After reading an article by business performance management consultant and executive coach Dan Coughlin on how to handle difficult corporate situations, it struck me how that same advice does not always apply to interviewing.<---Break!---> Coughlin recommends confronting difficult situations head-on, such as when a peer is degrading your efforts around the office. But in job interviews, being direct isn't always the right approach. Some questions and situations surface during job interviews that you simply should not discuss. I've encountered a few recently during my job search. I share them with you here to show why the direct approach didn’t work, along with some advice on how to handle these scenarios.

We’ve all had times when our gut reaction is to avoid someone. But what should you do when your gut is telling you during an interview that there are some serious issues with the management team, such as an internal power struggle, or a high-maintenance individual on your new team that you would be expected to “handle”? Some people would likely avoid bringing up the issue of the management team's infighting during the interview, but then politely decline further interviews with that company. Based on my personal experience, I recommend you follow your instincts and do exactly that. I recently had two opportunities where something about the team dynamics didn’t feel or sound right. In one case I followed my own advice. In the other, the position looked ideal for my technical- and client-building skills and was with a firm that had created this new position due to its growth, so I decided to take a chance and find out more. I needed to know if the situation and the person in question could adversely affect my ability to perform in the position. As you would expect, the discussion became awkward. And while the rest of my interviews with this firm were great, I was not asked to the final interview stage. In hindsight, I should have left it alone and walked away, rather than potentially burning a bridge or a networking relationship.

Or, there may be other barriers presented that could prevent or make it very difficult to succeed. On an initial interview with a recruiter, I was given all the position specifications but the recruiter refused to provide the name of the client firm. I certainly can understand an independent recruiter worrying about the potential loss of revenue if a prospect bypassed the recruiter and presented themselves directly to the client firm. Despite my reassurances, the recruiter remained silently adamant on the company name. His reticence completely negated my ability to prepare for my next interviews: Without knowing the name of the firm, I couldn't do much research. In prior similar situations I have been able to gain the trust of the recruiter during the course of our interview and generally learn the firm’s name. So as this interview with the recruiter progressed I later asked about the industry this position would need expertise in. And again, I was met with silence. At this point, my gut was screaming “back away.” Somewhere between me and the hiring manager was a severe trust issue that I simply did not want to deal with. Perhaps this recruiter had been burned recently by a prospect, or he had not yet built up a trust relationship with his client firm. Either way, as a job-seeker I need to be able to trust that a recruiter will

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