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Preparing for Interview Questions

How should I handle questions I don't want to be asked?

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Karen Chopra
Licensed Professional Counselor
www.ChopraCareers.com  
 

Karen James Chopra, LPC, MCC, NCC, has been counseling career clients since 1999 and has helped hundreds of clients change careers, find new jobs and deal more effectively with workplace challenges.

In addition to her private practice, she has worked for two national corporate outplacement firms: Lee Hecht Harrison and Resource Careers. These are the organizations that help people who have experienced a layoff or downsizing to find new jobs, and their programs are usually considered the gold-standard of job search technique.

Ms Chopra is a regular presenter on career issues, having taught career theory at the graduate level, designed and delivered numerous workshops, and served as a regular guest commentator on WMAL’s career radio show “Your Career Life.”

She is a career-changer herself. Before entering the counseling field, she worked for nearly a decade as a trade negotiator for the United States Government, first at the Department of Commerce and then at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Ms. Chopra holds a number of relevant licenses and certifications: licensed professional counselor (LPC) in the District of Columbia; Master Career Counselor (MCC), a designation of the National Career Development Association (NCDA); and National Certified Counselor (NCC), a designation of the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC).  She belongs to all of the relevant national and local associations involved in career counseling, including the American Counseling Association (ACA),  the National Employment Counselors Association (NECA), the National Career Development Association (NCDA) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Career-Life Planning Network (MAC-LPN).

Her B.A. is from the University of Virginia, and she received a masters of science in foreign service from Georgetown University, and a masters in community counseling from George Washington University.

How should I handle questions I don't want to be asked?

 

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How should I handle questions I don't want to be asked?

Karen Chopra: There are always questions that we don't want to be asked in an interview and somehow interviewers always know what those questions are. And so the chances are quite good that they are actually going to get asked in the interview.

So don't avoid them, sit down ahead of the interview, list for yourself the questions that you are most worried about being asked. Questions like, what you have been doing for the last six months or why did you leave your last job or can we talk to your last supervisor? Those can sometimes be difficult questions. Sit down, list them, and they come up with the very factual short answer that is the truth, we don't want any lies in an interview. But it doesn't need to be the whole truth.

So if your boss and you had lots of knock-down and drag-out fights at work, you can just say, my boss and I did not have the best set, I really admired and respected that my boss was meticulous and devoted to detail, and I learned a tremendous amount from him, but overall I wouldn't say that he was my best supervisor or that he would like me as one of his best workers.

It's truthful but it's very low-key and it presents you as being honest and in control of the situation, and that's the way you want to handle any difficult question that comes up in an interview.

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