TRAPS: Beware--if you are unprepared for this question, you
will probably not handle it right and possibly blow the interview. Thank goodness most interviewers don't employ
it. It's normally used by those determined to see how you respond under stress.
Here's how it works: You answer an interviewer's question and then, instead of
asking another, he just stares at you in a deafening silence. You wait, growing
a bit uneasy, and there he sits, silent as Mt. Rushmore,
as if he doesn't believe what you've just said, or perhaps making you feel that
you've unwittingly vibrated some cardinal rule of interview etiquette. When you get this silent
treatment after answering a particularly difficult question, such as "tell
me about your weaknesses," its intimidating effect can be most disquieting,
even to polished job hunters. Most unprepared candidates rush in to fill the
void of silence, viewing prolonged, uncomfortable silence as an invitation to
clear up the previous answer which has obviously caused some problem. And that's what they do--ramble on,
sputtering more and more information, sometimes irrelevant and often damaging, because
they are suddenly playing the role of someone who's goofed and is now trying to
recoup. But since the candidate doesn't
know where or how he goofed, he just keeps talking, showing how flustered and confused
he is by the interviewer's unmovable silence.
BEST ANSWER: Like a primitive tribal mask, the Silent
Treatment loses all its power to frighten you once you refuse to be
intimidated. If your interviewer pulls it, keep quiet yourself for a while and
then ask, with sincere politeness and not a trace of sarcasm, "Is there
anything else I can fill in on that point?" That's all there is to it. Whatever
you do, don't let the Silent Treatment intimidate you into talking a blue
streak, because you could easily talk yourself out of the position.
