shows self-awareness and will put the interviewers at ease that it won’t happen the whole time (so please don’t let it happen the whole time!).

2. Not directly answering the question

Problems with not directly answering the interview question

• The interviewer won’t get what they need. There’s a reason you were asked the question. If you don’t provide what they’re looking for, the interviewer may keep asking follow-up questions until they do (or until they they give up).
• You’ll miss out on sharing what’s important. This may seem obvious, but the interview is your chance to directly tie your skills and experiences to what the hiring manager is looking for.

What to do if you didn’t directly answer the question

• Pay attention to what they’re looking for. Look behind the question, don’t just provide an example and hope the interviewer somehow heard something valuable. Be intentional!
• Refer back to a question later in the interview. If you think of an additional or clarifying point you’d like to make to a previous sub-par response, feel free to take a moment later in the interview to do just that. Something like this could be perfectly acceptable: “You know, the more I think about our conversation about how I influence others – I realized that while I provided an example, I never shared my typical process/framework for how I go about doing that. Here’s what I do…”

3. Forgetting to share a critical example or key point before you leave

Problems with forgetting key points

This one’s obvious and basically the same as above: the interviewer won’t get what they need and you will miss out sharing what’s most important. Leaving something on the table can be a terrible feeling when you walk away from the interview. Here’s how to avoid that feeling.

What to do if you get to the end and forgot something

• Use the time at the end of the interview when you’re asked “Do you have any questions for me?” to your advantage. I always recommend that you approach this part of the interview differently from others anyway, as I’ve shared in my post “How to easily transform your job interview questions.”
• Turn your point into a question. Did you have a really great story you wanted to share but couldn’t find a way to bring it up? Do you have a unique skill that they must know about, but you forgot to mention it?
• What could this sound like? For example, when asked if you have any questions, you could say “Absolutely, I have a couple questions for you. You know, our conversation today reminded me of a time when… [insert story/skill here]. I found that to be a great learning moment. This makes me curious, how does your organization handle situations like that?”

Conclusion

While there are many mistakes someone can make in a job interview answer, three stand out as easily correctable in the moment.

If you find yourself:

1. Talking too much
2. Not directly answering the question
3. Forgetting to share a critical example or key point before you leave,

be intentional to take action and make small adjustments that can lead to a next interview or offer rather than a decline.

Discussion Question

I’d love to hear from you! Join the conversation with the Equipped Community – we’re in this together! In the comments section below, share your thoughts on the following question.

Question: What interview answer mistakes have you made? How did you correct them in the moment?