Essential Interviews Tips and Skills To Get You Started!
Essential Interviews Tips and Skills To Get You Started!
Home / Interviews Tips / How To Respond To Inappropriate Questions During Interviews
Are you ready to answer them?
Occasionally, you may be interviewed by someone who asks inappropriate questions.
These may fall into the category of being ‘politically incorrect’ or may just put you in a difficult position. Even though most interviewers are very professional and well trained in appropriate interviewing techniques, you should still work out a strategy to deal with this situation—just in case.
Always never let an interviewer intimidate you by asking inappropriate questions. You have a right to be treated professionally and with dignity.
There are different ways you can answer:
Clarification: Check you have understood the question, by asking them to clarify what they are asking, ‘I’m not sure I understand your question, could you rephrase it for me?’ This also gives your interviewer an opportunity to rephrase the question if it was clumsily posed the first time.
Gentle confrontation: This generally means asking the interviewer, ‘I’m not sure why you’re asking me that. Would you mind explaining the reason behind asking the question so that I can give you a proper answer?’
Compliance: Answer the question.
Avoidance: Ignore the question and change the subject.
Humor: Respond to the question as if it were a joke, giving the interviewer an opportunity to save face and to ask more appropriate questions.
Strong confrontation: Tell the interviewer that the question is inappropriate and that you are not going to answer it, but always clarify that you’ve understood the question and reason behind it first!
Decide which response best fits your situation. Consider the factors below when deciding how to respond to any inappropriate questions:
-Why do you think the interviewer is asking the question?
- How intrusive or outrageous is the question?
-Can you see why this question relates to the job you
have applied for?
-How strongly do you want the job?
- Is this kind of question a reflection of the corporate culture?
Think about all these factors and decide whether the question seems fairly harmless and can be safely ignored, or whether the interviewer’s behavior crosses ethical lines and must be confronted. If you really want the job, you may decide to overlook the question. If the question is so offensive that you know you could never work for this company, you may be more confrontational.
Most importantly, always keep your cool and give the interviewer the benefit of the doubt before challenging them. If you have misunderstood the question, the embarrassment any kind of confrontation will cause may put you off (not to mention the interviewer) and ruin your chances of success in the rest of the interview.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:48 am
I just want to ask that if an interviewer ask reason why i left the first job and if i say its personal then what to say to him