On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 3:47 AM, cdb wrote: > :What makes you different to the other applicants? " Should be "What makes you unique among your peers in this field?" or more specifically, " Communication is a tricky issue. You can either answer the question you think they should be asking (works for politicians), or you can answer the question as asked (and possibly be seen as snarky/hard to work with). Engineers value preciseness, but unless I'm talking to another engineer who I know is capable of thinking about the question before they ask it I'll ask a follow up question before answering theirs to make sure both of us understand what is being communicated. In the case of an interview and this particular question, I wouldn't bother to follow up - it's a common interview question and it would distract from the interview to answer it exactly. I'd rather reply by re-phrasing the question, "A few of the things that set me apart from my peers are..." and respond with answers specific to this position and company. Besides, many interviewers don't enjoy interviewing, and often don't feel they do a great job at it. Those that give such questions as the example you gave are sometimes reading from a script because they're insecure about interviewing. Calling them on this is going to be very negative for them. I'm not saying you gave a wrong answer, or that it was inappropriate - in many cases and for many people this is good. You may not want to work for a company that has poor interveiwers, or poor critical thinking skills. But you should at least understand the possible outcome of this response so you can decide when to employ it, and when to translate transparently. It may also be a (poor) test to see how a candidate responds to poor communication. -Adam -- Please rate and vote for my contest entry: http://mypic32.com/web/guest/profiles?profileID=50331 -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist