Use silence to your advantage in the interview
November 6, 2008 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Assessing the right candidate, In This Week's E-Newsletter, Interviewing, Latest News & Views
Silence is a powerful thing. Here’s how it can help you conduct more effective job interviews:
You know the scene. A recruiter asks a candidate a question, maybe an especially difficult one, and the only answer is silence while the candidate thinks of an answer.
Silence is tough. It’s natural for one party in the conversation to try and end it. But too often it’s the interviewer who breaks the silence by helping the candidate too much or letting him or her off the hook by moving on to something else.
But, according to HR consultant Mel Kleiman, there is one line interviewers can use to take the pressure off themselves and put it back on the candidate to deliver an honest and well thought-out answer:
“I realize it’s a difficult question, so take all the time you need to think about it.”
Not only does that give the interviewer the right to sit comfortably without speaking, but it also helps candidates by discouraging them from opening their mouths before they know what to say.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
At the same time one can sometimes get more thorough (and less scripted) answers by using silence. This is a tactic that good litigators use in depositions and at trial. After a witnesses response, the questioning attorney will sometimes be silent for a brief period and since dead-air is uncomfortable for most people the witness will often start talking again, called filling-in, leading to “the rest of the story”. This is a tactic that drives opposing counsel nuts, but there is nothing they really can do since the witness is volunteering information at-will.