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Question and Answer Sessions
Aug 17th
Question and Answer Sessions
Copyright (c) 2007 The College Of Public Speaking
Question and answer sessions are the best way to reinforce your key messages from a presentation. Hearing different voices is a good way to get the attention of the audience, but the purpose is to allow members of the audience to obtain both clarification and confirmation of your key messages. It therefore reduces the chance that any members of the audience will leave your presentation with any misunderstandings about the concepts delivered.
The Q&A session can be seen as a series of ‘think on your feet’ speeches that will be followed by a prepared speech. This potentially, makes it harder than the actual presentation. The issue therefore becomes “how can you ensure that the question and answer session does not derail you?”
Set out your stall at the beginning of your presentation
Let your audience know early in the presentation that you intend to have a question and answer session at the end of your speech. This encourages people to think of questions during the presentation; if you only announce “any questions?” at the end of your speech it is that much harder for the audience to come up with appropriate questions.
Encourage the questions to flow
To look good it is not a bad idea to have a plant or two that can ask pre-arranged questions where you can deliver prepared responses (be careful not to make this too obvious!). This both enables you to continue to look good as well as to encourage others to ask questions.
Restate each question clearly
Look at the person asking the question, and repeat it, especially if there is a large audience. This not only ensures that you understood the question, but also gives you time to consider your answer should you require it.
Once you begin your answer do not continue looking at the questioner as it is the whole audience who should hear your answer – not just the person who asked the question.
As you end your answer, look back at the person and his/her facial expression will tell if you answered the question satisfactorily.
Anticipate the questions
Anticipate likely questions and formulate possible responses before you present, and consider how to refer to your speech as you respond to the question. This reinforces the content of your speech and helps maintain the focus of the question and answer session.
Be concise
Keep your answer concise and to the point. Don’t give another speech, otherwise your risk boring the audience. It could well be that the only person interested in the answer is the one who asked the question! However, resist answering with simply a “yes” or “no”, as it may sound dismissive. Complex questions should always be answered honestly and consisely, there’s always an opportunity to chat with the questioner later.
Loaded questions
Beware the loaded question! This is where the questioner wants to shoot your answer down. For example, if you are asked “How long is it likely to take to get to grips with this new application?” You can anticipate that they want to follow up with “We are already working flat out. There is no way that we can devote any time to learning this new system.” Defuse this potentially hostile exchange by saying “We appreciate that in order for you all to be able to become familiar with this new system, time will need to be freed up to enable you to do this task.” You would then outline what steps you have already undertaken that will allow this to happen. Your ability to defuse such a question is in reality more of a measure of your Stakeholder/Project Management skills than Q & A skills but considering potentially loaded questions up front may prompt you to think of the required Stakeholder Management steps that you should be thinking about.
Comment instead of question
Occasionally you will be given a question that is no more than a comment, or worse still, a speech. If this occurs simply say “Thanks for your comment…. Next question?” This may require you to interrupt if the questioner’s “speech” goes on too long; you can achieve this by waiting for a natural pause and then looking across to the other side of the room. There is only so much time allocated to the Q&A session, so do not let one person deprive others of the opportunity to ask questions.
Domineering questioner
If you sense that there is a section of the audience that wants to dominate the Q & A session use a tactic such as “We’ve heard from this side of the room” and walk over to the side of the room from which you have not had a question. “Let’s hear from this side of the room” or you could say “We’ve heard from people with this point of view. Now let’s give a chance for someone who has a different viewpoint and would like to ask me a question.”
Irrelevant questions
As always politeness is the order of the day. Simply acknowledge the interest of the question, and say that it isn’t strictly appropriate to today’s topic but you’ll be delighted to meet the questioner after the session to discuss his question on a one-to-one basis.
Don’t praise questions
Many people say “Good question.” If the next person who asks a question doesn’t get the same response it sounds as though you are passing a judgement that you found that question less than good, so don’t praise the question!
Save your conclusion until the end of the question and answer session
This ensures that you can end the session on a high so when you wish to end the Q & A session ask “Before I make some concluding remarks, who has a question to ask?”
While you should have prepared your conclusion you will need to be prepared to have modified it according to how the Q&A session went, so this is undoubtedly more demanding than presenting the conclusion before the Q&A session, but it is well worth it in order to guarantee ending the session on a high note.
Maintain control
The golden rule is always be polite to the audience and maintain an aura of calm, no matter how hard someone may be in trying to give you a hard time.
