Navigating Tough Interview Questions with Authenticity

Even the most capable professionals can struggle in interviews. In this episode, Brian and job interview coach Tali Shlafer break down why, and what to do instead.

Overview

In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian welcomes interview coach Tali Shlafer for a practical, clear-eyed conversation about how to approach job interviews as a skill, not a personality trait.

Tali shares why being great at your job doesn’t automatically translate to interview success, especially in collaborative fields like product development, Agile coaching, and project management. She outlines a straightforward way to prepare for interviews by identifying the real challenges behind a role and building stories that speak directly to them, without sounding rehearsed or robotic. From reframing “bragging” as problem-solving to handling tough questions with clarity and self-awareness, this episode is full of grounded advice for professionals navigating their next move.

References and resources mentioned in the show:

Tali Shlafer
Free Job Interview Tip Vault
Tali's LinkedIn
Tali's Instagram
#93: The Rise of Human Skills and Agile Acumen with Evan Leybourn
#111: Adapting to the Future of Work with Heather McGowan
Blog: Entry-Level Scrum Masters: Seven Tips on How to Get Your First Scrum Master Job by Mike Cohn
AI Prompt Pack for Product Owners & Scrum Masters
Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast

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This episode’s presenters are:

Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work.

Tali Shlafer is a certified interview coach who helps high performers turn nerves into clarity and confidence so they can land roles they’re truly excited about. Her practical frameworks—rooted in psychology, communication, and performance—ditch the gimmicks and empower candidates to show up as their best, most authentic selves.

Auto-generated Transcript:

Brian Milner (00:00)
Welcome in everyone. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have Miss Tali Schläufer with us. Welcome in Tali.

Tali Shlafer (00:11)
Thanks, Brian. I'm excited to be here.

Brian Milner (00:13)
Very excited to have Tali with us. She is a job interview coach so you can kind of See the direction we're going in here one of her tagline is that she she helps you know professionals get offers they're really excited about and She's got some really interesting insights here because I know in today's world in today's environment There is a lot of shifting going on. There's a lot of transitioning between different places of work. And that interview is always kind of the forgotten portion of it, right? You get past all the other stuff, you get to the point where you're in the interview. So Tali, from your perspective, I know you see and help a lot of people with that portion of it. What are some of the biggest mistakes that people make that you see routinely as you help people prepare for their interviews?

Tali Shlafer (01:01)
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things that you just mentioned where, you know, people really struggling with the interview piece, you do all this work in your job search to update your resume, update your LinkedIn network, all this stuff, and then you get to the interview and it's like, okay, we're close. It's actually the interview is actually a completely different stage than anything else. And one mistake that I often see people making is just the mindset around interviews. A lot of people think, if I'm great at my job, I'll just interview really well. Like I'm a top performer. I'm good to go. But interviewing is actually a skill that's completely separate from anything else we do in the workplace. It requires you to be able to articulate what you've done in the workplace and the results and the impact that you brought in a way that most of us don't have to do in our day-to-day jobs. And you have to do it better than everybody else. So just because you are a top performer doesn't necessarily mean that that translates into your ability. to talk about yourself and talk about your career, especially in a way that resonates with the specific job culture and the specific job that you're applying for. So I think that's kind of the top mistake that I would just from a mindset level, is seeing interviews as something that you're naturally good at rather than as a skill that you can really develop and build in order to set yourself up for success.

Brian Milner (02:12)
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point because, know, just because, as you said, just because I'm a top performer in something that I do, have a huge skill set or knowledge area that I'm really good at, doesn't mean that I'm necessarily good at an interview process because it is kind of a whole set of other communication skills that you have to have in that kind of environment. I know when I've talked to people about it sometimes, they feel sort of this, I don't know, dichotomy a little bit back and forth about... I know I'm supposed to plug myself here. I know I'm supposed to kind of brag a little bit, but I also don't want to sound cocky. I don't want to sound, you know, I don't know, just brash or anything. How do you help people or what do you advise people about in that area?

