What to say when you don’t know the answer in an interview

Sooner or later an interview throws one at you: a tool you have never opened, a term you half remember from college, a number from your last job you never wrote down, or a “what would you do if” about a situation you have never been in. This is not a freeze. You simply do not know, and the interviewer is waiting. One person on Blind asked the question behind most of these worries in a post titled:

“Not able to answer interview questions”

Blind

Their real question was whether a company will still hire you if you miss some questions but do well on the rest. This guide answers that, then gives a three-part reply for almost any gap, exact words for eight common cases, a method for technical rounds, and an email to send afterwards with the answer you did not have.

Do interviewers expect you to know everything?

No, and many interviews are designed so that you will not. Google’s public guide to structured interviewing on its re:Work site tells interviewers that they “may not be looking to assess a correct answer, but instead want to judge the analytical thought process.” The same guide asks interviewers to score answers against a rubric that spells out “what a poor, borderline, solid, and outstanding answer would cover,” and to use hypothetical questions to see how a candidate “would respond to novel situations.” In other words, some questions are meant to be about situations you have not met before.

Recruiters say the same in plainer words. In a Welcome to the Jungle article on this exact question, training firm co-founder Maxime Thomas said that “it’s a very good sign when a person acknowledges not knowing something,” and recruiter Ruth Cimpoy put it simply: “An interview is not an exam. It is, above all, an exchange.” Thomas also described hiring someone who had bluffed through the interview and had to let them go weeks later because they could not do the work.

Indian HR leaders agree, with one important condition. Speaking to HRKatha, Manu Wadhwa, CHRO of Sony Pictures Networks, advised candidates to “choose authenticity over showcasing shallow depth.” But about a skill the role depends on, Wadhwa added: “If it’s core to the role, then one cannot help it.” Not knowing a side topic is forgivable. Not knowing the main thing the job needs is a real gap, and no phrasing hides it.

What they test when you hit a gap comes down to three things:

• Honesty. Will this person tell me when they are out of their depth, or make something up?
• Reasoning. Faced with something new, can they break it down, use what they do know and reach a sensible next step?
• Learning. Do they know how they would close the gap, and are they curious rather than defensive?

That is why the recruiters quoted here would rather hear a clear “I don’t know” followed by good reasoning than a confident bluff.

How do you respond if you don’t know the answer in an interview?

Use three short moves, in this order. Together they take about twenty seconds.

Before the first move, check that you actually do not know. Often the interviewer is using their company’s name for something you know by another name, and a clarifying question settles it: “When you say reconciliation, do you mean matching the bank statement to the ledger, or something specific to your system?” Sometimes the answer turns out to be something you have done many times.

Here is the full pattern in one answer. The question: “Have you worked with Kubernetes?”

“Not directly, no. I’ve deployed our services with Docker Compose, so I understand containers, images and environment config. I know Kubernetes manages containers across many machines, but I haven’t written its config files myself. If the role needs it, I’d start with a small cluster on my own laptop and move one of our services onto it. Is it something the team uses daily?”

Nothing in it is made up, there is no apology, and the closing question hands the conversation back.

If you don’t know the answer, what do you reply? Phrases for each case

The pattern stays the same, but the words change with the gap. Pick the lines that fit and say them in your own voice.

1. A total gap: you have never heard of it

• “I haven’t come across that term. Could you tell me a little about what it refers to? Then I can tell you what I’d do with it.”
• “That’s new to me, so I won’t guess. I’ll look it up after today, and I’d like to know how your team uses it.”

If they explain it, reason about it out loud. Recruiter Tejal Wagadia, quoted by HuffPost, suggested a version that also signals intent: “I don’t know that yet, but I’m willing to learn that skillset.”

2. You know half of it

• “I know part of this. I’ll tell you what I’m sure of and then where I’m less sure.”
• “My understanding is that it does X. I’m less certain about how it handles Y, so I’d check that before relying on it.”

Marking the line between what you know and what you think shows judgement. Minakshi Arora, CHRO of Trident Group India, told HRKatha that a candidate who says the answer may be this but they are “not the subject matter expert” comes across as more honest.

3. A technical concept or tool you have not used

• “I haven’t used Tableau, but I’ve built the same kind of dashboards in Power BI: the data model, the filters, the refresh schedule. I’d expect most of that to carry over.”
• “I haven’t worked with that library. For the same problem, I used X, which solves it by… Is yours similar?”
• “I know the idea in theory but haven’t applied it in a project, so I’ll explain it the way I understand it.”

A tool question is often about the work the tool does, so talk about that work and say what you would still need to learn.

4. A behavioural question with no matching experience

“Tell me about a time you managed a team.” You have never managed anyone. Do not invent a story: follow-up questions about who, when and what happened next take apart a made-up example quickly. HR consultant Daniel Space, also in the HuffPost piece, suggested this line instead: “I haven’t been placed in that situation specifically yet, but here’s how I think I would handle it.” Then give your plan, and if you can, add the closest real thing:

• “I haven’t managed people formally. The closest was leading three classmates on our final-year project, where I split the work and ran the weekly check-ins. Here’s what I learned from that.”

