One of the interviewing techniques I work on the most is something I call "Details and Options." I'm going to break down the basics here so that you can incorporate it into your own interview preparations.

Why Another Interview Technique?

I'm so glad you asked. The reality is that no matter how long folks have been interviewing, they are mostly doing it untrained. That means they don't know how to ask good questions or hear good answers. They don't know how to control their emotions, or biases, or even avoid legal issues by using your protected statuses.

This means that most interviewers are just making it up. They are going to simply react to what you say in the moment.

As in all things I try to turn what seems insurmountable into an opportunity.

The Opportunity

If they don't know how to judge things, then we can conduct ourselves in a way that takes advantage of the fact that they are going to simply react. We present the right things in the right way and they'll leave the interview liking you and thinking you're the one for the job.

The Setup

When you're asked an open-ended question, you want to recognize one particular thing. That thing is that you need to talk about something that you could be either vague or specific about. If that sounds like anything, it kind of is.

Let me use an example. I developed this technique when I was learning to do System Design interviews over 10 years ago. In these interviews, the interviewer will ask you to do something very reasonable like design Twitter/X in 45 minutes.

I was sarcastic about the reasonableness of the question.

You get 45 minutes to design a system that a whole company has spent years building. What could go wrong?

So you have to start making choices. These choices are the moments I'm tlaking about. You have to make a choice about architecture, tools, techniques, scale, and more. Each of these are bits you could be specific about or vague about. These are the things you use the details and options technique on.

Say it isn't a system design interview though. Say it is a question that is large in scope like, "How would you create alignment between executives, product, and engineering?" Well, you're going to again, make choices about your approach, techniques, and more. That's the signal.

Options

Let's start with options. Every time you detect one of those moments where you can either be vague or specific about a choice you are going to give set of options instead of one choice. They all need to be legitimate ways to succeed.

You give options to avoid saying one specific thing that the interviewer doesn't like, has had a bad experience with, has tried before without results, etc. You also give options to give the impression you're well-rounded.

In the system design example you might say you'd host the infrastructure in AWS, Azure, or On-Prem.

Details

As you give your options you want to pick the one you are most comfortable with and add a level of detail to it.

Think of it as going a little deeper into the choice. You could share trade-offs, add specific knowledge, do a whole round of details and options again. The main thing is to add some detail that shows you actually know something about the option you gave.

When you give the details you aren't saying its the one to choose or its your favorite, you're almost providing an example.

You do this because it shows depth of knowledge that seems hard to fake with a rehearsed, scripted, or AI assisted answer.

You Need Both

In my experience helping folks with career stuff, folks struggle with either details or options or both. Most want to make the choice and move on with the answer. The problem is they believe there is a correct answer to give as opposed to the interviewer just reacting.

If you only provide options, you'll sound like you spend time reading up on related topics but that you don't really know anything.

If you only do detail, you'll seem like someone with a deep expertise but isn't well-rounded.

You might be thinking, "Surely if I had to pick one it'd be details then."

It isn't a choice. You need both techniques in concert to present as well-rounded and with deep expertise. If you choose details you run the extreme risk of stating a detail that is based on an assumption the interviewer does not have. You will sound flat wrong to them.

Practice!

You have to practice. Everyone has their own way they use this technique and everyone picks it up at a different rate. What I can say though is almost nobody does this naturally.

If you want to practice, just look up open-ended interview questions and take a stab at answering them. Record yourself and listen through it. As you get stronger in this technique your answer will sound better and better.