“You don’t want to avoid it, and you don’t want to go down the rabbit hole of negativity, you want a balance between identifying the situation and then answering it with actionable positivity” - Max Chan on answering negative job interview questions.
After 11 months of searching, and several failed interview attempts, Max Chan finally landed his first job out of college, and he hasn’t looked back since. With a background in digital marketing, and experience working for a company that went through an acquisition, Max eventually founded his career coaching company, Chan With A Plan, where he offers a combination of resume creation, cover letter writing, LinkedIn optimization, and interview preparation. There is also a newsletter, which is 100% free.
In this episode, Max and Justin go over potential interview questions by giving both good answers and bad ones. The emphasis is on identifying questions that are meant to trip you up by opening doors to negative answers. Max and Justin do a great job of answering with examples from their own careers and experiences.
SHOW NOTES
- A little about Max [0:35]
- Starting with the search
- How to know when to modify your resume [3:14]
- A list of questions designed to trick you into going negative [5:59]
- How to answer: “How would you deal with an irate client?” [9:02]
- “Tell me about a time you had to choose something else over doing a good job” [19:10]
- “Describe a time when you had too many ‘to-do’ items on your list ”[23:16]
- TERRIBLE ANSWERS - Justin and Max answer potential interview questions completely wrong [28:35]
- “Describe your biggest work failure” [29:33]
- “How do you deal with stress?” [31:14]
- Wrapping up [34:30]