Tali Shlafer (03:06)
Yeah, and I think this is really common for people who are top performers and people who are very team oriented and collaboration oriented. It's really difficult for those folks to go, hey, I did all this stuff by myself and to kind of put themselves in that spotlight. So it's a very common challenge. It's also very common for folks who are really good at their job and have been doing this for a long time to actually be able to articulate. what that secret sauce is, like why they're actually good at their job, which is part of the challenge. Remind me the question that you just asked.

Brian Milner (03:38)
No, I'm just, in talking about kind of like how people prepare for these kind of things, the way they communicate this stuff, sometimes it's kind of more this worry about am I being a little too overbearing or brash in how I'm bragging about myself? Will I come off seeming cocky? or overconfident, how do they walk that fine line?

Tali Shlafer (04:03)
Yeah, I think this is a really big mindset piece where a lot of people who are those top performers and are very collaborative in nature are afraid to talk about themselves and be in the spotlight and kind of take credit where, especially in something like in the agile world or project management, product management, it's a very collaborative space. people are afraid to like, people are afraid to say, here's what I did. And Part of the mindset shift that I really encourage clients and job seekers to have is rather than to see it as, hey, the interview is all about you and the spotlight's on you and you're a used car salesman trying to promo yourself and it feels really icky so we don't want to do it. We end up not doing it at all. Think of it rather as you're trying to help this employer solve a problem. You're on the same side of the table with them. You're essentially a consultant for them. Their problem is... Hey, I've got this role. I have this challenge in my company. I have this opportunity. I have this thing that I need help with and I need to find who's going to be able to help me do that. And so you're essentially being an advisor for them and sharing here's how my previous experiences and what I've done in the past might be able to help you with your challenges. So it's really, it's really a partnership type of conversation where you're exploring, well, what are you struggling with? and how, let me share ways that I think I might be able to help. I think having that mindset is a lot more helpful for people who are more collaborative in nature. I think there's also a part of it that is getting really clear on how your work has actually delivered results. Being really confident, a lot of folks who are more collaborative in nature, which is a lot of people that I work with. tend to really get stuck in the we. So they say, we deliver this, we manage this, we strategize in this way. And then the interviewer ends up losing the thread of, well, what did this person sitting across from me do? What did they lead? What did they manage versus what did they do collaboratively? so getting really clear and even getting some language around how to talk about your contributions with respect to the team. So saying, I led this strategy session or I facilitated the collaboration of this, or I made the suggestion to people who then made a decision. Those kind of nuanced pieces of communication can help us feel more comfortable with actually owning our story in a way that doesn't feel gross.

Brian Milner (06:39)
Yeah, I think you make a great point there about the partnership aspect of it because having been on both sides of the table there, I know when I was hiring people as a software manager of some kind, the thought is always when the person comes in, you want to hire them. When they've reached that stage, when you finally bring them in, you're excited about the people that you decided to bring in and you're pulling for them. You want them to actually be successful. So I think it's important to keep that in mind too, that they want you to be successful. They want that role filled or they wouldn't have put out the job wreck and all the other things. If you, so let's just kind of talk through on a practical level. If you, you've done the work, you've put out the resume, you've got the call, maybe you've even gone through, well, I guess we should talk about that as well. Kind of the difference between a virtual or phone interview and an in-person interview. Is there a difference in level of prep or in how you, you know. tricks to being more successful if it's virtual versus in person.

Tali Shlafer (07:50)
I think the preparation itself should be the same. At the end of the day, your preparation should be about what are the challenges that this company, that this organization is facing and how does this role help solve those challenges? What are the skills? What are the top five skills that I need to demonstrate? Hard and soft skills. And in order to show them that I can be the top performer for this role and what are stories that I can share for each one of those skills. to prove that, I have what it takes, I can actually walk the walk as well. I've gotten results in this area before. So the prep work itself in the days leading up to the interview should be more or less the same. I would say the difference between a virtual interview versus an in-person interview is just people's comfort level. I think a lot of people are really comfortable in in-person interviews because it feels like you're actually talking to a human, right? You have a full-size person sitting across from the table from you. So it's a lot more comfortable. And I think even though through COVID, we had a lot more virtual conversations, there's still a very performative feeling element to it when it comes to virtual interviews. So one of my top tips for virtual interviews is please turn off your self view. So if you're in the Zoom call and if you're in a meeting, because it makes people so nervous and self-conscious. So when you get on that Zoom call, that Teams call, whatever platform you're using, make sure you're in the frame, right? Make sure that your lighting is good, all that stuff, and then turn off that camera so that you're not just watching yourself and being super self-conscious the entire time. Because think about it, in what other context in your life, when you're having a conversation with someone, do you have a mirror that you're looking at?

