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How to Tackle Three of the Toughest Interview Questions

53 points by yogrish 14y ago

philwelch 14y ago
I'm so glad to work in a field with technical interviews. I can't imagine having to deal with coming up with a clever new spin on "tell me about your work history" or "what's your greatest weakness" to stand out from the crowd--though I've resolved never to take the latter question seriously.
- Nursie 14y ago
  I find honesty has worked on that latter one in the past - "I don't always ask colleagues for help if I'm stuck" Which is true, I have a tendency to (occasionally) get bogged down and spend a day or two on solving a technical problem myself that may well be resolved with five minutes of chat around the coffee machine. I've never not been offered a job after an interview with that line in it, though I think it's only come up twice.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    That's a thing, it's technically true in itself, and it's bad enough to sound plausible. I think you are a smart person and it's a good self-preserving tactic. We all have to eat. But this answer is unlikely to be the worst thing about you. You probably do have character flaws which affect your work. It's just that digging into them won't do anything except give the advantage to someone else who kept his mouth shut. I submit that what this question really does is test fit to a certain corporate culture. There's a tacit understanding that you are supposed to come up with some token flaw to use. People oblivious of this will either overshare or obviously deflect the question, and people who are stubbornly honest will also not give the expected answer. This kind of obliviousness or stubborn honesty can be a political liability. E.g.: if you are asked about your boss's or team's or company's worst weakness, you should also offer some bullshit token flaw which isn't really meaningful, because this determines their futures too. If a culture isn't specifically built to put honesty ahead of politics, politics will quickly take the lead and honesty will be a casualty.
    - philwelch 14y ago
      And this is why these bullshit questions give me a headache and I'd rather talk about suffix trees or something.
- lrobb 14y ago
  Those are actually good questions. The work history serves as a nice interview warmup and is a good gauge of a candidate's ability to communicate. A bad answer is to mumble out what's on paper in front of you. A good answer will reframe the question in terms of what the job ad described. The weakness question tells me how introspective you are. Someone aiming at self mastery that has a big picture view is going to give a vastly different answer than someone fresh out of school that's read an advice column and thinks they're a rock star.
  - rdl 14y ago
    Work history is essential. After an initial screening (minimal technical competence, etc.), and a review of work samples already prepared, I think a walkthrough of "what have you done, and why", starting as early as possible, makes sense. It's not just passive "I worked at X, Y, Z", but trying to actually understand the candidate and his motivations. It's interesting to explore what someone didn't do as much as what they did do. The point of being comprehensive is that it's much more difficult to come up with a bonus story with that level of detail while keeping it consistent, and the most interesting stuff is not the overt things ("I worked on guidance systems") but all the details and motivations. This could easily take 2-3h even for a 30 year old. Doing it without 1) being a dick 2) psychologically taxing 3) being confrontational is the hard part. I'd personally rather have a 2-3h interview/talk with a manager or founder, and a half-day of technical stuff, than sit through 8 interviews with people I won't be working with doing a combination of technical and non-technical. Then, work-product sample, as close to the actual work as possible.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    If you want to gauge ability to communicate then you should probably find some way to get relevant work samples, like explaining the kind of thing which will have to explained in the job (e.g.: docs or brief presentation on something), rather than relying on the totally unreliable assumption that asking someone bad things about themselves in a high-pressure situation is a close analogue to what they will be doing on a daily basis. This is like the ancient Chinese exams which assessed applicants' suitability by their knowledge of classical poetry. Of course people who are very well prepared or smart will do better in aggregate and with certain biases, but this doesn't mean you are measuring what you claim to measure.
hypnotist 14y ago
The main point I would take from that kind of advices is that all answers, no matter how fancy, should sound like you, and not like you're just reciting some self-help book on passing the job interviews.
skylan_q 14y ago
"Why this works: This question is a minefield that traps most candidates. If you answer too honestly—"I'm irritable in the morning and bad at time management"—you're an instant no-hire." I love this question. To me, the above reads as "we don't value honesty as much as you do"
gavinjoyce 14y ago
These are poor interview questions which reflect badly on the company. Interviews are a two way process.
JackWebbHeller 14y ago
"Tell me about one of your weaknesses..." At this point, hand the interviewer a card you had pre-prepared, which reads "My over-preparation sometimes comes across as arrogance".
- rdl 14y ago
