Talkative interviewers

Question: What do I do if I find myself being interviewed by an interviewer who just won’t shut up? I had this situation recently and he kept on talking about how successful the company was what a wonderful place it was to work in, but I couldn't get a word in edgeways to sell myself and ended up not getting the job. What should I do if I encounter this again?

This truly is an awful situation, stemming from a badly-trained interviewer who loses sight of what a selection interview is supposed to achieve. The two most common reasons for this are nervousness on the part of the interview or, worse yet, disinterest in what you have to say. Either way, you will find it difficult to drive your agenda in the room. Your best approach if you meet a gabbler:

• Demonstrate interest and patience. Don’t let your body language signal your irritation. Listen carefully and take note of what the interviewer is saying and more importantly how he/she is saying it. That way you can reflect that language and tone back at the interviewer when you do get a chance to speak.
  

• You will need to break the cardinal rule of interviews and interrupt the interviewer. Don’t do this with a sales point, rather do it with a question that allows you to gently move into the driver’s seat. As the interview answers your question, interrupt gently again and start to take control.
  

• If you are being hit with closed questions (the kind of questions that demand ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers) make sure you immediately follow your monosyllabic answer with an explanation as to why this is your approach, how it has worked for you in the past and why this makes you different/special/wonderful. You need to do this without drawing breath!
  

• Keep asking questions as the interview progresses and start moving the process into dialogue, where you and the interviewer are sharing experiences and discussing the optimal approach to specific problems or issues.
  

Underpinning all this is that you must adopt an agenda-driven approach. If you walk into the interview room in passive mode ("I hope that I answer their questions to their satisfaction") it will be very difficult to interrupt a jabbering interviewer and get anything of value across. If you have determined your agenda in advance of the interview, you will hear trigger issues and phrases in the interviewer's verbiage that can enable you to segue smoothly into a well-considered point that shows you to good advantage.