How long should your interview answers be?

Interview basics

Jun 23

The right length for interview answers is 30 seconds for factual questions, 30 to 90 seconds for introductory questions, and between 3 to 4 minutes for behavioral questions.

The answers to simple factual questions should be the shortest. For instance, the answer to "Where did you get your Master’s?" can be less than 30 seconds.

The answer to an intro question like "Why do you want to work here?" should be 1 minute and possibly up to 1.5 minutes, because you need to add details that explain why.

Answers to behavioral questions like “Give me an example of when you worked on a complicated project” should be between 3 to 4 minutes.

Not everyone agrees with this opinion

Many people have a different opinion about this.

Some interview coaches will tell you to keep everything to 1 minute. In my opinion, which is based on years of experience, it can be impossible to answer a behavioral question in 1 minute.

I’ve had clients tell me they got the job after talking for 6 or 7 minutes - yes, this is definitely possible. BUT. I’ve also heard that clients have gotten interrupted by the interviewer when they go on too long.

You will be least likely to get comments about how short/long your answer is if you keep it to between 3 to 4 minutes for the behavioral questions.

Are you in sales? To all of my future sales clients: no, you’re not an exception to the 4 minute rule. The human attention span is about 8 seconds. Go over 4 minutes and you’re almost guaranteeing that most of what you’re saying is getting lost.

Examples of the right length for “Tell me about yourself”

Here are real answers that two of my clients prepared for this question. These are both the correct length.

“Tell me about yourself” sample answer #1

“I have over five years of experience in communications with French international companies creating and implementing internal and external communications plans aligned with corporate strategy. In particular, I organized events and conferences for these companies, from the definition of the program to logistical aspects and the development of content for diverse media, working closely with experts, partners, teams, and third-party vendors. I want to be a Communications Strategist at the IMF because I will be able to develop my skills doing work that I believe will help the community.”

“Tell me about yourself” sample answer #2

“I’m an experienced business development, project management, and product management professional who has managed all aspects of business development and product management functions, such as identifying sales leads, developing new business opportunities, and closing business deals. For example, I have recently won US$30M worth of [car company]'s Smart Vehicle Program through [an electronics company]. To win the design, I identified the business opportunity, led a cross-functional team to build the product proposal, presented the business case to higher management to secure the budget, and finally closed the development contract with [electronics company] by negotiating the pricing and development schedules. Now I'm applying for this Senior Product Marketing Manager role because I feel like [company] is positioned to do well in it and I want to be part of your success.”

These are both a good length. If spoken in a conversational tone with plenty of pauses and the correct intonation they will take about 1 minute to say. A longer answer - up to 1. 5 or even 2 minutes - is fine too, if you want to give more details about past jobs - but be careful you aren’t boring the interviewer.

But aren’t these both too short?

I want to say more about my past experience. / I want to say more about my passion for technology. / I want to say more about …..

You can say more. If you’re sure you need to add more details, you can go up to 2 minutes. Remember the human attention span - it’s much much shorter than 2 minutes. It’s about 8 seconds.

Examples of the right length for “Why do you want this job?”

“Why do you want this job?” sample answer #1 (for a communications position at the WHO)

"Working for the World Health Organization would fulfill my personal goals, because I’m convinced that we need to reinvent our society to prevent extreme poverty and health problems. I believe in humans and their capacity to be resilient and innovative, and communities like yours are fundamental to give hope to populations and to engage stakeholders. That’s why I would like to be part of this great organization. Also, I love implementing conferences. To me, every event is different, and each one is particular and exciting. I like to be in touch with experts, to learn about their work, and be in touch with a lot of different people to shape a program. My career goal is to combine communication and events planning with a mission-directed organization like the WHO."

This answer is good because she talks about the company and its specific mission and then talks about the role and how the role is exactly what she is looking for and how her experience fits it. The combination of (1) company plus (2) role plus (3) her experience making her a good fit makes a winning answer, plus the obvious enthusiasm she shows.

“Why do you want this job?” sample answer #2 (for a mid-level consultant role on the pharmaceutical industry team at PwC)

"Well, the PwC reputation is certainly a factor. I would be proud to work for a company with such a long history of leadership in the industry. I feel that my proven track record leading teams and my education in pharmacology makes me an excellent match for the job requirements. Also, the role excites me because I want to develop customer solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and I know I could start delivering results from Day 1."

Again, this answer talks about (1) company (2) role and (3) his experience/education. He does it in a shorter amount of time than the previous person did but he covers all of it.

Although it is shorter than the first answer it is also the perfect length.

Example of the right length for “Why should we hire you?”

“Why should we hire you?” sample answer

"I'm the best person for this job because I’m able to be reactive and to handle unexpected situations. For example, when I was working at [company], the CEO had a sudden airplane accident just few months before a big conference about energy and climate. We needed to change a part of the program that we had already planned, and we did. I had to change all the off-line and on-line presentations, tell all the speakers about the new program and the impact on their speech, and send new invitations, etc., on a very short-term deadline. I prefer to stay positive and to see the opportunity in the difficulty."

The right length for behavioral question answers

“Tell me about a time you had to work on a project with unclear responsibilities.”

Answer given by a Cloud Architect

“When I joined Oracle, the Cloud Customer Success Team was new, and the scope for the role wasn’t clearly defined. I knew that because the responsibilities were unclear, I should let client objectives guide the project with feedback from me.

During my first client onboarding, I understood that my objective was to ensure a successful go-live and that I needed to help them realize the value of cloud in the form of lower OPEX, elasticity, and speed and flexibility. In order to do that I knew that I would need to plan carefully.

I developed a project plan, schedule, milestones, and agreed upon criteria with the client on what would be a successful deployment. I learned what they wanted and eventually I understood the client’s requirements better than anyone. I took responsibility for understanding and resolving the client issues, and advocated internally on behalf of the client when we needed support from other teams like when there was an escalation due to a provisioning issue.

Although my task was unclear in the beginning, listening to the client paid off. It was a successful go live since we did more than the agreed upon criteria, which instilled trust in the client to migrate more core workloads to the cloud, so the total contract value of the account increased. “

This answer is around 2 minutes - it’s going to be different depending on how quickly you talk. If you added even more detail to the answer, which would be okay, you could easily have it hit 2.5 minutes. Once you’re getting toward 3 minutes or longer, be careful you aren’t going overboard with your details/data.

What to do if you’re struggling with answer length

What’s worse, answers that are too short or too long? Eh, I don’t like either of them.

What if my answers are too short?

Answers that are too short usually come from technical people, like engineers. Too-short answers make it seem like you don’t have good social skills or can’t communicate, or worse, have no ideas.

Try thinking about the topic and brainstorming on it. Can you think of a few more details? Go through your old emails about the project. Talk to someone who worked with you on it.

Ask yourself if you can think of more details around who/what/when/why/your reactions.

Practice with someone. Ask them if they can think of more points to mention.

What if my answers are too long?

If you work on complex projects, and want to convey their complexity, you may be giving long answers. But there’s a way to talk less and say enough.

Practice with someone else. Ask them to stop you if they get bored.

Adding more details doesn’t make you sound smarter

If you’ve been practicing your answers and they’re all much longer than the lengths I’ve given, are you trying to give more info because you feel you need to convince them you can do the job?

Saying more about your skills won’t convince them if you’re saying too much.

The extra will get lost when they stop paying attention.

Senior executives generally talk less than more junior people. They’ve learned to say less but say the right things to get their message across.

Read this post if you're wondering how to structure your answers. If you follow the correct structure, you'll create an answer that's the right length.