  I find "tell me about one of your weaknesses" a lot less offensive than "What is your greatest weakness".
- johnbellone 14y ago
  I hate this question. I've only heard it from management types, and it irks me because any answer that someone gives is always bullshit. I think its the question that they gauge to see if you can play the political/communication game that big corporations want. Then again the last time I heard that question I didn't get offered a job. So maybe there's something to hearing it.
  - GBKS 14y ago
    I actually like the question. I answer it honestly, and I always like to get honest answers to it when I interview people. After all, if you lie about your weaknesses, you might also lie about your strengths, and the interviewer might trust you less.
    - ryanmolden 14y ago
      Worse than lying, a huge number of people aren't even aware of their weaknesses, which is probably a big red flag. People shouldn't think they are self-reflective if the only reflection they do is to bask in their own awesomeness.
      - slurgfest 14y ago
        Being asked to rule yourself out of a job that you are interviewing for (or else deflect the question with some bullshit humblebrag) is far from an ideal gauge of self-awareness.
redguava 14y ago
Following guides on how to answer interview questions does more harm than good. Just be honest and be yourself.
- rdl 14y ago
  It's totally worthwhile to learn about interviews, successful and unsuccessful, both as an interviewer and interviewee. "Just be honest and be yourself" is necessary but insufficient. You really should understand how interviewers think and work to be interviewed successfully.
  - redguava 14y ago
    My experience has been that I interview worse for having "researched" interviewing. It gets me trying to answer what they want to hear rather than what I actually would normally say. That is a bad way to interview. Also as an interviewer, the people trying to answer "the right way" never get past first round. I want someone that's genuine, not someone just trying to pick the right answers to get the job.
- yock 14y ago
  I don't see how that's helpful. English can be an imprecise language and there is a lot of unspoken convention in interviewing for a job. Many have had to learn that convention by just plain interviewing badly enough times for it to click. Understanding these conventions and how to recognize and respond to them can really be helpful in landing the job you want.
- eddieroger 14y ago
  My exact thought as I read the article. It has worked for me many times. These questions are there for people who don't know how to be an interviewer - or worse, when the interviewer is a cog in an HR wheel and has to pass the answers back to someone who has never met you. A good interviewer (it is definitely something you can be bad at) can tell more about you from conversation than questions like these. The best interviews are with the team you are interviewing to be part of, and are highly conversational. Skills can be taught, and bullshit can be seen through. Speaking of technical interviews, it's easy to tell if you are regurgitating a textbook or actually demonstration comprehension. But the most important thing to come from these interviews is whether or not you will work well with the team, and questions like "what is your biggest weakness" doesn't say anything about that.
narag 14y ago
Nobody asked me the two later questions. The one about problems with coworkers would have been a lot of fun. I have plenty of juicy anecdotes. I have an objection to The hiring manager doesn't need you to walk him through your resume chronologically—he can read what's on the page, after all. Most interviewers I've met actually have not read the cv further than the absolute minimum to match keywords, and are not interested in reading the printed cv, that appears to be a write-only piece of paper... they take notes on it. The interviewers who did read the CV beforehand are also the ones that direct the conversation themselves and always ask in chronological order anyway. It seems that they do that because they're seeking to make up a narrative, a logical evolution of the career, so Ramit's advice stands after all.
- jakejake 14y ago
  I do agree with you that interviewers haven't always read your resume - especially when they are a developer who just got called away from their desk to "meet you" to see if they would like to spend their days sitting next to you I think perhaps the author is suggesting that you don't just regurgitate exactly what is written on your résumé, but rather embellish and highlight the relevant experience from each job that makes you a great candidate. I think it would be ok to go a little more chronological and not so much of a sales pitch like the author wrote.
- mgkimsal 14y ago
  "I have an objection to The hiring manager doesn't need you to walk him through your resume chronologically—he can read what's on the page, after all. Most interviewers I've met actually have not read the cv further than the absolute minimum to match keywords, and are not interested in reading the printed cv, that appears to be a write-only piece of paper... they take notes on it." --------- I think in at least some cases it serves two purposes: 1. Does your recollection actually match up with what they have in front of them? Going through agencies you'll have your resume altered without your knowledge. 2. Can you present written information in a compelling (or at least accurate) way verbally?
  - narag 14y ago
Tycho 14y ago
The holy grail of interview answers is how you can politely tell the interviewer to fuck off when they ask you about your weaknesses.
