In addition to empathy, there are four other intangible fundamentals to a successful interview. These intangibles will influence the way your personality is perceived, and will affect the degree of rapport, or personal chemistry you'll share with the employer.

• Present your background in a thorough and accurate manner;
• Gather data concerning the company, the industry, the position, and the specific opportunity;
• Link your abilities with the company needs in the mind of the employer; and
• Build a strong case for why the company should hire you, based on the discoveries you make from building rapport and asking the right questions.

The reason you should respond this way is because it's often difficult to know what type of answer each question will need. A question like, "What was your most difficult assignment?" might take anywhere from thirty seconds to thirty minutes to answer, depending on the detail you choose to give.

Therefore, you must always remember that the interviewer's the one who asked the question. So you should tailor your answer to what he or she needs to know, without a lot of extraneous rambling or superfluous explanation. Why waste time and create a negative impression by giving a sermon when a short prayer would do just fine?

Let's suppose you were interviewing for a nurse management position, and the interviewer asked you, "What sort of nursing management skills have you had in the past?"

Well, that's exactly the sort of question that can get you into trouble if you don't use the short version/long version method. Most people would just start rattling off everything in their memory that relates to their nursing management experience. Though the information might be useful to the interviewer, your answer could get pretty complicated and long-winded unless it's neatly packaged.

One way to answer the question might be, "I've held nurse manager positions with three different hospitals over a nine-year period. Where would you like me to start?"

Or, you might simply say, "Let me give you the short version first, and you can tell me where you want to go into more depth. I've had nine years experience in nursing management with three different health care facilities and held the titles of Charge Nurse, Nurse Manager, and Director of all of the ICU units I have worked in. What aspect of my background would you like to concentrate on?"

By using this method, you telegraph to the interviewer that your thoughts are well organized, and that you want to understand the intent of the question before you travel too far in a direction neither of you wants to go. After you get the green light, you can spend your interviewing time discussing in detail the things that are important, not whatever happens to pop into your mind.

I've got a friend who's the hiring manager of a large hospital in New York City. He told me once that he brought a candidate into his office to make him a job offer. An hour later, the candidate left. I asked my friend if he had hired the candidate.

"No," he said. "I tried. But the candidate wouldn't stop talking long enough for me to make him an offer."

Don't misinterpret me. I'm not suggesting that an interview should consist of a series of monosyllabic grunts. It's just that nothing turns off an employer faster than a windbag candidate. By using the short version/long version method to answer questions, you'll never talk yourself out of a job.

Beware: An interview will quickly disintegrate into an interrogation or monologue unless you ask some high quality questions of your own. Candidate questions are the lifeblood of any successful interview, because they:

Whatever you do, do not say anything negative about any personal experiences with your last employer. Nobody likes a candidate that is quick to badmouth their current or previous employers. State the reason you are looking to leave for a better career opportunity.