As the speaker, you are held to a higher standard than your questioners. A questioner may get away with insulting you, but you will not get away with insulting a questioner.
No fudging!
Be Honest. People are fed up with hearing politicians on the radio and on television who evade the question. Don’t be like them unless you want to lose your credibility. If you don’t know the answer to a question, say so, but volunteer to get back to that person with an answer. Avoid suggesting where they might get an answer from – people are also fed up with being pushed from one person to another. If you have been asked a question it is your responsibility to deal with it; refer to other sources only when you can guarantee that they will give appropriate responses.
In conclusion
Remember that many speaking situations really involve two presentations: the formal presentation and the question and answer period. Ensure success with both presentations by using the techniques described above for the question and answer period.
The College of Public Speaking assists the Corporate Sector improve its communication skills. Utilising the trusted research of US Educational Psychologist Albert Mehrabian we use cutting edge business scenarios to develop speakers capable of performing on the international stage. For all your speaking needs in terms of Presentation Skills and Executive Speech Coaching, visit us at => http://www.collegeofpublicspeaking.co.uk
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Types of Job Interview Questions
Aug 12th
Types of Job Interview Questions
The list of possible interview questions can be quite large and overwhelming. Fortunately, there are only really five different types of interview questions. This structure helps put these questions into a manageable framework. The five different types of interview questions:
1. Resume-Related Questions (You Questions)
2. Qualifications for Job Questions
3. Behavioral Questions
4. Case Interview Questions
5. Personality Questions
Resume- Related Questions (You Questions)
This group of questions can be described as “You” questions because they tend to center around what “you” have done. Sample Interview questions could include:
• Tell me about yourself?
• What did you major in at college?
• What did you do in this position?
The main focus of these questions is to try to find out whether your resume information is accurate and whether you have exaggerated or been modest about your credentials. This is most often done by asking questions based on the information shown in your resume.
Job Qualification Questions
These questions will be generated mainly from the job description and may overlap somewhat with Resume-Related questions. They are designed to see if you have the experience or qualifications for the position at a general level. They will ask you sample interview questions like:
• Have you ever managed a team before?
• Do you have any experience with conflict resolution?
• Have you ever given a presentation to external customers?
Behavioral Questions
These questions try to specifically determine whether you have the appropriate level of experience or qualifications for the position. They tend to go deeper than Job Qualification Questions by having you provide answers based on your prior work experience. These questions provide you with a basic problem scenario and expect you to be able to answer it based on a prior work experience example. Sample Interview questions could include:
• Tell me about a time you used your conflict resolution skills?
• Tell me about a project where you implemented a process improvement idea?
• Give me an example of a time you failed to complete a project on time and how you went about correcting the issue?
These questions can take on the form of a positive or a negative and so it is a good idea to have thought out ahead of time examples that you will want to use. It is also a good idea to try to identify before hand what are likely to be the skills they will base their behavioral questions on. For example, a salesman might expect to get behavioral questions based presentation skills. One such question could be give me a time when you gave a successful presentation to a client or for customer service skills, tell me about a time when you used your customer service skills to help keep an upset customer with the company.
Case Interview Questions
These types of questions tend to be tailored toward client focused positions like consulting and sales. They essentially involve providing you with a list of facts surrounding a company problem and ask you how to address the issue. Depending on the position, this may include doing things like performing mathematical computations or creating presentation aids. Regardless of the position, you can expect to have to present your findings and answer follow-up questions.
The purpose of these types of interview questions is to see how you think, whether you can perform under a stressful situation and, determine whether your personality is a good fit for the team. These interview questions usually are conducted on a one on one basis; however, you can also answer these questions as part of a group as a way for some companies to judge your interpersonal skills.
Personality Questions
These types of questions usually take on two forms. One form is a formal standard test that asks you a lot of questions about what types of things you prefer or would choose to do based on a list of options. The second form of personality questions are the informal type that can occur anywhere in the interview process and are geared towards determining if you are a good personality fit for the position. Sample interview questions could include:
• What was the score of the Cowboys game last night?
• What did you think of the last episode of American Idol?
The purpose of these questions is to see if you are well rounded enough to be able to talk to a prospective client about a general topic like American Football or a popular television show.
By getting a basic familiarity of these types of sample interview questions, you will help reduce your overall learning curve. Although interview questions tend to get most of the attention in other interviewing guides and books, you should instead divide your focus between all aspects of the interview process. By having a more comprehensive outlook on the interview process, you will tend to have better results by appearing more well-rounded and professional to your interviewers throughout the entire interview process.