btilly 14y ago
I would answer all three of these very, very differently. I would spin my work history to fit whatever (true) narrative I am telling about my life at the moment. Currently that narrative is how much my family responsibilities impact my ability to work. I see the greatest weakness question as a negotiating opportunity for me to present whatever I most want to be accommodated on. Currently that would be my family responsibilities, though normally it is how important it is for my ability to focus and be sane that I have some social time. The conflict question I would immediately respond to with the time that I wound up being the person that both a very competent lead developer and some grumpy sysadmins would talk to. In the end, even though what they were doing was not what I was supposed to be doing, I was appointed by my manager to be the official go between between them. Not exactly fun, and not something I want to repeat, but the story reflects well on me.
ruggeri 14y ago
Why do people hate the greatest weakness question? I have never minded receiving it, and I often ask people the same. Most of us write code; it's a technical occupation, and none of us are great at everything. Are you super amazing and proficient with 100% of the technologies you'll ever need to interact with? Can you not talk competently about how you have been trying to get better at something? Are you not capable of admitting a weakness without crippling insecurity? Since you know this will be asked, are you so disorganized that you can't think in advance to come up with an honest answer? The only way to answer "too honestly" is to admit incompetence with the basic skills I'm hiring for, or reveal massive personality problems. You score an "A" if you talk about how you're trying to improve. More commonly, applicants reveal themselves as someone willing to lie to my face with a bullshit answer. I've never hired someone like that and never will. Edit: Also would never hire someone who was offended by this question. I think another commenter's suggestion that the applicant ask what the worst thing about working at a company is fair, and vital information. Of course, when I've asked this as an applicant I never received anything but bullshit in response.
- goodanswer 14y ago
  I agree. I've gotten this often and it's never been a problem. Why? Because I always point out something that's both true and not an issue. Just stay focused on your strengths. For example, most of my career involves unix systems internals, databases and networking. Stuff generally involving valuable state. I've done hardly any professional graphics or gui work. So when I get this question, I generally just point that out. Ephemeral stuff like video games isn't my line of work, and I'm not very experienced at UI stuff. Nobody who's ever care enough to interview me has been unhappy with that answer.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    You say something that's not an issue, therefore it is not really the worst thing about you. (Unless there is nothing bad about you. Lucky you.)
- slurgfest 14y ago
  It's a pressure question, a kind of interrogation. If you are honest, you will realize that you have a ton of things wrong with you and it isn't all that meaningful to pick the "worst" one. People have been asking this for so long that it really only gauges whether the applicant canned an answer to it which sounds bad enough that you won't think it's bullshit, but good enough that they aren't hurting their application. As with other interrogation techniques you often aren't selecting against lying, but just for plausible lying that you are unequipped to detect. It is certainly an illusion that you are selecting for honesty this way. If you do want to hire honest people, and it isn't for an area like sales where it is important for them to project unrealistic levels of self-confidence, you will cause less needless anxiety and get more actionable information if you can get specific on what sort of disclosure you need, rather than just asking the applicant to incriminate themselves in the worst way they can imagine. If you want to punish people with ability and integrity but lower self-esteem then this question is your ideal instrument.
RyanZAG 14y ago
Best way to answer these questions is to not let them come up at all. Focus the interview on what you can offer the company by proactively asking them what roles they need you for, where you will fit in the company, what challenges they currently have, etc. Spend the interview talking about how you're going to help out the company and not on answering the checklist they quickly downloaded off the web as they have no idea what to even talk to you about.
- redguava 14y ago
  That would never work for a competent interviewer. Sure if they just downloaded a checklist off the web, but is that really the kind of place you want a job at?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
killitwithfire 14y ago
PSA: Anybody who asks you about your greatest weakness is not really interested in finding a good fit for the job. They are interested in telling people about their flawless interview 'system'. Expect this to reflect the rest of their corporate culture.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
markhelo 14y ago
I find that usually asking people to tell a little bit about themselves reveals a lot already what you would get from these questions. Knowing that the candidate is prepared to handle such questions is a strong signal in itself. I generally prefer candidates who have thought about what they want to say to such questions.