Brian Milner (09:36)
Right, right, I mean, if you're in their interview room, unless there's a mirror all the way around, you're not really getting that view. And even if you did, you probably wouldn't watch yourself in the mirror the entire time. So yeah, that's a great tip. And I think you're absolutely right. It can lead to being very, very self-conscious then. I think it's, I want to go back a little bit to the prep because I think your tip there is a really important thing is to try to understand the challenges, understand what it is they're looking for. And it just struck me as you were saying that it seems very similar to, in my kind of line of work, I do a lot of consulting work with people. And when I have a client that's a prospective client, it's almost the same thing. where you have to research a little bit about the company ahead of time. If you're doing kind of a sales call prior to the engagement, it's very similar. And I just thought about that. There is an overlap there between that and job interviews because you are selling yourself. You are selling your services to that company.

Tali Shlafer (10:36)
And a lot of people, here's another mistake that a lot of people, a lot of well-meaning people make is as part of their prep work, going online and finding a bunch of questions that they can then prepare for. So it's a very, I kind of call it whack-a-mole where, hey, let me try to figure out all the possible questions I might get asked and write out answers for those.

Brian Milner (10:51)
Ha ha.

Tali Shlafer (10:59)
That might get some people results. And if it's getting you results, that's great. But what I really encourage people to do is really reverse engineer your talking points from the job description, from what you know, even, you know, once you've had the conversation with the recruiter, you know, a little bit more about the position than maybe is even listed on the job description. So compile everything that you know about this opportunity and figure out, okay, what are the most important things for me to be able to articulate rather than just guessing at. random questions that the internet says you might get asked.

Brian Milner (11:32)
Yeah, that's a great point. I know we all want to get past that and get to the job, but I think there's also an element there of, let's say you do memorize these questions and they just happen to ask you the exact questions you had prepared for. If you don't really have that knowledge, then you're not going to really do well in that job even if you get it. So it's almost a blessing to not get that job, you know, if you didn't know that information, because they're going to be counting on you to do that. And you're not going to be a you're not going to do your job well then. Yeah.

Tali Shlafer (12:06)
Yeah, and the memorizing piece that you just mentioned is really, really easy for people to fall into the trap of trying to memorize their answers, especially with chat GPT and AI. Everybody's thinking, well, let's use these AI tools to help us come up with interview answers. so we plug in, job seekers will plug in, here's a bunch of questions that I might get. Look at my resume, tell me how can I answer these questions? And it feels safe. It feels like, this very smart robot or technology is gonna say this in a better way than I can.

Brian Milner (12:36)
you

Tali Shlafer (12:40)
But it really sets people up for failure most of the time because number one, most people aren't good at memorizing things, right? Most of us don't have to do that as our job. So most of us are really bad at memorizing. Number two, it makes you sound like a robot. It doesn't sound human. You lose the attention of the person who you're talking with. And number three, doesn't when you just memorize answers rather than thinking about it as what are talking points that I can riff off, riff on and kind of reuse and recycle and tell stories with. When you memorize, it puts you in the position of, well, yeah, it's great if they ask you that exact question. And some questions you will get asked, like tell me about yourself, you're going to get 99 % of the time. But for the most part, if you memorize a set of 10 questions and one of those questions gets a slight variation, or they ask a question that's not on there, you end up panicking. You don't know how to think on your feet because you're reliant on your tool. You've used AI or you've used your script as a strategy rather than a tool.

