We all know the ABCs of successful interviewing: arrive 5-10 minutes early, be able to answer the question: Tell me about yourself, etc.

But, how do you respond when you REALLY don’t have the specific experience they are asking?

You can fib but that’s not a good idea: you almost always get caught and usually at the worst possible time.

A better approach would be to respond honestly: you don’t have that experience but “let me tell you about a time when I had to quickly acquire an experience to get the job done”. You should then give one or two specific examples of situations that required you to learn something to complete an assignment.

A client of mine was recently interviewing for a quality assurance position at one of his target employers. When asked to describe his experience with a specific system they used, he responded honestly. He simply did not have that experience but was then able to describe 2 situations when he had to complete a task without having al of the experience and knowledge he needed. It worked…

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