Page 109 - How To Answer Interview Questions (II)

Job Interview Question 54

Tell me about a time you conveyed technical information to a non-
technical audience

As in any behavioral interview question, use the STAR format to tell this story:

Situation – Set up the story. What was going on? What were the circumstances?
Why was this important?
In this case, I was with the American Association of Clinical Chemistry, where
I was supposed to speak about oncology. There were 400 people in the
audience, divided among approximately 75% press people (not technical
chemistry or medical people) who wouldn’t have the background to understand
all the technical jargon, and about 25% extremely technical medical folks who
would have been bored and even insulted if I had simplified it too much.
Action – What did you do to address this situation?
I decided to use a PowerPoint presentation to give my talk, with a lot of
examples related to their world to illustrate what I was talking about.
Result – How do you know that you were successful?What happened, and can it
be quantified in any way?
It was an extremely well-received speech and I was actually graded on it by
the folks who put the symposium on and was given a 94% satisfaction with the
topic. What they really liked and what they really commented about was my
ability to convey extremely technical information to a non-technical audience.
What does this example communicate to the interviewer?
I said what I did, and gave them a third-party source for the result. (The symposium leaders said
I did great.) The third-party reference is very powerful, and the numbers that I gave in the 94%