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I always worry about dragging on too long with my answers during interviews. How do I strike the right balance with giving impactful answers, but not going on too long?

Elaine Varelas provides advice on balancing the length of your answers during a job interview.

Ask the Job Doc. Boston.com

By Elaine Varelas

Q. When I interview, I struggle with how long to take to answer each question. I’ve been told that it’s important to tell stories and give examples from my experience, but I feel like it will take too long. Any advice?

A. Extremes are never the right approach. In interviews, some people give basic yes and no answers, which are inappropriate, and other people drone on for 20 minutes never realizing that they lost the interviewer three minutes into their answer. Recognizing the intent of the question really is the first step in preparing what the answer is. Often, candidates take the question at face value as opposed to identifying what content the interviewer is really looking for. Graphically, imagine the ocean. The first time an interviewer asks a question, your answer should be at sea level. It should skim the greater parts of the interviewer’s question with a closing that points to if there are specific areas that they’d like you to go into detail about, to please let you know.

When they’re interested, interviewers will ask a follow-up question. That’s when you go to the next level of detail. You go below the surface and go into greater detail about the specific area that the interviewer has asked about, highlighting your contributions, your skills, your areas of expertise. You might ask a question in return about how that topic relates to the job or relates to the company. If the interviewer continues along those lines, they’ve let you know they’re extremely interested in the details and depth of your answer, which gives you permission to expand your answer.

Recognize that all interviews are a conversation, and if your answer is going on so long that the person is fidgeting in their chair or not making any eye contact they are no longer engaged, and you’ve gone on too long. Examples of your work experience should not take too long, and the stories should be three-dimensional. They should involve both you and other people. They should involve the business problem, the solution, and if some humor can be thrown in where a challenge has been overcome, interviewers become more engaged in understanding what happened.

Before the actual interview, you may want to do a practice interview with your closest friend who can gently let you know that you are not engaging or that you’re going on too long. Have them time your interview responses. Many people are surprised where the interviewer’s initial question of, “Tell me about yourself,” goes on for 20 minutes. That is not the appropriate length of time for any answer to be, unless you’re asked to do a presentation.

When answering a question and going into details and different tangents, you may forget what the actual question was. One helpful thing that an interviewer can do, particularly during a video interview, is type into the chat after asking each question so the interviewee can see it and can always refocus if they get off track with a long-winded answer. It’s always in your best interest to jot a note down to remind yourself what the primary question is. If you do lose track of what you were trying to say, be candid. People recognize that that happens. Don’t make a joke about your age. Don’t make any self-deprecating remarks. Say something like, “Your question was so interesting and sparked so many thoughts, so let me try to come back to where we were.”

Often people will wait until the end of the interview to ask questions of the interviewer when the interviewer says, “Do you have any questions for me?” Don’t wait this long. You can ask early on about the depth of the level of information that the interviewer is looking for. There’s no one answer that says it’s a one-minute answer to a question or a five-minute answer to a question. If you are a good conversationalist and attuned to your interviewer, you’ll continue to provide well-thought-out answers and check in with them to ask if you’re providing the right information and how all that information ties in.