This content originally appeared on Level Up Coding - Medium and was authored by Jimmy Ho
Some easy, actionable tips from a long-time interviewer
I’ve been conducting behavioral interviews at Yelp for 5 years, and I’m consistently bewildered by the diversity of answers candidates give that do not address my actual question. When this happens, we waste valuable time that could have been spent discussing other topics, and sometimes, the candidate feels embarrassed when they realize they didn’t hit the mark.
I get it; it’s stressful. I have a lot of sympathy for the pressure candidates are under, and most of us interviewers do give some latitude for confusing answers. That said, it sometimes feels like we’re talking at each other about completely different topics. I passionately want to fix this so you have a better chance of getting the role you want (and that I want to hire you for!).
What follows are tips focused on that oft-neglected, ephemeral moment between when an interview question is asked and when the answer is delivered. They feel obvious and basic but are worth talking about because I find, to my frustration, that many candidates don’t take advantage of this moment.
I like these tips because they can be practiced and learned. You may not know what questions will be asked, but you’ll likely be in a better place if you adopt these practices for every question.
While I base my experience on behavioral interviews given to software engineers by fellow engineers in the American tech industry, many of these tactics are universally applicable. Many of the examples and scenarios in this article stem from actual situations I’ve encountered.
Listen to the Entire Question, Then Pause Before Answering
Have you ever been so anxious to answer an interview question that you misinterpreted it and answered it poorly?
Or answered with Story X and kicked yourself later for not using Story Y?
On my end, I notice that candidates are so enthusiastic or anxious that they pounce to answer the question. Sometimes, they even cut me off before I finish. Many do not answer my actual question. Sometimes, they feel like non-sequiturs, like answering a question about teamwork with a long-winded, rehearsed S.T.A.R. answer about increasing user engagement.
So here’s the tip: Pause at least a heartbeat or two after you’ve heard the entire question. Think about the question and then your response.
With most interviewers, I’m willing to bet you can get away with pausing in complete silence for up to, say, 5 seconds for some questions that feel especially confusing. We’re willing to wait if the answer will be higher quality. You can even say you need a quick moment to think if you feel uncomfortable with the silence.
Give this a try, and I think the quality of your answers and their delivery will be much improved.
By the way, I can see how, in some work cultures, aggressively pouncing on a question shows confidence, motivation, and attunement with the interviewer. I don’t have a good answer to that scenario, except that this is a nuanced aspect of a company’s culture, so I’m not sure it would matter much in the final evaluation of a candidate. For what it’s worth, in the American engineering cultures I’ve experienced, pouncing on a question often comes across as nerves or bravado.
Ask Clarifying Questions About My Intent
Multiple times in interviews, candidates don’t answer the question the way I expect.
Hey, look, if you’re not answering my question, it’s honestly not an issue for me (the first few times). You’re just getting to know us, so I don’t expect you to be on the exact same wavelength. I’ll ask follow-up questions to redirect you.
That said, it’s more efficient if you ask about the intent of my question upfront. For example, let’s say I ask,
“How were decisions made on this project we’ve been discussing?”
There are multiple ways to answer this:
- Day-to-day — Prioritizing tickets or tasks
- Technical decisions — How are technical design decisions made? Should we build a prototype, etc.?
- Coordination work — How were scope changes handled? How did you incorporate feedback from customers or stakeholders, etc.?
- Cultural/stylistic — Collaborative versus top-down; communication mediums (Slack, email, meetings); formal channels versus back channels; etc.
- Personality-driven — E.g., Handling a prideful boss who doesn’t like to hear bad news
- Some or all of the above
Below are the possible reasons why someone asks this question. Try to guess which of the above you would cover if you knew the intention?
- How the team works through technical issues, and how you participate in that process
- How you manage tasks and integrate with a project’s execution flow
- How you coordinate with others and understand larger coordination efforts
- Some or all of the above
I’ve never actually heard a candidate say this, but I fantasize that someone, someday, will ask,
“Well, what kinds of decisions are you interested in? There are decisions about what tickets we should work on first, technical tradeoff decisions, coordinating approval decisions with stakeholders…?”
At this point, you may be thinking, “Well, Jimmy, why don’t you ask a more precisely worded question to get what you want?”
Haha, yes, I could, but when I ask this particular question, I’m not that concerned about how the answer comes out. My grading rubric includes all the intents above, so I get good information regardless. I might even follow up with more questions to understand the other aspects to round out my evaluation.
However, you may encounter interviewers who are looking for a specific thing for a specific question, but it’s vaguely worded. They may even let you ramble for several sentences before redirecting you to what they want.
If you can answer a question in multiple ways, consider explaining a few quick options to your interviewer and let them clarify what they want.
And if you’re one of those people who quickly jumps to conclusions, and it doesn’t even occur to you that the question could have different interpretations, see my tip above about pausing a beat before answering.
Ask About My Prior Experience
I may be an iOS engineer, but I’ll be lost if you geek out about integrating an iOS app with a complex medical device via Bluetooth.
Thus, if you’re in an interview that’s titled “Technical Communication,” and your interviewer asks you,
“Tell me about the technology you worked on for this project?”
You can pause, reflect, and ask,
“Do you have any experience with Bluetooth integration with medical devices?”
Then calibrate your explanation appropriately according to their response.
Someone clarifying with me rarely happens, but I’m inordinately happy when it does. As a side note, explaining your technical jargon in a well-calibrated way also helps you. I even have a separate article on that linked at the bottom.
Conclusion
The above tactics are admittedly optional, and you can still get a great job at a great company without any of this. Again, we interviewers sympathize with people’s stress and give some latitude for confusing answers.
And most interview questions aren’t perfect, either. It’s often not your fault that a question is worded in a way that you misinterpret because of your particular cultural background and prior work experiences.
As long as your answers aren’t consistently crazy throughout the interview, and we think you’ll efficiently learn our communication and coordination styles when you start the job, you’ll be fine.
But if you have your interviewing fundamentals down and want to level up a bit more, integrating these behaviors could help. Whenever you rehearse answers to interview questions, consider developing the habit of pausing before answering. Practice asking clarification questions for any vague questions that may come, and, where appropriate, clarify the interviewer’s expertise to ensure your response is at their level.
I haven’t interviewed for a job in a long time, so if you have opinions about how well these work, especially if you’ve tried these tactics, please drop a comment! I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts!
Good luck!
Please check out my other related articles:
Want To Ace That Tech Job Interview? Please, Please Explain Your Jargon!
Disclosure: Yelp reviewed this article before publication. That said, I was not paid or solicited by Yelp to write this article, and the opinions expressed are my own.
Think Before You Speak: How To Improve Your Behavioral Interviews was originally published in Level Up Coding on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
This content originally appeared on Level Up Coding - Medium and was authored by Jimmy Ho
Jimmy Ho | Sciencx (2025-02-03T02:02:03+00:00) Think Before You Speak: How To Improve Your Behavioral Interviews. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/02/03/think-before-you-speak-how-to-improve-your-behavioral-interviews/
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