53 points by yogrish 14y ago

I'm so glad to work in a field with technical interviews. I can't imagine having to deal with coming up with a clever new spin on "tell me about your work history" or "what's your greatest weakness" to stand out from the crowd--though I've resolved never to take the latter question seriously.

Nursie 14y ago
I find honesty has worked on that latter one in the past - "I don't always ask colleagues for help if I'm stuck" Which is true, I have a tendency to (occasionally) get bogged down and spend a day or two on solving a technical problem myself that may well be resolved with five minutes of chat around the coffee machine. I've never not been offered a job after an interview with that line in it, though I think it's only come up twice.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  That's a thing, it's technically true in itself, and it's bad enough to sound plausible. I think you are a smart person and it's a good self-preserving tactic. We all have to eat. But this answer is unlikely to be the worst thing about you. You probably do have character flaws which affect your work. It's just that digging into them won't do anything except give the advantage to someone else who kept his mouth shut. I submit that what this question really does is test fit to a certain corporate culture. There's a tacit understanding that you are supposed to come up with some token flaw to use. People oblivious of this will either overshare or obviously deflect the question, and people who are stubbornly honest will also not give the expected answer. This kind of obliviousness or stubborn honesty can be a political liability. E.g.: if you are asked about your boss's or team's or company's worst weakness, you should also offer some bullshit token flaw which isn't really meaningful, because this determines their futures too. If a culture isn't specifically built to put honesty ahead of politics, politics will quickly take the lead and honesty will be a casualty.
  - philwelch 14y ago
    And this is why these bullshit questions give me a headache and I'd rather talk about suffix trees or something.
lrobb 14y ago
Those are actually good questions. The work history serves as a nice interview warmup and is a good gauge of a candidate's ability to communicate. A bad answer is to mumble out what's on paper in front of you. A good answer will reframe the question in terms of what the job ad described. The weakness question tells me how introspective you are. Someone aiming at self mastery that has a big picture view is going to give a vastly different answer than someone fresh out of school that's read an advice column and thinks they're a rock star.
- rdl 14y ago
  Work history is essential. After an initial screening (minimal technical competence, etc.), and a review of work samples already prepared, I think a walkthrough of "what have you done, and why", starting as early as possible, makes sense. It's not just passive "I worked at X, Y, Z", but trying to actually understand the candidate and his motivations. It's interesting to explore what someone didn't do as much as what they did do. The point of being comprehensive is that it's much more difficult to come up with a bonus story with that level of detail while keeping it consistent, and the most interesting stuff is not the overt things ("I worked on guidance systems") but all the details and motivations. This could easily take 2-3h even for a 30 year old. Doing it without 1) being a dick 2) psychologically taxing 3) being confrontational is the hard part. I'd personally rather have a 2-3h interview/talk with a manager or founder, and a half-day of technical stuff, than sit through 8 interviews with people I won't be working with doing a combination of technical and non-technical. Then, work-product sample, as close to the actual work as possible.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  If you want to gauge ability to communicate then you should probably find some way to get relevant work samples, like explaining the kind of thing which will have to explained in the job (e.g.: docs or brief presentation on something), rather than relying on the totally unreliable assumption that asking someone bad things about themselves in a high-pressure situation is a close analogue to what they will be doing on a daily basis. This is like the ancient Chinese exams which assessed applicants' suitability by their knowledge of classical poetry. Of course people who are very well prepared or smart will do better in aggregate and with certain biases, but this doesn't mean you are measuring what you claim to measure.

hypnotist 14y ago

The main point I would take from that kind of advices is that all answers, no matter how fancy, should sound like you, and not like you're just reciting some self-help book on passing the job interviews.

skylan_q 14y ago

"Why this works: This question is a minefield that traps most candidates. If you answer too honestly—"I'm irritable in the morning and bad at time management"—you're an instant no-hire." I love this question. To me, the above reads as "we don't value honesty as much as you do"

gavinjoyce 14y ago

These are poor interview questions which reflect badly on the company. Interviews are a two way process.

