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January 15, 2025 11 mins

Today, let’s talk how to answer negative job interview questions.

These are brutal. Tricky. And, to boot, give you loads of opportunity to mess us.

They are literally a complete waste of breath and give the interviewer absolutely zero data on whether you’ll be a star employee.

But, for some unknown reason, instead of asking you bright and effective questions that elicit information to actually help them determine whether you’ll be a winner, they ask you…

  • If we hire you, what would be the reason we fire you?
  • Why should we not hire you?
  • Why wouldn’t you take this job?
  • Etc. etc. etc. until your eyeballs roll so high they get stuck in the back of your head.

You get the idea.

Good news is your beloved coach will give you a bulletproof formula for all of these dumb and useless questions.

Take a listen!

If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:

1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums.

2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel.

3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page.

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5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here!

--Andy

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today we're going to talk about job interviewing questions and I I mention this to you a lot I
always look at the chat from our live shows and what I noticed the last week or two uh we did a
couple live shows last week and I noticed there was like this these little clusters throughout
the chat of tricky interview questions that you were getting an asked like um if we hired you

(00:24):
why would we fire you or why would you not want to work here things of that nature these NE negative
questions that often make your stomach you know kind of kind of turn into knots maybe you get
a pit in the stomach but don't you worry I have a bulletproof formula that will work for all of
these we're going to run through a handful of them and I want to just talk with you about what to do

(00:47):
whenever you encounter one of these so the first the first thing is there are different kinds of
these tricky questions and you know when I when I was looking for for how I wanted to articulate
the formula for for you I have thought about these tricky questions in the past and I think
the hardest ones to answer are the ones that are negative in nature so I I I've come up with

(01:14):
a few well a few years back I came up with a formula that I think works every single time
whenever you encounter these and I want to explain what that is and I want you I want you to think
automatically every time I get asked a negative question question this is this is the formula I
need to follow and let's talk about some of the different types of negative questions so I think

(01:37):
one of them is a negative question about you but they're involved and so what do I what do I mean
by that well it's something that's negative about you in relation to the employer you're
interviewing with so you and they are part of the question and so what do I what do I mean uh what

(02:00):
do I want you to do there first anytime you get a negative question where you and they are involved
this is what I want you to do I want you to answer with an omission and I will explain this with some
examples so you know exactly what I mean it's the absence of something there's something missing or
it's not present and if the thing I want you to do automatically whenever you get a negative question

(02:26):
is I want you to make it positive about you and a negative about them so that Omission is a negative
about them so what does that look like uh with a with with a couple of these questions so here's a
here's a question and I grabbed these from the chat over last week I think we did a couple of
live shows where I saw these in the chat so here's an example of what I mean why would you not take

(02:52):
this job so this is a negative question why would you not take it so an OM Miss is I don't want I'm
not I would not take this if something is missing about you remember you want to make it a positive
about yourself and a negative about them so what might an answer like this look like why would I

(03:15):
not take the job I would not take the job if I discover in the interviewing process that you
are not customer service focused so the positive about you is I'm customer service focused if I
find out you are not meaning it's a negative about you an Omission about you something is missing and

(03:36):
because something is missing I'm not going to take this job you follow me so far so good does that
make sense right it's a positive about you you answered a negative question in a manner that's
positive about you and negative about them now you're not calling them negative you were saying
conditionally I would not take this job if I discover this it's not saying I'm calling you that

(04:00):
make sense okay so that's that's one example let's do a couple more because I think it I
think the examples really help illustrate this why should we not hire you I mean I
think these questions are absolutely ridiculous but I know you're going to get asked them and
all I care about isn't the ridiculous nature of these questions I care about your health

(04:23):
well-being and safety in your career okay so why should we not hiring you so following my formula
of the Omission something missing positive about you and negative about them you should not hire
me if there are not career opportunities for me to develop because I'm all about development because

(04:46):
I'm all about skill building I allow my coach's new book The Z code right so what is it positive
about you and Omission about them meaning they do not have the the career development opportunities
so you should not hire me because I would not be happy if that was absent automatic right they tap

