Hey, it's Annemarie with
Speak Confident English.
This is exactly where you want to be
every week to get the confidence you want
for your life and work in English.
This week I'm answering a question
from someone in my community about job
interviews in English and how to avoid
those awkward long pauses if you feel
stuck or you don't know what you
want to say in the interview.
I love this question from Larisa in
my Speak Confident English Facebook
community because it's something that
happens to native and non native speakers.
You might forget the words that you want
to use in the moment and feel stuck or
maybe you don't know how
to answer the question.
It might be a question you've
never thought about before
or maybe they're asking
about something you just don't
know and you have two options.
Number one, you could have one of those.
Mmm Hmm.
I uh, um
Hmm.
You could use one of those awkward
silences with all those funny sounds and
words. And how do you think
those awkward silences look?
Yes, they definitely look like you're
nervous and that you're not prepared.
The other option is to know how to handle
those situations successfully so that
you look like you are in control,
you're thinking clearly and you're able
to communicate exactly the way that you
want. That is what I'm going to help you
do in today's Confident English lesson.
I'm going to give you five ways to
answer a job interview question.
When you're feeling stuck or you don't
know the answer and I'll give you some
examples as well.
All right.
Strategy number one when you're feeling
stuck in a job interview is to buy
yourself some time to buy
time is an English idiom.
That means that you want to delay
one thing so that you have time to do
something or achieve
something else. In this case,
you want to delay answering the questions
so that you have time to think and get
all of your thoughts organized
so you can communicate clearly.
This is a strategy native speakers use
all the time and as a result we have many
different things that you can say.
Here is exactly what you should
do first after the question,
take a short pause.
I mentioned this tip recently in my
lesson on seven tips for successful phone
interview in English.
Taking a short pause allows you to
have a moment to breathe and calm down,
evaluate the questions so that you're
sure to understand it correctly and get
all of your thoughts together so that
you can communicate your answer clearly.
Then after your pause,
use one of the following phrases to
buy yourself just a little bit of time.
As you're saying these words,
your mind should be quickly thinking
about what it is that you want to say.
That's a great question. Let
me think about it for a moment.
I would say that number two. Wow,
that's a really good question and I've
honestly never thought about it before.
Let me take just a moment to
think. I guess I would say that
number three, that's a complex question.
Let me collect my thoughts just for
a moment so I can make sure to answer
clearly.
I would start with number four. Oh,
let me think back for a
moment on my experience.
I definitely remember a
time when and finally,
number five is best used when you truly
don't know the answer and you'd need
more time to think, but you want
to be careful about using it.
You could buy yourself
some time by saying,
that's a question I really
need to think about.
Can I take some time with it and can we
come back to it later in the interview?
This is perfectly appropriate
to use in a job interview,
but be very careful if you
use a phrase like this,
you definitely want to remember to
come back to it in the interview.
Don't pretend that you can ignore it.
Your interviewer will not forget that
you avoided the question and they will
wait for you to bring it
up again in the interview.
So if you need that extra time to think,
it's definitely okay to ask for it.
Just remember to come back to
the question when you're ready.
Strategy number two is
to clarify the question.
This is another way for you
to buy yourself a little time.
When you're clarifying,
you're asking the interview to explain
or define the question further to make
sure that you understand it correctly.
Here are three things that you
can say to do that. Number one,
I'm not sure I understand
that question fully.
Could you explain what
you mean by number two?
I'm sorry. I'm not sure
what you meant by that.
Could you repeat the question please?
And number three I want to make sure
I understand the question correctly.
You're asking if,
and then rephrase the question in
the way that you understand it.
Strategy number three is one of my
favorites and it might surprise you.
This strategy is to think out loud.
This is something I love to teach my
students how to do in my Confident Job
Interviews course because interviewers
want to see how you think and work.
That's one of the reasons
they ask difficult questions.
They know that you're feeling nervous
and they know that you won't be able to
answer every question
perfectly. That's okay.
They want to see how you respond
to those difficult questions.
And how do you think through the
process to get to the final answer?
Thinking out loud is a great way to
demonstrate your process of evaluation and
solving a problem.
So how can you best think out
loud in an interview question?
Let's imagine that an interviewer asks
you about your process for dealing with
unhappy customers or your process
for on-boarding a new employee.
Maybe you don't have a process yet,
so instead you could imagine what you
would do in that situation in the new
position and you can start your answer
with something like in this position,
if I were dealing with
an unhappy customer,
I would start with and then continue
through the steps or the process you would
go through as you do that.
Be sure to use signposting language
or transition words like firstly,
secondly, and then after that and finally,
this will help your
answer to flow smoothly.
If you're one of my students in Fluency
School or Confident Job Interviews,
you know how much I love signposting
and how important it is for clear
communication. All right,
strategy number four for how to
answer job interview questions.
When you're feeling stuck or don't know,
the answer is to focus
on what you do know.
This is perfect when the interviewer
asks you about a specific definition
concept or some job requirement
in the job description,
instead of simply saying,
I don't know or I'm not sure you want
to think about something that is similar
that you are familiar with
and use that in your answer.
For example,
if an interviewer asks you
about a specific software
program that you will need
to use in this job, but you've
never used this program before.
Instead of saying, I don't know
or I've never used that before,
can you think about a software program
that's similar and use that in your
answer and now strategy number five for
how to answer when you don't know the
question is to follow up. In my
Confident Job Interviews course,
I talk about the importance of following
up and sending a thank you email after
the interview and what it should say.
This email is also an opportunity where
you can highlight anything that you
didn't answer the way you
wanted in the interview.
I recommend limiting
this to just one topic,
but if there was a job interview question
that you didn't know how to answer or
you weren't happy about your answer,
you could say something like,
I appreciated your question about and
after having more time to think about it,
I'd love to give you a
more in depth answer.
And with that you have five simple ways
to respond to a job interview question
when you don't know the answer
or you start to feel stuck.
And now I want to hear from you.
In your experience with
job interviews in English,
what is a technique or a lesson that
you've learned about how to respond when
getting stuck or forgetting
the words that you want to use?
You might have a strategy that is
perfect for someone else in our Confident
English community. So I would
love for you to share it here.
And if you've enjoyed this
lesson, I would love to know.
You can tell me in three
simple ways. Number one,
give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube
and subscribe to this channel so you
never miss one of my Confident
English lessons. Number two,
you can share it with friends and
colleagues on Facebook. And number three,
if you know someone who has a job
interview in English coming soon,
you can email this lesson to them
directly. Have a wonderful week.
Thank you so much for joining me and
I'll see you next time for your Confident
English lesson.