JackWebbHeller 14y ago

"Tell me about one of your weaknesses..." At this point, hand the interviewer a card you had pre-prepared, which reads "My over-preparation sometimes comes across as arrogance".

rdl 14y ago
I find "tell me about one of your weaknesses" a lot less offensive than "What is your greatest weakness".
johnbellone 14y ago
I hate this question. I've only heard it from management types, and it irks me because any answer that someone gives is always bullshit. I think its the question that they gauge to see if you can play the political/communication game that big corporations want. Then again the last time I heard that question I didn't get offered a job. So maybe there's something to hearing it.
- GBKS 14y ago
  I actually like the question. I answer it honestly, and I always like to get honest answers to it when I interview people. After all, if you lie about your weaknesses, you might also lie about your strengths, and the interviewer might trust you less.
  - ryanmolden 14y ago
    Worse than lying, a huge number of people aren't even aware of their weaknesses, which is probably a big red flag. People shouldn't think they are self-reflective if the only reflection they do is to bask in their own awesomeness.
    - slurgfest 14y ago
      Being asked to rule yourself out of a job that you are interviewing for (or else deflect the question with some bullshit humblebrag) is far from an ideal gauge of self-awareness.

redguava 14y ago

Following guides on how to answer interview questions does more harm than good. Just be honest and be yourself.

rdl 14y ago
It's totally worthwhile to learn about interviews, successful and unsuccessful, both as an interviewer and interviewee. "Just be honest and be yourself" is necessary but insufficient. You really should understand how interviewers think and work to be interviewed successfully.
- redguava 14y ago
  My experience has been that I interview worse for having "researched" interviewing. It gets me trying to answer what they want to hear rather than what I actually would normally say. That is a bad way to interview. Also as an interviewer, the people trying to answer "the right way" never get past first round. I want someone that's genuine, not someone just trying to pick the right answers to get the job.
yock 14y ago
I don't see how that's helpful. English can be an imprecise language and there is a lot of unspoken convention in interviewing for a job. Many have had to learn that convention by just plain interviewing badly enough times for it to click. Understanding these conventions and how to recognize and respond to them can really be helpful in landing the job you want.
eddieroger 14y ago
My exact thought as I read the article. It has worked for me many times. These questions are there for people who don't know how to be an interviewer - or worse, when the interviewer is a cog in an HR wheel and has to pass the answers back to someone who has never met you. A good interviewer (it is definitely something you can be bad at) can tell more about you from conversation than questions like these. The best interviews are with the team you are interviewing to be part of, and are highly conversational. Skills can be taught, and bullshit can be seen through. Speaking of technical interviews, it's easy to tell if you are regurgitating a textbook or actually demonstration comprehension. But the most important thing to come from these interviews is whether or not you will work well with the team, and questions like "what is your biggest weakness" doesn't say anything about that.

narag 14y ago

Nobody asked me the two later questions. The one about problems with coworkers would have been a lot of fun. I have plenty of juicy anecdotes. I have an objection to The hiring manager doesn't need you to walk him through your resume chronologically—he can read what's on the page, after all. Most interviewers I've met actually have not read the cv further than the absolute minimum to match keywords, and are not interested in reading the printed cv, that appears to be a write-only piece of paper... they take notes on it. The interviewers who did read the CV beforehand are also the ones that direct the conversation themselves and always ask in chronological order anyway. It seems that they do that because they're seeking to make up a narrative, a logical evolution of the career, so Ramit's advice stands after all.

jakejake 14y ago
I do agree with you that interviewers haven't always read your resume - especially when they are a developer who just got called away from their desk to "meet you" to see if they would like to spend their days sitting next to you I think perhaps the author is suggesting that you don't just regurgitate exactly what is written on your résumé, but rather embellish and highlight the relevant experience from each job that makes you a great candidate. I think it would be ok to go a little more chronological and not so much of a sales pitch like the author wrote.
mgkimsal 14y ago
"I have an objection to The hiring manager doesn't need you to walk him through your resume chronologically—he can read what's on the page, after all. Most interviewers I've met actually have not read the cv further than the absolute minimum to match keywords, and are not interested in reading the printed cv, that appears to be a write-only piece of paper... they take notes on it." --------- I think in at least some cases it serves two purposes: 1. Does your recollection actually match up with what they have in front of them? Going through agencies you'll have your resume altered without your knowledge. 2. Can you present written information in a compelling (or at least accurate) way verbally?
- narag 14y ago

