I received this great comment from a hiring manager on interviewing, and thought her insights would help you in your next interview, when you answer interview questions.
My observations as a hiring manager are in line with what you are saying in this video. I’ve interviewed candidates for a position in software development team and asked them a standard question: “Where do you see yourself in three years?” Many responded enthusiastically, “I want to be a manager”, not realizing that this be viewed as a threat to the continuous employment of a manager 🙂 A safer answer is “I want to be a senior programmer.”
The biggest assumption people make is that if they tell you what they did, you will understand that they will and can do the job. I think this approach is far from perfect, and they will be better understood if they spell this out explicitly. For example, “I can support Oracle database and resolve performance issues because I have such and such experience to rely upon.” What I heard often was “I am passionate about Oracle and done a lot of Oracle programming” – how [your passion helps] me was not spelled out for me.
Just my 2c
Cheers,
Olga
The video Olga refers to is this one: The 4 Unasked Job Interview Questions You MUST Answer
The big ideas here are to remember who you’re speaking with and adjust your answers accordingly, and give evidence-based answers (especially quantified ones that include numbers, dollars, and percentages) instead of only talking about your passion. Passion and enthusiasm are good, but evidence is better.
If you’d like great answers to specific interview questions, check out my blog series, How to Answer Interview Questions.