We have recruited for many different roles and this question tends to pop-up and trip-up a lot of candidates. Read about our super easy and effective strategy on how to ace this question.

Provide an example that is unrelated to the position – in other words, if the job requires that you know how to create pivot tables in Excel, do not give an example of your Excel skills.

Sample Job: Marketing Coordinator

We provided some examples what would be acceptable for the Marketing Coordinator job. All of the responses below are unrelated to the position requirements. That’s the fun part about this question, you cannot give a wrong answer!

Examples that you can use

“My Italian is rusty, so I am trying to improve my language by … ” (why would you need to know Italian? That’s the point!)

“I am not familiar with HTML coding, but would like to learn how to build a website” (What is HTML…?)

“I have not built databases in Microsoft Access (most people are not proficient in Access), but understand how databases are used. I am looking into a course or book on Access”

As you can see, we listed an example (that is not related to the job requirements) and stated how you wanted to improve on that skill (even if you may decide not to in the future. After all, plans change).

Concluding thoughts

Try this out and you will feel more comfortable in the interview. By not giving the interviewer a reason that he or she dislikes, your chances of getting to the next stage are greatly improved.

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