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Expert breaks down brilliant way for answering the 'hardest interview question'

Career advisor Erin McGoff has some helpful info for navigating what she called one of the 'trickiest' parts of a job interview.

@advicewitherin/Instagram, used with permission

This part of the interview almost always comes up, and it's almost always uncomfortable.

Job hunting literally can feel like you’re out in the Sahara scavenging for your next meal…all the while knowing that there are dozens of other hunters just as starving as you are, and that there doesn’t seem to be enough morsels to go around. It all makes one anxiety-laden psychic landmine, forgive the mix of metaphors.

Even after you’ve used all the tips and tricks to make your resume stand out in a sea of other applications, using every viable SEO keyword you can scrounge up, and you do finally get the coveted interview, the stress is far from over. Certain questions feel more like traps than anything else.

But just like everything in life, a little prep, along with some expert advice, goes a long way.

Erin McGoff, aka “your internet big sister,” has all kinds of strategies for building a fulfilling career, not least of which being acing interviews.

In her mind, salary expectations are one of the “trickiest” parts of the interview to navigate.

While it might be tempting to try to give a direct number, McGoff explains how that might not be the best route to go, since that puts you at risk of being “low balled” by the company, or being written off as too expensive.

In addition, McGoff advises against:

Telling them what you currently make
Saying you “hope” or “wish” for
Being unprepared
Saying you’ll take whatever

Instead, McGoff offers a few other polite, professional scripts to use that invite more “negotiation power.”

When potential employers bring the subject up, respond with “Thank you so much for bringing that up. I would love to know the approved salary range for the position."

If the response to that is something to the effect of “there isn't a set range” or “it depends on the candidate” you can say: "Got it. Well, my salary range is flexible but I'd like to learn more about the specifics of the role before giving out a solid number."

You can also give the price range of other companies you’re applying to, McGoff says. And perhaps most importantly, she recommends reiterating that you’re “flexible on salary depending on other elements of the compensation package."

This all comes with the caveat that employers “should” be listing the salary range upfront in the job description.

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This mentality is seconded by Joyel Crawford, a career coach and host of the podcast Career View Mirror, who told The Muse that giving a finite number “limits your ability to make something work with the company.”

In the same interview, Crawford mentions that it’s also worth noting that compensation can be given in other ways, depending on your values. Perhaps you can be flexible in salary to a job with a high amount of paid time off, year end bonuses, childcare benefits, etc.

Bottom line: job interviews are tough, but that’s why having some strategies in place to bring your best, even when nerves are triggered, is so important.

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6 unexpected and life-changing things I learned while living in a monastery.

One man explains what it's really like to live in a monastery.

In 2010, a medication-resistant form of epilepsy terrorized me.

Facing the prospect of a near-permanent state of illness, I longed for respite. I needed something — anything — to calm me down.

I had been reading the works of Christian and Buddhist monks for years, but I had never actually visited a monastery.

So I decided in a moment of panic: Why not take a retreat to a monastic community?

I knew there were some monasteries in the U.S. that invited guests to visit, so I contacted a monastery I had been following and arranged for a five-day retreat.

The view from the retreat center at the monastery. Photo by Tim Lawrence, used with permission.

During my first visit, I found myself surrounded by some of the most loving men I had ever encountered. To my delight, many of my epileptic symptoms subsided during my stay, too. I wasn’t cured by any means, but the lack of stress and centering nature of the monastery seemed to temporarily clothe me in a blanket of inner peace that I desperately needed.

And after the first retreat, I longed to have the chance to experience what this monastic life was truly like for more than a few days. After several more short retreats, I came across a program at a monastery in Boston that allowed just that.

With a handful of young people, I prepared to live alongside monks for nine months.

When I walked into the monastery on that first day, I was nervous. I had no idea what to expect. But by the time I left, I couldn't imagine my life without that time spent at the monastery.

The experience both frustrated me and blew me away: It forced me to confront my fears, examine my motivations, and take stock of how I really lived my life in a way that no other experience ever had.

Here are a few of the things I learned:

1. Living in silence is really powerful.

After the last service of the day, called the Greater Silence, complete silence was observed for 12 hours until the morning. Although the community members did speak during the day, both the monks and residents were encouraged to keep our speaking to a minimum in order to preserve an atmosphere of mindfulness and refuge for both the community and its guests.

Unexpectedly, this quiet is what I have missed most since leaving.

