Are you answering the question?

I've recently been practicing for interviews by writing down responses to common interview questions and then attempting to recite them live (while recording myself to learn from my mistakes).

One thing I’ve noticed is that I tend to use far too many words to explain an idea. (Which wears me out and makes it harder to talk and think.)

Another thing I’ve noticed is that many of my answers to these questions aren’t actually answering anything. Instead of answering the question, I tend to talk about all sorts of contextual things that have very little to do with the answer.

I’m not answering the question so much as explaining how I arrived at the answer. Dumb.

I suppose not answering the question explicitly is the talking equivalent of not listening. Meaning, it's all fun and games until someone picks up on it.

Food for thought.