In this solo presentation, Mark Murphy—CEO of Leadership IQ and author of Never Say These Words in a Job Interview—shares findings from a study of over 20,000 real interview responses analyzed with AI and linguistic tools. He identifies three linguistic red‑flags that consistently appear in poor answers: an overuse of present and future‑tense verbs, a high frequency of second‑person pronouns (you/your), and the presence of absolute terms such as always, never, or impossible. Murphy illustrates the problem with a real‑world example where a candidate evades a behavioral question about a past disagreement with a boss by offering generic, hypothetical advice instead of a concrete past story. He explains why such evasiveness signals possible dishonesty and frustrates interviewers. The talk concludes with practical guidance: always answer behavioral questions with specific past examples (using a STAR‑style narrative), avoid hypothetical language, and steer clear of the identified red‑flag words. Murphy also points viewers to his companion video on good interview answers and promotes his book, which contains many more examples of both bad and excellent responses.
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Here's something most candidates don't know. There are giant red flags in answers that a lot of people give that tell HR people and recruiters and hiring managers that this answer is terrible, that it is just fluff. We are avoiding, we might even be lying. These are red flags that every candidate needs to know. Hi, I'm Mark Murphy. I'm the CEO of Leadership IQ. I'm a New York Times bestselling author, and my most recent book is called Never Say These Words in a Job Interview. The Words and Phrases That Win or Lose You the Job. As part of this book, we actually analyzed more than 20,000 real-life interview answers, and using AI and some linguistic analysis, we discovered that there are serious red flags that a lot of people use in their interview responses that basically tell HR people, this is a terrible answer, this person is not a good fit, probably don't hire them. What are some of the things? Well, one of the things is that bad interview answers contain a lot more present and future tense verbs. They contain a lot more— 400% more— second person pronouns, words like you and your. And they contain a lot of absolutes, words like always, never, impossible, etc. Now this sounds a little technical and nerdy. Let me give you a real life answer. So This is a real-life interview response, a real-life interview answer to the question, "Could you tell me about a time when your boss gave you directions that you disagreed with?" Okay, here's a real-life response. As people, we will always have disagreements with our boss or other employees. If the person is unable to see things your way, you must deal with it in a constructive and positive way. You should always assume that the other person is operating in good faith and has legitimate and rational reasons for their viewpoint. You should never engage in gossip or backstabbing with other employees about the person's motives or intellect. You should always speak with the other person directly and explain your point of view and try and understand theirs. Okay, now there's nothing egregious about this answer, right? Like, they didn't say, well, you know, I disagreed with my boss because my boss was an idiot. They didn't do anything like that. There's nothing horrible. But notice that this person doesn't actually answer the question. Could you tell me about a time in the past, maybe in the past year, when your boss gave you directions that you disagreed with? And what is this person's response? What they said is, well, what you should do if you have that situation is you should always assume that the other person has good intentions. You should never engage in gossip. That's not the question. I didn't ask this person what should one do when they are given disagreements. I— the question was, could you tell me about a time when you specifically have faced this situation? And notice this person just avoids answering the question. Not only is this terrible from a science point of view, right, if we go back to the research, this is a red flag for really bad interview answers. But one of the reasons it's such a red flag is that it's incredibly annoying if you're the interviewer and you ask a question like, hey, could you tell me about a time in the past month when you faced this? And the person says, well, Theoretically, hypothetically, when one faces this, what one ought to do is no. That's incredibly annoying for the hiring manager, for the recruiter, and it basically says to them, this person might be lying. Why won't they just answer the question straight up? Why won't they give me a highly specific answer about a time they faced this? So I'd encourage you to check out one of my other videos called The Science of Good Interview Answers, and you can look at some good interview answers there. But the point The point here is simply, when you get asked an interview question, especially a behavioral interview question where it's asking about a time in the past, make sure you actually give a time in the past. Talk about, "Here's what I did. I had a time in the past when I did the following." Not, "Well, what you should do when you face this is one ought to." Don't do that because it makes us look evasive. I hope you check out my book, Never Say These Words in a Job Interview. There's lots of real-life good and bad interview responses and how they were constructed and why they were rated poorly or why they were rated as just absolutely fantastic interview answers.
