Tackle open ended interview questions like a pro!

Interviewers love throwing curve balls with ambiguous, open-ended questions. I've faced them when I was interviewed (several times!) and am guilty of doing the same to my interviewees. While such questions are a norm and are in fact a great means of testing a candidate's thought process, for you, these questions are probably a nightmare scenario because there are several different answers and ways of tackling these questions, where there is no single correct answer, or a wrong one as a matter of fact. Each potential answer has its own pros and cons. (yes… sigh!)

Choices are always hard to make, especially in the moment, when you are sitting in an interview, facing tough questions. To help you get through this very situation, in this blog, we are sharing ways in which you can objectively maneuver through the answer to such questions.

Rule #1: Make peace with the fact that while you can overcome the ambiguity in the question to a certain extent, the answer CANNOT be planned, or constructed absolutely right in any circumstance. There are no cookie-cutter answers for ambiguous questions so you will need to add your flavor to it. The positive side? Creating your own unique answer, not only distinguishes you from others, but gives you the opportunity to shine and make a mark in your interviewer's mind! For instance, the question "Why should we hire you?" is an extremely open-ended, subjective query. But instead of having a bullet pointed response pulled off the internet, you have the opportunity to add your unique flavor - including your individual strengths and distinctive qualities that stack up to a plausible candidate for the position with that special characteristic you believe is unique to you. While it's possible, that almost all other applicants outside that room have the same skills and experience level you have, your unique value - your X factor - will still be true to you alone.

Rule #2: Secondly, come what may, keep it positive! Ambiguity in questions invite open ended responses, giving you the opportunity to be as positive or, you guessed it, as negative as you'd like with your clean, blank drawing board to answer on. For example, imagine you get asked "why are you leaving a well known company like XYZ to join a smaller, nondescript one?". In response, you could either go all guns blazing on the terrible experience you had in your previous company with the boss, culture and what-not, or you can focus on the positive and elaborate on the new opportunities of moving to another company and the learnings you are looking forward to. Another situation that is very relevant to young fresh graduates during interviews is when you get asked "You are an engineering major, why apply for a business job?" (or other combinations). You could describe the grim story of how you never wanted to be an engineer (which could very well be the truth), or, instead of the grave tale, you could instead focus on the gains you would get in a shift of your job profiles, stepping into business and picking up a great combination of skill-sets.

Rule #3: The 3rd rule, always ensure you keep your response specific and definite! Move away from tackling subjective questions with vague replies, and if your answers tend to be plural, for example "one of my weakness is...", it invites the interviewer to wonder "So what are your other weaknesses?" and continue to further probe you to find out.  

In the next blog we will share a detailed list of open-ended questions you could be asked. Remember, you can research the approach but the crux of the answer will lie with you. You need to search within yourself and draw answers from your thoughts and experiences to capture and communicate your unique value.

In the meanwhile, please comment with a situation where you were asked an open-ended interview question, and how you tackled/or would tackle it!

Manish Gaba

Editor - Vaishnavi Ravi

(Pic courtesy - www.unsplash.com)
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