One of the hardest skills for people to hone is the ability to confidently tackle questions that they don’t know the answer to. In research and academic settings, these situations arise all the time, but can be difficult to prepare for. Interviews, sitting on a panel, and responding to questions while giving an oral presentation can be high-pressure events that require a confident and cool demeanor.
As a person, I am naturally fairly anxious about giving talks and answering questions that reflect my knowledge and understanding of the topic. I have a terrible poker face when someone asks me about something I’m not very knowledgeable about and, especially when I was a graduate student, could crumble and panic. To be honest, it still happens and that’s perfectly all right because we all must work to identify our weak points and improve ourselves. This is an area that I’ve worked on quite a bit, and I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve practiced to reflect the ease and sophistication of someone who has worked very hard on a project and knows it inside and out.
My #1 Tip: Practice the art of saying “I don’t know”
When I was performing undergraduate research, I was around many graduate students who were preparing for their PhD qualifying exams. My coworkers were studying day and night, making sure that they would be able to answer any question that came their way. Many people wound themselves up so tightly that they had a lot of trouble when they were asked questions that they either didn’t understand or didn’t know the answer to. When I was going through this process myself, I saw many of my fellow graduate students cracking under the pressure of the questioning. In a practice talk with my own graduate advisor, I was so anxious that I couldn’t answer a very simple question that I could do in my sleep. I don’t have to tell you, dear reader, that cracking under the pressure of a simple question is not the path forward to a PhD. One of the biggest misunderstandings of qualifying exams is that students need to know the answer to every single question. It is, of course, very important to study hard and know your project to the best of your abilities. However, many qualifying exam panels will continue to ask the candidate questions until the candidate can no longer answer.
At this point, the panel is testing how the candidate thinks through the problems by (1) offering some ideas on how to look for the answer and (2) posing one or two possible solutions.
So, as you begin to give practice talks and mock interviews, approach questions that you don’t understand by asking for clarification. People often respond very well when you point out the part of a question you didn’t understand. If you understand the question well and don’t know the answer, try to identify the related points that would help in building the answer to the question. Then point out some of the information or data you would need to get clarity on the question.
One important thing to add (though this shouldn’t be overused): when you get a particularly difficult and thought-provoking question, it’s a nice practice to end your answer with, “That’s a really interesting question. I will have to think about this some more. Thank you.” Working through the problem, identifying relevant information you have, information you would need, and thanking the asker is a good combination for tackling tough questions. To me, this is the art of saying, “I don’t know.”