From the desk of Kent Lee, CEO of Perfect Resume.
We did an interview coaching session with an Executive Vice President for a large corporation a couple weeks ago who was worried about the fact that she hadn't completed a college degree. We coached her that the strategy to keep in mind anytime you get a question that focuses on something negative is this: Have a confident, short answer (under 30 seconds) that redirects the question to one of your strengths.
Let me give you an example of how this might look/sound in an interview for our client that we coached today:
Interviewer: "I noticed that you don't have a degree. Why didn't you finish your college education?"
Thursday
Candidate: "When I was in college I got promoted into a Store Manager position. At that point, I chose to focus on my career and accelerated very quickly through the corporate ranks, from Store Manager, to General Manager, District Manager, Regional Manager, and I've been a Vice President for the last 10 years."
Notice how the candidate doesn't spend a lot of time discussing education, the value of education, or plans to return to college to complete a degree. Doing so would only reemphasize that fact that she does NOT have a degree.
Instead, the redirect focuses on this candidate's strengths and emphasizes the fact that she has held several high-level management positions, has been promoted several times, and has been a VP for the last 10 years.
The next time you get a potentially negative question in an interview remember: Have a confident, short answer, that redirects to one of your strengths.
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Posted on 04/17/2019 at 07:22 PM
