Handling Follow-up Questions in an Interview: Nine Sentences for Buying Time, Offering a Guess, and Admitting What You Have Not Used

🌏 中文版

The previous post practiced what I say on my own initiative in a coding interview. This one deals with a different situation: the interviewer keeps following my answer further down, into places I did not prepare for.

Job-interview guidance supports taking time to gather your thoughts; some example sentences here come from IELTS speaking material. Use them to rehearse pausing and responding, not as a transcript of an actual job interview or evidence of British–American differences.

What I was trying to say

Three things usually happen to me under follow-up questions:

1. I need a few seconds to think but do not know how to ask for them, so I go silent
2. I am asked for a cause that I never verified and can only guess at, and I do not know how to say it without sounding like I am making things up
3. I am asked about a tool I have not used, or a weakness in my design is pointed out, and I do not know how to admit it

One thing to settle first: asking for time is allowed. Google's interview prep page says so directly:

Rephrasing questions or asking for clarity is okay, as is telling the interviewer you want a few moments to collect your thoughts

Amazon's interview page says you can ask when you lack information:

If you're asked a question and don't have enough context to give a strong answer, it's totally okay to ask for more information. If none is available, focus on how you'd approach the problem based on what you do know.

Both pages only say that you may do this. Neither gives a sentence to say. I found the sentences elsewhere.

What you can say in this situation

1. Buying thinking time

The first four come from IDP's IELTS speaking advice. IDP is one of the organizations that run IELTS, and the fifth tip on that page is called Pause to think:

There is no harm in taking a brief pause to think about what to say. We all do it to process questions.

Its list also has Let me see and That's a good point. For the fourth sentence it gives only the opening, I have never thought about that, but..., and I filled in the second half myself.

Note that this is advice for a speaking test, not teaching material for job interviews. Using these sentences in an interview is my own application; my basis is that Google's page says asking for time is fine.

The sixth tip on the same page tells candidates to avoid fillers, and its list includes Umm, Like, You know, and also Well. Its reason is that fillers make the examiner think you cannot find the words, so it recommends the complete sentences above instead.

The fifth sentence turns Google's you want a few moments to collect your thoughts into the first person.

2. When you can only guess

Oxford defines guess as an attempt to give an answer or an opinion when you cannot be certain you are right, with the example My guess is that we won't hear from him again. The same entry also has At a guess, I'd say there's a problem with the fuel pump, which is another opening you can use.

This sentence is supported only by a dictionary pattern. It has no source from an interview setting.

3. Admitting you have not used it, admitting it is not elegant

The first half of the first sentence is quoted from Northeastern University's interview guide, in the passage headed Don't bluff: Say so honestly: "I haven't worked with that library before, but I'd approach it by…". The approach in the second half is mine.

The second sentence comes from Google's example interview video. The interviewer asks what would happen, if the pair of numbers had to be returned, when no pair is found. The candidate describes a way to do it and then judges it unprompted: I mean it's not very elegant but it's workable. I dropped the opening I mean. The quotation is from the video's automatic captions.

4. After an answer, check whether they want more

Amazon's interview page advises: A good tip: Pause after your answer and ask if your interviewer would like more context. It gives no sentence, so I turned the advice directly into a question.

Can I also say it this way?

Say it again with different content

Read the Chinese, say it yourself, and then look at the reference version.

1. 我沒想過這個問題，不過我會說要看團隊。
   • I have never thought about that, but I'd say it depends on the team.
2. 我的猜測是少了索引。
   • My guess is that the index is missing.
3. 我沒用過那個框架，不過我會先做一個小東西。
   • I haven't worked with that framework before, but I'd approach it by building something small first.
4. 這個做法不太有效率，但行得通。
   • It's not very efficient, but it's workable.
5. 需要我講更多細節嗎？
   • Would you like more detail?

All five are source sentences with the content changed by me; none is quoted from a source.

A short dialogue

This is a practice example I wrote myself. It is not a real interview and not a dialogue from any teaching material.

A: Why do you think the page got slower after that release?

B: Let me think about that for a minute.

A: Sure, take your time.

B: My guess is that it's a caching problem.

A: We use our own caching library here. How would you get started with it?

B: I haven't worked with that library before, but I'd approach it by reading its docs first.

A: And the workaround you described earlier, what do you think of it now?

B: It's not very elegant, but it's workable. Would you like more context?

Without looking at the English, how would you say it?

The standard for rating yourself is whether you can get the meaning across, not whether the words match exactly.

Overall

Of the nine sentences, three are quoted from a source and six are adapted. The two to practice first are Let me think about that for a minute and My guess is that…: one buys time, and the other lets me keep going when I am not sure.

The evidence for this batch is thinner than for the earlier posts. The employers' official pages confirm that you may ask for time, ask questions, and admit what you do not know, but the sentences themselves come from language test advice and a dictionary. The only one actually said in an interview setting is it's not very elegant but it's workable, from Google's example interview.

Updates

• 2026-10-25: Joined the unified speaking series; moved research to-dos into working notes and retained the lesson’s source and use limitations.

References

• IDP IELTS: IELTS Speaking test: 10 tips from Experts: sentences for buying thinking time, and the advice to avoid fillers
• Google Careers: Interview prep: asking for clarity and for a few moments to collect your thoughts is okay
• Amazon: Interview loop: asking when you lack information, and checking after an answer whether the interviewer wants more context
• Northeastern University: Interview Type: Technical: the sentence for admitting you have not used a library
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: guess: the example for My guess is that…
• Life at Google: How to: Work at Google — Example Coding/Engineering Interview: admitting a design is not elegant when asked a follow-up about it