Poking vs Nudging Questions

During interviews, one of the most difficult things to do is decern if a question is a genuine interest in your thought process or questioning your fundamental logic.

While the following is not without exceptions, it is a decent rule of thumb. (Special thanks to Rachana Mansinghka for the framework. I was stressing before an interview - yes your coach gets as much (maybe more) stage fright when interviewing for a role she desperately wants).

Before I share the framework, I want to remind you; most interviewers want to help you with their questions. But when you are stressed and have heightened fears, you are basically in a fight-or-flight state and see every question as a threat.

Often, when you are going off the rails, the interviewer will reframe the question and ask for it differently. If you don’t understand what they are doing, or they ask you in a different way that is even more confusing for you, it can feel like they are being evil; they are not. They are well-meaning.

The one exception is when you come across as arrogant or condescending and they want to put you in your place. Some people are overconfident and if they make a mistake, the interviewer will poke.

With that said, let’s look at Probing versus Nudging questions.

Probing or Challenging Questions:

• Motivation: Interviewer wants to understand your thought process.

  • Sample Questions:

    • Why do you think that is?

    • Why not X?

Nudging or Corrective Questions:

• Motivation: Looking for a new idea(s)

  • Sample Questions:

    • What are other examples of …

    • What else could we consider…

Remember, these are not perfect; just general rules of thumb. For example, maybe you tried to move quickly because of time constraints and you only gave 3 options, and they wanted 5. There may be nothing fundamentally wrong with your ideas, they may just want you to go deeper to see how you think.