Description
- Expert Insights: Gain crucial insights from Harrison's expertise on handling uncomfortable questions during job interviews.
- Navigating Sensitive Queries: Discover strategic ways to address uncomfortable questions like marital status, background, or inquiries about other interviews.
- Avoiding Pitfalls: Understand the pitfalls of responding negatively or making the interviewer feel uncomfortable, as it can adversely impact your chances of getting hired.
- Strategic Responses: Learn the art of strategically answering questions about other job interviews, emphasizing your dedication to the specific firm without causing concern.
- Case Study: Explore a real-life scenario where mentioning interviews at a different type of firm led to negative consequences and understand the importance of aligning your responses with the firm's expectations.
- Positive Impression: Harrison emphasizes the significance of creating a positive impression, ensuring that your responses make the interviewer feel good about the company and your commitment to the role.
- Practical Tips: Gain practical tips on steering the conversation towards showcasing your interest in the firm, avoiding discussions about different practice settings that might raise concerns.
- Ultimate Advice: The overarching advice is never to convey intentions of working in another practice setting, maintaining a focus on the firm being interviewed and framing responses positively to enhance your candidacy.
Transcript:
Handling Interviewee Responses: Addressing Uncomfortable Questions in Job Interviews
Okay, this is a great question. So, I'm going to answer this one. This is hugely important. Again, this is something people find necessary to understand the answer. And this is an excellent question. Again, this is the kind of question that, if you understand that you ask, will get you burned.
If you answer things most of the time, it's a way that many people answer questions right now. So how do you answer this? Sometimes, you can avoid it by discussing other uncomfortable things. Or if someone asks, sometimes people will ask, are you married? Sometimes people will ask about your background, I don't know, things related to religion.
Sometimes, people ask other things and other times; they'll ask where you're interviewing. I feel uncomfortable asking the questions. It's honestly going to hurt you because that's just going to make you feel like you're someone that could sue them. You're someone on the lookout for negative things, and the person has done something negative by asking that.
And you're putting them in the corner. Why on earth would you make people feel like they're doing something wrong and that you think it's a bad thing when they're interviewing you? Why would they hire you? Wouldn't they hire someone that didn't make them feel that way? Of course, they would. Would they tell on your form that you did that?
No, they would find other reasons to like you. Anytime someone. It doesn't like you for a lot of reasons. Or maybe they're not going to say it. You're just going to find out the reasons. If they like you, they won't talk about the good reasons or bad things you said. So you would never answer this.
You'd have to be insane to say that it's just not worth it. Why would someone hire you if you're telling them they're doing something wrong, asking that? Why would someone hire you if they think you'll be trouble? If they hire you, you would have to be crazy. So I'm telling you to consider it from the players' interview.
They will want to hire someone who makes them feel good about themselves. They will want to hire someone they're not worried will sue them. They will want to hire someone who doesn't make them feel like they did something wrong in the interview. Wouldn't you? That's what people do.
So you can't do that. Now, if someone asks you where else you're interviewing, there is an answer. And I should probably put that in our webinar. But where else are you interviewing? That's an excellent question. Are you interviewing? When someone asks you that question, you have to come back and say something similar to this.
This is precisely the type of firm I want to interview with. I'm primarily applying to firms like this, but I want, I like, this firm because if you're not interviewing any place else, you could say this is the only place I want to work and the only place that I'm applying to right now.
That sounds good because it makes the firm feel like there's something special. Maybe it's because of the job. Yeah. Let's just say you would say something along those lines. I have a lot of other opportunities I guess I could apply to. There are a lot of positions out there, but I'm most interested in this place because of this.
If they ask you where else you're interviewing and the firm is far from the type of firm it's different from the type of firm you're interviewing with. They're not going to like that either. I had an interview once. I was interviewing with this excellent, getting boutique in Century City that did litigation.
I had a clerkship, so I was coming out of my clerkship, looking for jobs in Los Angeles, and a firm asked me, yeah, a firm asked me, where else are you interviewing? And I just said, I'm interviewing in Milwaukee, I'm interviewing with Emmanuel, I'm interviewing with Firms and saying that we're just, Oh, we only want people that want to work in dead sheets.
That was the end of it. And they were mad about it. So you just have to, you have to give an impression. That's the kind of place you want to work for. If you start saying, I'm interviewing in-house, or I'm interviewing in-house, or I'm in with a public interest organization, that's not good either. Why would you talk about a different practice set?
No, because. If you talk about a different practice setting, then that's going to hurt you as well. Why would someone want to hire someone not dedicated to working in a law firm? So you just need to be very careful about that. But yeah, the big answer is never to tell people you're, oh shoot, I can't say that.
You never tell people that you want to work in another practice setting, or you never answer in a way
that makes them feel bad about themselves or whatever. If you. One example might be you're interviewing with one firm. I remember interviewing with a firm once, and they asked me that. I told them about a branch office of another firm, and all they said was to be very careful of branch offices.
And that was enough. So you're interviewing with the main office of a large law firm, and they ask you where else you're interviewing, and you tell them maybe there's one other position, it's at this firm, but it's a branch office that makes me nervous. You make them feel good about it.