At the monastery, I was more present in the moment. When my dear friend Amelia lost a loved one, I found myself far more available to her. When my friend Daniel and I found ourselves with the opportunity to talk for extended periods of time during breaks at the monastery, we spoke to each other more slowly, and with far more honesty, than we normally would in the outside world.

What I learned is that silence forced me to change because I was actually living differently. I became more confident because I was less inclined to seek out the approval of others through empty words. I also chose my words carefully when I did speak, and I spoke with more authority.

2. I felt less lonely than I thought I would.

I initially worried that being cloistered at the monastery would cause me to be intensely lonely. However, although I was disconnected from the outside world for much of the time, I felt less lonely than I had in the "real world."

Why? I think it’s because the monastic community nourished me and loved me with abandon. The fact that I felt so grounded much of the time was a testament to the power of people actively connecting with one another, with intention.

3. Living minimally was freeing.

I had been living as a nomad with few possessions before I went to the monastery, but I had never embraced anything resembling a vow of poverty. And although I wasn’t obligated to partake in a formal vow of poverty, I still chose to live as simply as possible while I was there.

When you live with few possessions in a sparse, basic cell, your need for "things" dissipates rapidly. You become more adaptable, and you find that rather than trying to attain more, you learn to want what you already have. I found this to be liberating and beautiful.

4. Giving up some personal freedom for the sake of community wasn’t stifling.

In our rampantly individualistic culture, it’s easy to prize personal freedom above all else. Yet when you live in community, the needs of the community are placed above the desires of the individual. This was incredibly challenging and freeing for me because I was often asked to forego some of my own desires for the sake of the community.

I couldn’t dash off whenever I wanted, and I was expected to be present for all community activities, so I had to become willing to sacrifice some of my own selfishness in order to serve my peers. I was a part of something larger than myself, and that meant that I had to shed some of my self-absorption for the sake of others every single day.

5. My appreciation of time shifted.

The writer Sarah Manguso has said, "Time isn’t made of moments; it contains moments. There is more to it than moments."

I never understood this until I saw it in the monastery. In monastic life there’s always a "next thing" — another activity to devote one’s focus to over and over again. Whether I was chanting or eating a meal, I was expected to be fully present there, and then to let it go once it was over. Because the days were so structured, I was forced to become one with the moments I was experiencing; the "next thing" always demanded my full attention.

Time is taken more seriously as a resource in a monastery, which is something I took with me after I left.

6. Most of the spiritual "myths" about monasteries aren’t true.

I quickly found that many of my assumptions about monastic life were wrong. Contrary to what some people might think, living with monks isn’t a series of mountaintop experiences where you’re free to deepen your spirituality unimpeded by the difficulties of daily life.

In fact, the grind of life can be even more present in a monastery because everyone is expected to contribute in a series of repetitive duties. Monastic life is rhythmical, and monks hold that rhythm sacred. All services, meals, and chores are held at specific times with only occasional deviation.

To my surprise, this rhythm served as a great catalyst for personal transformation, though. In monastic life, I was taught not to separate "spiritual" time from "normal" time but to explore the vagaries of my spiritual life precisely when I was doing mundane, trivial work. This turned out to not only be enriching but life-changing.

My moments of greatest peace and transcendence came when I was cleaning out a kitchen or raking leaves or sitting in a chapel, alone, reflecting on my infinitesimal place in the world.

I learned to feel adequate in what could easily be described as an inadequate setting.

The transition out of the monastery wasn’t easy.

I left early because of my epilepsy; the long 16-hour days took a toll on me. I remember going to New York shortly after leaving and feeling a strong sense of panic: I was panicked because everyone else seemed so panicked. Society seemed strained to me, and I had a difficult time adjusting to "civilian life" again.

It took a few months to find my footing and to retain my monastic identity in a world that seems to place so much value on what monasticism has little need for — namely: status, wealth, and success.

But shortly before I left, the wisest monk I know told me something that made me weep, something that I will take with me everywhere: He said that I was a walking miracle.

This stopped me in my tracks because his words showed that he had chosen to love me as unconditionally as an imperfect, fragile human is capable of. This is a rare thing.

Me with the superior at the monastery. Photo via Tim Lawrence, used with permission.

My experience in the monastery revealed more of our human ability to love and be loved than I've ever seen before.

I was forced to evaluate how I related to the world not just for a day, but continually. I didn’t rise above all of my weaknesses or transform my entire life, but that was OK. I am deeply indebted to my fellow brothers and residents for caring for me so thoroughly.

