When You Don't Understand A Question

During an English interview, many interviewees may have difficulty in comprehending an interviewer's question.  The worst thing to do is pretend to understand and incorrectly respond or just sit there and smile and contemplate the question with a minute's silence - only with a, "I don't know."

Instead, you should simply ask them to repeat the question and/or seek clarification of the question.

As an interviewer (for English language assessment), I don't expect the interviewee to understand every question.  If he/she doesn't understand something, seeking clarification shows me that they want to understand, but just needs a little bit of additional explanation.  And most of the time, with a little clarification, the interviewee can reply to the question.

Here are some useful phrases:

"Can you repeat the question again?"
"I don't understand what you mean by, fractional?"
"Can you rephrase the question?"
"Can you give me an example?"
"When you save ten-fold, you mean ten times, correct?"

Here are some sample dialogs: (A = interviewer, B = interviewee)

(A)  Are you a charismatic person?
(B)  Can you explain what charismatic means?
(A)  Sure, charismatic means having leadership qualities that people trust and want to follow.
(B)  Oh, I understand.  Yes, I believe that I have ...


(A)  Do you work well with a team, or do you feel more comfortable doing tasks unaided?
(B)  Can you rephrase the last part again?
(A)  Let me rephrase the question.  Do you work better with a team or by yourself?
(B)  Both.  I do the work by myself or with a team, whichever is needed.

Be Knowledgable About The Company

One of the important things to know before going in for your job interview is KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE COMPANY YOU ARE INTERVIEWING FOR.

As an interviewer for several companies, one of the questions I ask is related to the company they are seeking to work at. 

Here are some of the types of questions I may ask:

• History about the company
• Milestones or major accomplishments of the company
• Products and/or services the company offers
• Partner companies and other company relationships

In addition, I may ask industry specific questions relating to the company.   For example if the company is an automobile company, I may ask a question about the future of alternative fuels.

What we are looking for is a candidate who has a general understanding about the company and its industry.  A candidate that has no knowledge (or even very little knowledge) in this area would be not be perceived as an ideal choice for the company.

6 Seconds

How do you make your resume stand out?  According to job recruitment website The Ladders, which conducted a formal survey of job recruiters, the six most important aspects of your resume are:

your name

current title/company

previous title/company

current position start and end dates

previous position start and end dates

education

And on average, the recruiters took just six seconds reviewing those aspects.