Employment seeking these days can be quite the task. So much now rides on an interview that this process has become more nerve wracking than ever before.  People tend to respond to nervousness during a job interview in one of two ways; they clam up or they ramble on and on and on. Neither of these situations is good. When you are asked a question in a job interview, the interviewer wants enough information to satisfy the question without having to listen to a person drone on endlessly.

 If you must choose one of these two evils, it is better to be too brief than to lengthy.  The interviewer can always ask for more information. Having said that, interviewers don’t want to have to drag the answers out of you either.  There can be a fine line between too short of an answer and too long of an answer. The best rule of thumb is to ask yourself if you think you have answered the question fully. If think you have not answered the question fully then attempt to briefly do so. If you think you have answered the question fully, then stop talking.

 Always take a few moments to form the answer in your mind. Think about what is really being asked. The interviewer is hoping for a concise intelligent answer. He or she will not object if you take a few seconds to organize your thoughts. Once an answer is blurted out, you cannot take it back. When this happens, some people will talk too much trying to explain what they meant by their answer.

 If you are asked what role you played in a past project then stick to the main points. Do not go into the details too deeply or try to give a blow by blow report of everything you have done.  Tell at what point you became involved with the project, what your main duties were and the outcome of the project. That is all the interviewer should need to know.  The interviewer would rather ask you to elaborate on something than be forced to interrupt you.

 Answering a question fully also means that you avoid jargon and acronyms. You might think that saying “we would file a ST-109 to the TACT” answers a question. Everyone at your old workplace might what a ST-109 or a TACT is but chances are that no one in the interview room but you will know what you are talking about.  It would much better to answer “we would file a copy of the injury report with the department which handled Worker’s Compensation”.

 As with all interview, you should practice before hand. Ask a friend or family member to run through a mock interview with you. This exercise can help you find out of you talk too much or too little.