How to Answer an Interview Question you DIDN'T Prepare For
About this video
Jeff Su breaks down three steps for answering an interview question you did not prepare for, using a real question he received: ‘If I spoke with 10 random people in your life, how many would dislike you?’ He says the interviewer later told him his answer was not the one she wanted, but his clear thought process earned him a pass. Step one is to stall for time: ask clarifying questions (family, friends, or colleagues? Must they be honest? When did they last interact with you?), rephrase and repeat the question back to confirm understanding, and literally ask for a minute or two to structure thoughts on pen and paper — which he says can buy at least two minutes and signals composure. Step two is to break the question into manageable, MECE segments (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive, a principle he attributes to McKinsey): he assumed 5 personal and 5 professional people, split into 1 family, 4 friends, 3 internal teammates, and 2 external agencies, stating assumptions aloud. Step three is to answer segment by segment: 0 of 1 family, 1 of 4 friends, 1 of 3 teammates (noting he is blunt and direct at work), and 1 of 2 external agencies, totaling 3 out of 10. The interviewer’s preferred framing, he reports, was to segment only by work teams (e.g., sales, marketing, engineering), consider their objectives, and acknowledge decisions may not align with their goals while still being right for the business.
Key takeaways
- Stall legitimately: ask clarifying questions, rephrase the question back to the interviewer, and ask for a minute to structure thoughts on paper.
- Break a vague question into MECE segments with explicit assumptions stated aloud so the interviewer can follow your logic.
- Answer segment by segment with simple numbers — his worked example totaled 3 out of 10 people disliking him.
- Process matters more than the exact answer: he passed the round despite giving an answer the interviewer said was not what she was looking for.
- For role-specific versions, segment by the teams you would work with and acknowledge your decisions may conflict with their objectives while serving the business.
Episode details: published November 23, 2021 · 7:06 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Jeff Su’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.
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