Now they’ll move on to specific questions to test your academic knowledge or experience.
If you don’t know the answer, be frank and admit it. Don’t try generalities. Bear it in mind that you are dealing with functional or subject matter experts.
And for God’s sake, don’t try to hide behind jargon unless you really know the jargon. Many people try this and get into trouble. Even when someone uses jargon while teaching you, ask them to explain its meaning. If the person isn’t able to explain properly, use Google or Wikipedia and understand the jargon.
If you employ jargon to cover your lack of knowledge, experts will strip you down to your birthday suit in a matter of minutes. So like I said, if you don’t know the answer, be frank in admitting it. After all, you are not a walking talking encyclopedia. No one expects you to know everything.
let’s say that you couldn’t answer the first three questions. No issues. Finally, you do know the answer to the fourth question. Now we come to the most important part of the interview.
When you learn something, don’t just try to learn by rote and start repeating like a well trained parrot. Try to really understand what is being said or what is written on the subject. And except in purely scientific subjects, there are always two or more views.
Even in the realm of pure science, at the fundamental level like quantum mechanics, there are many views on each aspect.
Don’t close your mind. Try to understand all the approaches and most important, have YOUR OWN independent view on the subject. It doesn’t matter if you are wrong.
So now, when a question is asked on a topic you are familiar with, first present the generally accepted view on it and then say, ‘but I have a different opinion on the subject’.
What will follow is a hot debate between you and the panel. Like I said, your views may be wrong. No issues. But the discussion will go on for quite some time until the panel members realise that they have overshot the time limit. I’ll bet my last penny that you will be selected.
Let me explain. As I said, the panel consists of functional or subject matter experts. So all that the candidates have swallowed while preparing for the interview and vomited it in the course of the interview would be old hat to them. And stale vomit stinks.
But now, they’ve come across a candidate who has an independent view on the subject. No matter if (S)he is wrong. There is an attempt to try new things, try out new ideas. This is what the panel is eagerly on the look out for!
Did you notice the other benefit? You didn’t know the answer to three questions. There could have been many more questions you couldn’t have answered. But you never gave the panel a chance to ask them. They were so busy arguing with you that they overshot the time limit. And they thoroughly enjoyed the whole process after having listened to a set of trained thothas.
It need not be subject matter even. It could even be some extra-curricular activity mentioned in your résumé like football. You are asked who won the ballon d’or for 2019. You know the answer. It is Lionel Messi. But instead of simply saying Lionel Messi, you can say ‘it’s Lionel Messi, but I wish it had been Christiano Ronaldo.’ If there are a couple of football enthusiasts in the panel, most of your interview would be spent hotly debating Messi vs Ronaldo! And you’ll certainly make it.
Like I said, make life interesting for the panel members and reap the rewards.
So what is most, most important is not the ability to gather information. It is YOUR opinion or spin on the information gathered by you and how YOU PRESENT IT that matters. Inculcate this habit of having an independent opinion about things that you studied or were taught and also learn to present it in a cogent manner. It’ll certainly help you in tackling interviews.
You can use your basic knowledge in another field to make your answer interesting. For instance, you are asked, why are traders cribbing about GST.
Though this question is about finance and business, you can use your knowledge of high school physics and start with the statement, ‘Newton’s first law is very powerful’. Eyebrows will be raised.
You continue, ‘inertial resistance. But no issues, after all, the law applies to bodies at rest as well as bodies in motion. Once the ball gets rolling, inertia will ensure that the resistance is overcome.’
How did you answer like that? Because, you’d been thinking about GST in your free time and had hit upon this way of putting things. That’s why I repeatedly tell you, think of interesting things like this than about film and cricket stars and their ‘extra curricular activities’.
It need not be high school physics. It could be a regular adage like one we have in Kannada about a husband who doesn’t like his wife, contriving to find stones even in curds served by her. (ಒಲ್ಲದ ಗಂಡನಿಗೆ ಮೊಸರಲ್ಲೂ ಕಲ್ಲು). You can use this saying to state that traders’ real problem with GST has nothing to do with the silly objections put up by them, but the fact that GST makes tax evasion more difficult.
There are many different ways of making this answer interesting. I leave it to your imagination. But you should have the basic knowledge of the subject. Knowledge is the foundation based on which, you can come up with many interesting ways of presenting it.
To sum up, understand concepts thoroughly and present things, not as written in text books, but in your own way, to make it more interesting.
And have your own well thought out opinion on a subject and learn to convincingly express it.
Raja P Areyada
Retired Banker. Expertise in International Finance, Payment systems, Treasury automation, Trading platform development & deployment, Information security, Risk Management, Financial Inclusion, IT software development.
Wide array of interests including Philosophy, Quantum Mechanics, Macro Economics and Parapsychology.