(05:10):
you on the knee the foot goes up this is exactly how I want you to think about every single one
of these here's another one this one I saw in the chat too I mean this is this this is so funny if
we hire you and you come to work here why would we fire you okay a positive about you a negative

(05:34):
about them if you hired me and I took this job you will not fire me because of performance reasons
but it would probably be something along the lines of if I discovered that somebody in the company
or on the team did something illegal unethical or anything of that nature I would probably bring it

(05:55):
to HR or to whatever the authorities are and you would probably let me go because I'm that honest
you follow me why would we fire you you'd fire me because I'm ethical and if I discover that you're
not this would be the reason do you follow me so any time there's any any of these questions would

(06:18):
go along those lines in this formula all right so you're answering it in the Omission it's not
present something's missing it's positive about you and negative about them that's
if they're involved okay let's let's go through a couple of other ones there's another scenario what
happens if you get a negative question but it's only about you and they're not involved this is

(06:46):
a great opportunity for you to score some points okay so what do I mean you want to think about oh
I think that's right hang on you want to answer in an Omission but they can fix it or they can
fill it so they're asking you a negative question but it only includes you you or your your job your

(07:11):
current job or past job or current job or past company or current company they're asking about
you not them so has nothing to do with them and they're saying what I want you to do is
I want you to think about if it's about you only you want them to be your savior so what is that
what does that look like what did you not like about your most recent job what do you not like

(07:36):
about your current job what do you not like about your current company right this has nothing to
do with the the new employer it has everything to do with the old employer so what you want here is
again an Omission something that was missing that they can now fix so in my in my most recent role

(07:57):
I didn't have as much customer customer contact as I would have liked I would have rather worked
more directly with customers one of the reasons I'm so excited to work with you is because your
role that I'm interviewing for has a high degree of client contact high degree of customer contact
you can fix it for me or I didn't I didn't like the fact that I only got to work in the central

(08:22):
region your opportunity gives me a chance to expand my geographical territory work for
the the nation half the all the country globally whatever it is but you want to make absolutely
certain it's something they can fix because you want to grab all the points you possibly
can okay so what didn't you like about your your most recent job or or company here's another one

(08:49):
just another example we'll kind of round out the talk with this what will you miss the most
whenever it's something like this where you're you're missing something it's singular in nature
you want to answer with a one-of-a-kind response but also turn to them and and also make it so that

(09:09):
they're going to fix it or at a minimum give you an opportunity to improve grow or whatever
so as an example what will you miss the most you want to say something that is absolutely there's
no way no how that they would be missing it as well what's the best answer here I'll miss the
people I'll miss the people I get to work with I'll miss my teammates I'll miss my customers

(09:32):
I'll miss my partners I'll miss something that is irreplaceable so there's nothing that they
need to worry about and then what you want to say is but while I'll miss the people again can
they can they do something to help you with that but I'm really excited about meeting a lot of the
folks here because it looks like you have a lot of great people with a lot of great backgrounds

(09:54):
and I was able to tell that by the videos of the employees I watched on your website or the video
I saw where something about your culture anything that you then can turn to and say positively about
them so they asked you about something negative that you were going to or in this case really
something more neutral but that you were going to miss but you never want to say anything that

(10:16):
that they cannot satiate as well makes sense so when you are looking at all of these different
options the the really the def the default line of think is anytime you get asked a negative question
whether it's you and them or whether it's only you you want to answer with an Omission you want

(10:38):
to make it positive about yourself if it's if it's something that they're involved with you
want to make it a negative about them or if it's something that they're not involved with you want
to make it something that they can fix this works for everything every every negative question that
you get asked should be answered in an Omission what's another great one what's your greatest week

(10:59):
nness my greatest weakness is I haven't developed the skills to what something you have not yet
done so it's an absence it's an Omission it's not there and so this applies to anything along these
lines okay so I really I think these tricky negative interview questions can all be asked

(11:21):
this way now if you're here with me live we're wrapping it here we're going to go to the Q&A
and I'll take some of your tricky interview questions as well if you're watching this on
the recording I hope you enjoyed it I'll see you next week if you did enjoy it make sure to
click the like button make sure you subscribe to the station lots of luck in your search
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