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