Are you a user experience research professional looking for a new job? Perhaps your company recently had layoffs, or maybe there’s been a re-organization and you’re evaluating where you’ve landed.

If you find yourself looking for something new, here’s my #1 interview tip : Be concise in your answers. Over the years, the AnswerLab team has interviewed hundreds of user experience professionals. For each position, we typically review hundreds of resumes and interview at least 20 candidates. And consistently, the number one turn-off that we encounter in the hiring process is that candidates have a hard time communicating concisely, i.e. they talk too much.

This is a bad habit for many reasons:

#1) As a research professional, your job is to gather information, ask the right questions, and then listen. In particular, if you’re a qualitative researcher, you should be an absolute expert at listening. So when a candidate takes a good chunk of the interview to answer a simple question, we see that as a red flag.

#2) You’re expected to work with clients – either external clients if you’re planning to work at a research firm, or internal clients if you’re an in-house researcher. A good part of the value you offer is being able to professionally manage a meeting, understand the goals of the meeting participants, and help them achieve these goals. A job interview is to put your best foot forward and show off these skills.

#3) An interviewer may have 20 things they’re looking for in a candidate, ranging from areas of expertise, specific software skills, industry experience, soft skills, and fit with the company’s culture. You might not know exactly what these 20 things are, but be assured the interviewer is thinking about them. If an interviewee takes a long time to discuss one topic, they’re not allowing the interviewer to cover all of these important areas. You may never get the chance to hit on the points that are most important to the interviewer.

So if you find yourself interviewing for a job, please remember: it’s a dialogue, not a monologue. Provide short, to-the-point answers that allow the interviewer to ask follow-up questions. This provides a more conversational tone – which is always nice in an interview. It also gives you the best chance of hitting on all the most relevant topics that can make a great impression with the interviewer.

If this was useful, check back. In a future blog post I’ll provide some tips for hiring managers.