Brian Milner (13:42)
Yeah, that's a great point. I'm kind of wanting to get your take on this because this is a big thing that I know often comes up in these kinds of interviews is those questions that we all hate to get that you just know, no one ever knows how to answer these things. So I'm just curious how you advise people, you know, the awful question like, you know, give me some of your weaknesses or give me some of the things that you're not good at. How do you advise people to handle those kind of questions when they get asked in interviews?

Tali Shlafer (14:14)
Yeah, so there are definitely some questions that we tend to hear more often than others, especially when it comes to those recruiter interviews. The tell me about yourself, what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Tell me about a time you had to deal with a conflict. Tell me about a time you had to deal with a mistake. Those are pretty common, I would say, in that initial recruiter conversation. It's always an interview in my book. The weakness question I know is one of the that and the tell me about yourself is what really stresses people out.

Brian Milner (14:40)
Ha

Tali Shlafer (14:43)
My general advice for the weakness is actually something that I heard Adam Grant, who's an organizational psychology at Wharton share, which is pick something that is real but not disqualifying. So if you're an Agilist, your weakness should probably not be scrum or not be, you know, understanding business requirements. But it could be something like public speaking.

Brian Milner (15:00)
Ha

Tali Shlafer (15:08)
Or it could be something like delegating, where, you know, it's something real and it's not... It's something authentic. Authenticity is really, really important, especially nowadays in interviews. But it doesn't stop you from being able to perform well. So what I typically advise is pick a weakness, like Adam Grant says, that's real but not disqualifying. And this is important, and where a lot of people miss out, share what are you doing to actually address it? Because what we want to do, the point of that question isn't tell us what's wrong with you so we can judge you and disqualify you from the job. It's the subcontext of it is do you have self-awareness? Are you somebody who is aware enough and humble enough to know your shortcomings? And are you someone who's proactive about fixing them? and about becoming a better person. So the second part of that answer should be, well, what have you done to try to improve? What are specific steps that you've taken in order to improve?

Brian Milner (16:09)
Yeah, that's a great response. I know I've heard the traditional, you try to say one of your strengths as, I guess my weakness is I work too hard, like that kind of thing. Which I agree, it's not sincere. If I'm hearing that and I'm interviewing someone, that could disqualify him in my book, because I could think, this person is not going be honest with me. ⁓

Tali Shlafer (16:20)
Yeah. or the I'm a perfectionist piece? The most common answer to that question.

Brian Milner (16:33)
Alright, I'm a perfectionist, right? Yeah, exactly. Well, you hit on the other big one too, the tell me about yourself. How do you advise people to handle that? Do you have a script in mind? you kind of detail out a couple of things? What's important to hit when someone asks you to just tell me about yourself?

Tali Shlafer (16:54)
Yeah, I'm a big fan of formulas over scripts. So I'll share my formula, but let me share a couple things that derail people. Let's kind of establish what's not helpful. And then we can kind of talk about this formula, which by the way, lots of different career coaches have different formulas. There's not necessarily one that works. It's just pick something and learn to do it really well. A lot of people will go in and start well. I graduated from the University of Washington in 1995, and they give kind of their entire history. And we lose the interviewer right away when we do that. So rather than giving them a chronological history of everything that's happened in your career and asking them, when we do that, we are essentially asking them, hey, here's all this information and data. You make sense of it. You figure out how it's relevant to you. I think it's actually really kind to use a formula to help them understand. Here's everything you need to know about me as it pertains to this role. So taking everything, taking your history and your career through the filter of what is important to demonstrate for this role. So the formula that I teach is sharing a super quick background. Hey, I'm Tali, I've been a project manager for the last 10 years. That's not true, that's not, let me reset that. So I think starting with a very brief.