In the end, I found the courage to experience being alive differently. The change was subtle yet profound, and I will carry that with me forever.

A Mother's Day celebration of brave, badass single moms everywhere.

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When I was a child, I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with my mother.

Sometimes, the sound of her keys unlocking the door late at night was all I heard from her. When my parents’ marriage ended, my mother worked day and night to support us. I remember her handwriting — from all the little notes she left us about dinner and chores — better than I remember her beauty regimens or her favorite meals.

I used to wish that things were different. If she hadn’t worked so much, she could have been home to teach me the things that moms usually make sure to teach their daughters. I used to feel like I missed out.

Image via iStock.

But now I realize that even though my mother didn’t have a lot of time to spend with me, she was always teaching me something important.

1. My mother didn’t teach me secret recipes.

There’s no secret to rice or ramen or spaghetti. She showed me how to cook ground beef and pour a jar of sauce on top of it. My sister and I would take turns picking out a box of cereal every week, and we were never allowed to have more than one bowl for breakfast. We rarely got to pick what we wanted for dinner. Sometimes she left a box of macaroni and cheese on the table for us to cook for dinner while she was at work.

I don’t have family recipes to pass down to my children, but I teach them my mother’s sense of duty and responsibility. My exhausted mother rarely indulged us with a comforting home-cooked meal, but she worked tirelessly to make sure that we were never hungry.

2. My mother didn’t often have time to play with me.

In my fondest playtime memories, she is absent. I remember when she’d emerge from her bedroom, tired and groggy, preparing to leave us for the entire day again. She never sat and played with dolls or pretended to have tea parties. If I asked her to play, she would say, “Where is your sister? I have to get ready.”

And so my sister became my companion, an extension of myself, my other half.

Image via iStock.

Instead of waiting for time with my mother, my sister and I took care of each other. We woke, we cooked, we played, we cleaned, and we fell asleep always together. The love we built throughout our childhood made us inseparable. My mother made sure my sister and I took care of each other. She couldn’t entertain me, but I was never alone and she made sure that I always knew that.

3. We didn’t take family vacations.

My mother was too busy working. My summers were spent in our apartment or outside playing with neighborhood kids. Sometimes I spent the whole day at the restaurant where she worked.

We didn’t have many beach days or family trips, but when she had the time to take us to the park for a picnic, it was enchanting. My mother could make a frugal day seem like a lavish outing. When she would take us to McDonald's or let us get ice cream, I felt like royalty. My childhood memories aren’t filled with vacations or grand adventures, but my sweet mother showed me how to find joy in the simplest things.

4. My mother didn’t make sure life was easy for me.

She worked and slept and worked and slept for most of my childhood. She didn’t have time to shield me from many things kids shouldn’t know or see. There were times when both of us were deeply hurt and broken. She couldn’t stop the world to soothe me, but she showed me how to find the will to carry on. When my mother’s heart was broken, when she grieved and when she was weary, she never let her sorrow overcome her. She faced each day with determination.

She showed me that through hard days, you can just go through the motions. On other days, your will can be strong and steady. And on really bad days, you can get through even if you barely make it. I never knew the feeling of a coddled, carefree childhood, but my unstoppable mother showed me how to dig deep and find my own strength.

5. My mother didn’t have time to teach me how to be a "lady."

When it came to navigating traditional aspects of femininity, I was pretty much on my own. She didn’t show me how to put on makeup. The pretty dresses she owned became dusty on hangers in her closet because there was rarely an occasion to wear them.

What I learned from my mother, though, was how to be a bold woman.

She fearlessly showed me her strong yet breakable heart, time after time. She taught me how to rise to an occasion: crisis, joy, terror, or celebration and look straight into it, ready and able.

Photo via Nuffer/Pixabay.

My mother danced in our living room. She wept in our kitchen. She raged when she was angry. She fought when she was attacked. Her laughter echoed through our home when she was joyful.

She wasn’t always right and she wasn’t always wrong. But my bold, authentic mother was always a woman, always herself.

Now, I have children of my own and I have precious time to spend with them.

The mornings when my tired mother would emerge from her bedroom are long gone too. Now my mother is retired, and she gets to sleep as late as she wants. But like every mother, she often wonders if she did enough for me. She worries that we missed so much and tells me she wishes she could go back in time.

When I look back, though, I see an unbreakable, courageous woman. I see the kind of strength that builds a legacy. I see a mother who didn't have a lot and gave everything she had. I see love poured out through hard work and small joys.

I hope my children say the same about me.