The Tell Me About a Time Prompt
Launch library · evergreen read
Abstract questions produce abstract answers. Asked whether they are a patient person, most subjects will simply assert that they are; asked to describe a specific time their patience was tested, the same subject has to produce a concrete scene, and concrete scenes are where an interview earns its keep. A trait asserted in the abstract rarely convinces a listener the way a lived example does.
The prompt works across almost any topic because it converts a trait or belief into an event, and events are easier for a person to narrate honestly than self assessments are. It also removes some of the performance from an answer, since a specific memory is harder to polish on the spot. Concrete memories resist the kind of easy polishing that a general self-description invites almost automatically.
Interviewers who lean on this prompt learn to follow it with patience: the first response is often a short anecdote that needs a further question or two to unfold into its full shape, and that unfolding is usually worth the wait. A short first answer is rarely the whole story, and a gentle further prompt usually finds the rest.