Brian Milner (18:12)
You

Tali Shlafer (18:16)
sentence about yourself, your relevant role, how long you've had experience. Hey, I'm John. I've been project manager for the last 10 years, sharing the three key skills that you need to have in order to succeed at this job. And for each of those three skills, can you list an accomplishment or a metric or a success story? And we're not telling a whole story. We're just giving them here's the highlight reel, here's the headline, and then you'll click into all of those stories later. So quick little background about yourself, three main skills that you've developed that are relevant for this role, and super high level accomplishment to demonstrate those skills. So that's a little bit, that kind of is the first half, and that talks more about your previous experiences. And then in the second half of this answer, we want to pivot it to the future. So the first half is really about the past, it's about yourself. And then in the second half, we want to pivot to the future. what are you looking for in your next role? And hopefully that thing is also in that, that whatever you're looking for in your next role should dovetail really nicely into what they're offering as a company and as, as a, as an organization. What are you looking for specifically in your next role? And why are you so excited about interviewing with this company? And we want to share something really specific that We want to share something specific that feels personal. Where a lot of people go wrong is they'll share something like, I really want growth in my next role. And I'm excited about this team because I know you guys really value innovation. That doesn't really tell us anything. So we want one level of detail lower. So I'm really excited. What I really want in my next role is more leadership opportunities, so opportunities to mentor. And I'm really excited about this particular opportunities because I looked on your website, I looked at your blog posts, I looked at your, you know, CEO's posts that they share on LinkedIn. And I can tell that this is a really important part of your culture is being able to mentor people up into higher positions, right? Getting that specific, and there's not a right answer. I remember when I was interviewing for... out of college, I was interviewing for T-Mobile for an internship. And my answer was, I've talked to a lot of people, I've networked with a lot of people at T-Mobile. And one thing that really strikes me is the fact that a lot of people will leave for local companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and then they come back. There's a lot of people who spend a lot of time here. really does. There's a lot of loyalty and the culture, like I shared things that are specific to the culture and there's not a right answer here. It just needs to be. specific and it needs to be something that when you talk about it you kind of start getting butterflies because that's contagious.

Brian Milner (21:07)
That's awesome. Well, I want to ask about kind of the other half of the interview or the other portion of the interview as well. They, you know, I often hear people say, you know, you should walk into the interview understanding that it's a two way interview. They're interviewing you, but you're interviewing them as well because you want to know, is this the right place for me? So I can make the right decision about where I'm going to end up. What kind of things do you advise people to ask about or to focus on? What are some things that might expose some hidden things about the organization, warning signs or anything like that that might pop up in an interview to ask about?

Tali Shlafer (21:45)
That's a really good question. think one thing, it really depends on the opportunity and what you're looking for. So I don't think that there's one magic question that if you ask it, oh, the person's gonna be super impressed. Let me back up. What I really like about what you just said, is the framing of the questions that you ask at the end as a two-way conversation and as a way for you to understand more about the company so you can see if it's a good fit. I think a lot of people, especially in tough job markets, tend to kind of close their eyes and hope they get something and they almost blind themselves to the fact that they need to also do the work to make sure that it's a good fit. Or I see a lot of people who go, well, what can I ask that's impressive? What questions can I ask that's going to really wow them at the end, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to really understand what they offer more? So I would sit down and prioritize what is really important for you in a culture. if getting feedback, if growth is important for you, making sure to ask about, can you tell me about recently on your team, somebody who was promoted or how you helped somebody grow in the company? The best way that we can learn about something is through examples. The best proof that somebody values something is through the examples that they share. So we want to ask, kind of like you hear behavioral questions, you get asked, like, tell me about a time when. You can also use that, figure out what's important for you, and then create. Ask questions specifically about those things. One question that I think can be really helpful to get you to get a sense of what kind of person succeeds on this team and what the team really values is kind of the inverse of that. can you tell me about, can you tell me about what type of person doesn't do well here? Because then if they say, you know, The type of person who doesn't do well here isn't committed to working 60 hours a week. They expect to take their vacations and not be able to unplug. That kind of being able to hear who isn't successful gives you some context around some of their values as well.

