What to do with “be more specific”

You finish a practice answer and receive a page of suggestions. Add detail. Show leadership. Explain your impact. Be concise. Sound more confident.

You have to decide where to start. Trying to satisfy every instruction at once can produce an answer that is longer, more formal and harder to say.

Once you have checked that a criticism fits what you said, choose the missing information that would most help a listener understand your answer.

Find the question inside the criticism

“Be more specific” can mean several things. The listener might not know what happened, what you did, why you chose it or how you judged the result. These are different gaps. Adding a date will not clarify a decision. Adding a revenue figure will not reveal whose work you are describing.

The listener could not tell…	What to add	Check
What happened	Context	Can they picture the situation?
What you did	Your action	Can they name your contribution?
Why you chose it	The reason behind the decision	Can they follow your choice?
How you judged the result	What you observed afterwards	Can they see how you know?

Here is a fictional example. A candidate is asked, “Tell me about a time you helped coordinate a difficult handover.” They say: “We had a difficult handover, but I helped everyone communicate and we got it done.”

One repair adds context: two colleagues were leaving, the documentation was incomplete and a deadline was approaching. Another names the candidate’s action: they gathered unresolved questions, asked the outgoing owner to confirm each answer and assigned the remaining questions to named people.

Both could belong in the answer. For a question about how the candidate helped coordinate the handover, the action does more immediate work. Context explains the difficulty, but still leaves the listener wondering what the candidate contributed.

Turn the criticism into a question: “What did I do that changed how the handover worked?” Use that question to choose what to add.

Work out what information is missing

Before asking for better wording, explain the gap to yourself. What could the listener understand from the original answer? What important thing could they not understand? Which fact would change that?

In two work-simulation studies, Anseel and colleagues found that reflection after feedback improved performance more than feedback alone; reflection without feedback did not help in that task. Take a moment to explain what a specific criticism means for your answer before rewriting it. (Anseel and colleagues, 2009)

For the handover answer, the missing information is personal contribution. A revision could be: “I collected the unanswered questions into one checklist and asked the outgoing owner to confirm each answer. I then made the remaining owners explicit, so the team could see who needed to respond.”

The revision explains an action. A question about results would still need a separate answer: what changed after the checklist was introduced, and how does the candidate know?

You may discover that you cannot remember the detail the answer needs. Check your notes, reconstruct the sequence or choose another example. Verify the detail before adding it to a rewrite. If you never understood why the decision was made, understanding it is the next task.

Rehearse the change aloud

Put the draft away and answer aloud. Keep enough context for the listener to follow you, but resist importing every fact you found. This attempt has a clear purpose: make the contribution understandable.

Targeted skills improved, with extra support needed for some. The substantial training program used a repeated sequence: understand the target, attempt it, inspect the attempt and rehearse again. If you got no feedback at all, such as a generic rejection email, start by rebuilding one answer from memory and rehearse from there.

Ask something new

Now ask a different question about the action. For the handover: “How did you decide which unanswered question needed attention first?” This asks the candidate to explain a choice.

If that follow-up is difficult, identify why. You may remember the action but not the reason. You may have forgotten the order of events. Or the example may be a poor fit for what you are being asked. Check the memory, reconstruct the reasoning or choose a better-fitting example before revising again.

Leave the other suggestions for later

Write four short lines: the original passage, the missing information, the factual repair and one follow-up. Start the next session from those notes.

For vague advice such as “show more executive presence,” ask someone who understands the role what they had trouble following and which change would help. Get that explanation before rewriting again.

Other advice can wait because it matters less. A pause that lets you finish explaining a difficult choice may be acceptable. A missing action in an answer about your contribution deserves attention first.

Set a stopping point for this attempt. If your practice partner can identify what you did and why, you can move on to another detail or question. Compare the original passage with the retry. If the missing information is clear, choose the next part to work on.