Tycho 14y ago

The holy grail of interview answers is how you can politely tell the interviewer to fuck off when they ask you about your weaknesses.

btilly 14y ago

I would answer all three of these very, very differently. I would spin my work history to fit whatever (true) narrative I am telling about my life at the moment. Currently that narrative is how much my family responsibilities impact my ability to work. I see the greatest weakness question as a negotiating opportunity for me to present whatever I most want to be accommodated on. Currently that would be my family responsibilities, though normally it is how important it is for my ability to focus and be sane that I have some social time. The conflict question I would immediately respond to with the time that I wound up being the person that both a very competent lead developer and some grumpy sysadmins would talk to. In the end, even though what they were doing was not what I was supposed to be doing, I was appointed by my manager to be the official go between between them. Not exactly fun, and not something I want to repeat, but the story reflects well on me.

ruggeri 14y ago

Why do people hate the greatest weakness question? I have never minded receiving it, and I often ask people the same. Most of us write code; it's a technical occupation, and none of us are great at everything. Are you super amazing and proficient with 100% of the technologies you'll ever need to interact with? Can you not talk competently about how you have been trying to get better at something? Are you not capable of admitting a weakness without crippling insecurity? Since you know this will be asked, are you so disorganized that you can't think in advance to come up with an honest answer? The only way to answer "too honestly" is to admit incompetence with the basic skills I'm hiring for, or reveal massive personality problems. You score an "A" if you talk about how you're trying to improve. More commonly, applicants reveal themselves as someone willing to lie to my face with a bullshit answer. I've never hired someone like that and never will. Edit: Also would never hire someone who was offended by this question. I think another commenter's suggestion that the applicant ask what the worst thing about working at a company is fair, and vital information. Of course, when I've asked this as an applicant I never received anything but bullshit in response.

goodanswer 14y ago
I agree. I've gotten this often and it's never been a problem. Why? Because I always point out something that's both true and not an issue. Just stay focused on your strengths. For example, most of my career involves unix systems internals, databases and networking. Stuff generally involving valuable state. I've done hardly any professional graphics or gui work. So when I get this question, I generally just point that out. Ephemeral stuff like video games isn't my line of work, and I'm not very experienced at UI stuff. Nobody who's ever care enough to interview me has been unhappy with that answer.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  You say something that's not an issue, therefore it is not really the worst thing about you. (Unless there is nothing bad about you. Lucky you.)
slurgfest 14y ago
It's a pressure question, a kind of interrogation. If you are honest, you will realize that you have a ton of things wrong with you and it isn't all that meaningful to pick the "worst" one. People have been asking this for so long that it really only gauges whether the applicant canned an answer to it which sounds bad enough that you won't think it's bullshit, but good enough that they aren't hurting their application. As with other interrogation techniques you often aren't selecting against lying, but just for plausible lying that you are unequipped to detect. It is certainly an illusion that you are selecting for honesty this way. If you do want to hire honest people, and it isn't for an area like sales where it is important for them to project unrealistic levels of self-confidence, you will cause less needless anxiety and get more actionable information if you can get specific on what sort of disclosure you need, rather than just asking the applicant to incriminate themselves in the worst way they can imagine. If you want to punish people with ability and integrity but lower self-esteem then this question is your ideal instrument.

RyanZAG 14y ago

Best way to answer these questions is to not let them come up at all. Focus the interview on what you can offer the company by proactively asking them what roles they need you for, where you will fit in the company, what challenges they currently have, etc. Spend the interview talking about how you're going to help out the company and not on answering the checklist they quickly downloaded off the web as they have no idea what to even talk to you about.

redguava 14y ago
That would never work for a competent interviewer. Sure if they just downloaded a checklist off the web, but is that really the kind of place you want a job at?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

killitwithfire 14y ago

PSA: Anybody who asks you about your greatest weakness is not really interested in finding a good fit for the job. They are interested in telling people about their flawless interview 'system'. Expect this to reflect the rest of their corporate culture.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

markhelo 14y ago

I find that usually asking people to tell a little bit about themselves reveals a lot already what you would get from these questions. Knowing that the candidate is prepared to handle such questions is a strong signal in itself. I generally prefer candidates who have thought about what they want to say to such questions.