5. “What would you do if…” questions

“I accidentally torpedoed my own interview and somehow got the job anyway.”

Reddit

That post was about a scenario question in a final round for a data analytics role. Many hypotheticals have more than one reasonable answer, so the interviewer is listening to how you get to yours. So reason out loud:

• “I haven’t faced that exact situation, so let me think it through. First I’d want to know…”
• “It depends on one thing: is the deadline fixed? If it is, I’d… If not, I’d…”

State what you would find out first, the options you see, which one you would pick and why, and what you would watch for afterwards.

6. A number you cannot recall

• “I don’t have the exact figure in front of me. It was roughly 30 percent, and I can confirm the exact number by email.”
• “I don’t remember the precise revenue, but the team was eight people and the account was our largest in the region, which gives you the scale.”

Give a rough figure only if you are confident in it, and say it is approximate. Never invent a precise number, and check every number on your CV before the interview, because you may be asked how you measured it.

7. A question about the company you cannot answer

• “I know you launched the new payments product last year and that it’s aimed at small shops. I didn’t find how it’s doing so far. How has it gone?”
• “I read about your expansion into Pune, but I don’t know much about how this team fits into it. Could you tell me?”

Career counsellor Lily Zhang, writing for The Muse, suggests leaning on the research you have done about the company and its industry when a knowledge question catches you out. With no research at all, this gap reads as low interest, so spend thirty minutes on the company’s site and news first.

8. A question you did not catch, in your second language

Sometimes the gap is not knowledge but hearing: a fast speaker, a strong accent, patchy audio, or one key word you did not recognise. Asking is normal, and far safer than answering the wrong question.

• “Sorry, the audio broke up for a second. Could you repeat the last part?”
• “Could you say that another way? I want to make sure I answer the right thing.”
• “Just to confirm, you’re asking how I’d test it, not how I’d build it?”
• “I didn’t catch the word after ‘payment’. Could you spell it?”

Mary Abbajay, president of Careerstone Group, noted in the HuffPost piece that asking for a question to be repeated also buys you time to think. If English is not your first language, our page for non-native English speakers has more on following fast interviewers.

How do you think aloud in a coding or system design round?

In technical rounds the interviewer can see you are stuck but not what you are thinking, so make your thinking audible. Google software engineer Leann Johnson, in a post on Google’s own blog, advised candidates to practise speaking out loud while solving problems and said plainly: “Getting a few hints is OK.”

Start with clarifying questions

Before writing anything, ask about inputs, sizes and edge cases. Can the array be empty? Are there duplicates? How many users are we designing for? Amazon’s recruiters, in a list of tips for software engineers, say that taking a moment for questions gives you “a much-needed breather.” The answers also often point you towards the approach.

State your assumptions out loud

If something is unclear and you cannot get an answer, assume, and say so: “I’ll assume the list fits in memory. If it doesn’t, I’d change this part.” In system design assumptions drive many of the choices: “Let me assume ten thousand requests a second at peak and mostly reads. That points me towards caching.” If the interviewer disagrees with an assumption, they will correct it, and you learn something about the problem.

Give the brute force first

If you do not see the clever solution, say the obvious slow one and its cost: “The simple way is to compare every pair, which is n squared. Let me get that working, then look for something faster.” A working slow answer is something to improve. A blank editor while you search for the perfect idea gives the interviewer much less to go on.

When you hit a concept you do not know

For more on these rounds, see technical interviews, and if yours is in a few days, the coding interview in one week plan covers how to practise talking while you code.

What not to do when you don’t know

Do not bluff

Several of the recruiters quoted on this page warn against it directly. Matt Opramolla, a recruiter with experience at Google and Indeed, told Fast Company Middle East that when candidates talk around a question as if they know it, “Interviewers are trained to spot this like a hawk.” Former Amazon, Meta and Google recruiting leader Holly Lee offered a cleaner line in the same piece: “I actually don’t have that experience. Can I talk about something relevant?” A bluff also has a second cost: if it works, you may be hired into work you cannot yet do.

Do not ramble

Two minutes of talking around a question feels safer than a short admission, but interviewers notice an answer going in circles, and it eats time you could spend on questions you can answer well. Three sentences (admit, bridge, next step), then stop.

Do not apologise again and again

One “sorry” is polite. Five make a small gap the thing the interviewer remembers. “I haven’t used that” needs no apology.

Do not go silent, and do not stop at “I don’t know”

A long silence and a bare “I don’t know” have the same problem: they give the interviewer nothing. Opramolla called the bare version a conversation ender. If you need a few seconds, say so, then think. If the silence comes from panic rather than a real gap, that is a different problem, and our guide on what to do when your mind goes blank covers the nerves side.

How do you follow up after the interview with the answer?

A question you could not answer in the room can still be answered the same evening. Career Contessa’s guide to replacing “I don’t know” suggests using the thank-you note to do exactly that, and it shows you followed up on your own.