Brian Milner (24:01)
Yeah, that's an excellent question because I agree. Presumably, this is someone you're going to be working with if you get the job. That immediate relationship, think, is going to really be impactful on the expectations, that sort of thing. Yeah, if I'm interviewing and I ask that kind of question, and they do come back and say, yeah, the person who doesn't work 60 hours or anything. Yeah, that's a good sign that maybe this is, I don't know, unless I enjoy working 60 hours a week, that maybe this is not the right cultural fit for me. So that's an excellent question, because I think that would expose some of that behind the scenes stuff, cultural things. ⁓

Tali Shlafer (24:42)
And you really want to ask about questions about your dynamic with the manager. So what kind of people succeed under them? Because that's the number one people. I believe I'd have to fact check this, but you always hear that the number one people reason people don't like their jobs or people leave their jobs is because of their boss. So you want to understand you're essentially going on a date with them and you want to understand what is it like to hang out with you for 40 hours a week?

Brian Milner (25:05)
you

Tali Shlafer (25:09)
So asking specific questions to really understand what's their working style, what are their expectations, what are their positive experiences, what does feedback look like? Is it a once a year thing? Is it a every time we touch base during our one-on-ones you get feedback? That is really important. The other thing that's important to think about is do you understand the role itself? Like what questions do you have? What gaps in your understanding do you have about the role? Really clarifying to make sure that you know what you're signing up for.

Brian Milner (25:40)
Yeah, that's a great response as well. I know I remember from back in the day getting told that it's a good kind of question to ask what would success look like? If you really got someone to nail this and you were really happy with the hire and it was perfect, what would be the biggest thing that would contribute to that? And I've always liked that approach as well because it kind of gives you the expectation from the start to know here's what's most important in that manager's mind of what they're looking for. Yeah, just in my memory of interviewing people, would say I've never, I don't think I've ever not hired someone because of a question that they asked at the end, but... I have felt sometimes like when they don't ask questions that they're a little unprepared.

Tali Shlafer (26:30)
Yeah, and I think it, I think part of the not asking questions, one is being not prepared, not thinking thoroughly about the job. But it's also a little bit of a sense of desperation, like, I've been applying for four months, I don't care, I'm willing to take anything. So I don't have questions, because let me just take any first job that comes available. There's kind of that mindset. And I think it manifests as, I don't have any questions. And I think

Brian Milner (26:48)
You

Tali Shlafer (26:58)
People can kind of feel that when you're not critical, when you're not trying to figure out, am I really going to be able to succeed here? People kind of pick up on that and it either looks like desperation or it looks like disengagement and disinterest. We want people not, we don't want to hire the first person off the street who can do the job. We want to hire somebody who's excited to be there and who we know isn't going to leave six months later when they find something better.

Brian Milner (27:23)
Yeah, that's really good. Well, this has been really enlightening. I think there's a lot of gems in here that I think people can apply. we all find ourselves in that position from time to time of having to interview for things. As I said, even as a consultant, it's an interview when you talk to a potential new client. So I think these are all really great tips for that. We're going to make sure that there's contact information for Tali at the show notes of this so you can get a hold of her. Anything you want to shout out about, any places you want to point people to to get in contact with you?

Tali Shlafer (27:56)
So for the last few years, I've been posting usually about two short form videos a day to LinkedIn, all the social medias. Over the last couple of years, I've posted over 700 short form videos on social media. I've actually had over a hundred million views on LinkedIn, which is really crazy. Somebody recognized me at the dog park the other day, which was wild. But I created an interview tip-ball that took the best... The most helpful videos the ones that have gone viral received the best feedback gotten people the biggest results in their interviews And I compiled them all in one Interview tip bolt so that's my little thing that I like to share with people You'll see everything in there from how to tell me about yourself To answering why do people ramble and what other mistakes are people making? and also special tips for senior leaders and executives. So that's my little freebie that I like to share out for folks who are interested in the stuff that I'm talking about.

Brian Milner (28:56)
Awesome, awesome. we will definitely make that available to people in the show notes and links to your socials as well so people can follow you and stay on top of your tips as they come out. So thank you so much for coming on, Tali, and I appreciate you spending some time with us and sharing your knowledge with us.

Tali Shlafer (29:13)
Thanks so much, Brian. It was a pleasure.