Job Interviews: Answering questions – How long should it take?

A job interview could be one of the most important and profitable conversations that you ever have. Spending time preparing for your interview can also be the best investment you can make in your career.

This post provides guidance on how long you should spend answering each interview question.

Interview questions are designed to find out more about your job skills and experience and, most importantly, how competent you are in completing certain tasks or duties.  In order to do this, you need to provide examples and give enough detail to demonstrate your ability.

The optimal amount of time for responding to an interview question is approximately two minutes.  For some that may sound like a very long time and for others it may seem to be nowhere near enough time.  However, to be able to fully describe the situation, the actions you took and the outcome in enough detail, you do need that two-minute timeframe.  Should the interviewer/s want more information they will ask.

Two minutes is enough time to provide enough detail without loosing track of the question.  When you use a structured approach to answering interview questions you should find it much easier to stay on track.

This article is one of a series on job interview techniques.

Written by the Your People Recruitment team