Do thank-you notes matter at all? Two older surveys, both from 2017, say they can: an Accountemps survey of more than 300 HR managers and a TopResume survey of 358 recruiters and hiring managers. Both advise sending it within 24 hours. Treat these as a reason to send one, not a promise.

Here is an example for the “number you could not recall” case:

Subject: Thank you, and the figure you asked about

Hi Priya,

Thank you for your time today. I enjoyed hearing how your team is moving the monthly reports onto the new system.

You asked how much our new process cut report turnaround at my last job, and I didn’t have the exact figure. I checked: it went from four working days to one and a half, across about 120 reports a month. The biggest gain came from automating the data pull, which sounds close to what your team is planning.

Thanks again. I look forward to hearing about the next steps.

Rahul

A few rules for this email:

• Answer one question, briefly. Two or three sentences on the gap, not a rewritten interview.
• Show you learned it, not just looked it up. For a concept, explain it in your own words and connect it to their work or yours. For a tool, say what you tried (“I set up a small test project with it tonight”).
• Send it to the person who interviewed you, or to the recruiter if you do not have their email, and ask them to pass it on.

Not knowing the answer as a fresher in India

Freshers often face this, because the interview can cover four years of college subjects. Campus and off-campus drives at large IT service companies often include a technical round and an HR round, sometimes with a managerial round in between, though the rounds vary by company. Our fresher interview guide explains how those rounds work. Here is how to handle gaps in each.

In the technical round

Questions usually come from your CV and your core subjects: DBMS, OOP, operating systems, networks, one programming language and your final-year project.

• Only list what you can defend. Everything on your CV is fair game. If you put “machine learning” there because of one online course, expect questions on it. Remove anything you cannot explain for two minutes.
• Rate yourself honestly. If you are asked to rate yourself in Java out of ten and you say nine, expect the questions that follow to get harder. A seven you can back up with solid answers is a better outcome.

When a question goes past your syllabus:

• “Sir, we didn’t cover that topic in depth. What I know is that normalisation reduces repeated data by splitting it into related tables. I can explain up to third normal form with an example.”
• “Ma’am, I haven’t used that in a project. In my project I used MySQL with simple joins. Shall I explain how I designed those tables?”

The second line steers the talk to your project, which many interviewers want to hear about anyway.

In the HR round

HR gaps are usually company facts: “Who is our CEO?”, “What do you know about our clients?” Use the company knowledge lines above: say what you did read, then ask. “Sir” and “ma’am” are common in Indian interviews and keep the tone respectful. The thing to drop is the chain of “sorry sir” that many freshers fall into after one missed question.

How does PiriPiri AI help when you don’t know the answer?

PiriPiri AI is a desktop app for Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 14.2 or later and 64-bit Windows 10 or 11. It listens to both sides of a live call (your microphone and the interviewer’s audio on your computer), transcribes them in English, and drafts a short answer on a small floating overlay. The draft uses the CV, job description and role you added, so it can point you to your own material: the project that matches a question, or the tool you used instead of the one they named. That is the “bridge” step from this page, ready on screen. Check any detail in it against what you actually did before you say it.

• A question you were not ready for. With auto answer on, a draft starts when the app detects a question. If it does not, press Answer now (Cmd+Shift+Enter on Mac; Windows uses Ctrl in place of Cmd for every hotkey here).
• Written and coding questions. Analyze screen (Cmd+Shift+Space) reads a coding or written question off your screen and suggests an approach, which can help you get from a blank editor to a stated brute force.
• When they push for detail. Deep dive (Cmd+Shift+6) asks again for a longer answer.
• For the follow-up email. The transcript and notes are saved to your account after the call, so you can find the question you missed and answer it properly that evening. The transcript is machine-made, so it can mishear a word.

No meeting bot joins, and it works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex and others. The overlay asks the operating system to leave it out of screen capture, so it does not appear when you share your screen or record in the usual way. On Windows 10 (version 2004) and later the window is removed from captures. Developer documentation for this setting notes that some newer Mac capture tools may still pick such windows up, so do a test call with a friend on the exact app you will use before you rely on it.

Be clear about the limits. It cannot give you knowledge you do not have: a summary of a tool you never used falls apart at the first follow-up, so the honest reply pattern still applies. Reading a draft word for word sounds rehearsed, so glance at it, take the one fact you needed and answer in your own words. And some employers, online tests and platforms do not allow outside help or AI tools, so check the rules for each round before you use it. More on the setup in how to use it.

Questions people ask

Where to go next

Most gaps feel smaller when the rest of your preparation is solid, so work through how to prepare for an interview. If the interview is tomorrow, the interview tomorrow guide covers what to do in the hours you have. For story questions, see behavioural interviews.

PiriPiri AI costs about $2.50 an interview, paid in one-time packs that never expire, so no subscription is required. Every new account starts with 3 free sessions, so you can try it in a mock interview before a real one. See pricing, prices in India and the refund terms.

Keep reading

• Mind goes blank in an interview? What to say
• Live help in technical interviews
• Live help for one interview, no monthly plan