In this article
Before you start
Why interviewers ask this
Interviewers ask how you influence people you have never worked with because most real work needs help from people who do not report to you. A Harvard Business Review article (Johnson, 2008) says success often hinges on the cooperation of people across the organization over whom you have no formal authority. Candidates report this prompt in behavioral rounds at large tech companies.
Behavioral interviewing rests on the premise that past behavior is a guide to future behavior. A weak answer says "I explained the benefits and they agreed." It names no person, no move and no result. A strong answer names what you gave first, the goal you shared, the one thing you asked for and what changed. The Harvard Chan page, crediting Harvard Business Review, lists two obstacles that interviewers may probe: a silo mindset and urgent work that crowds out relationship-building.
Influence with strangers from first principles
- Reciprocity
- Reciprocity is a persuasion principle, the rule that obliges a person to repay what another person has given them. It is why giving first, whether help, information or a favor, can make a later request easier to grant than a cold request from a stranger.
- Reactance
- Reactance is the motivational state a person feels when they sense a threat to their freedom to choose, which pushes them to resist. A stranger who feels instructed tends to push back, so influence without a title works by inviting a choice, not by issuing an instruction.
- Unity
- Unity is a persuasion principle meaning a shared identity, a sense of partnership or a set of goals with someone else. With a stranger it gives you a legitimate opening, because a goal you both hold turns your request into part of their work, not a favor to you.
In plain words
Imagine a new neighbor you need to ask to move their car for a delivery. If your first words are a demand, they bristle. Suppose you first told them the street-cleaning schedule. Now your request sounds like part of a friendly exchange. The analogy breaks at work. A neighbor has no deadlines, but a colleague's team has priorities that your request must fit.
Put precisely, you influence a stranger by giving first and tying your request to a shared goal. You then ask for one small action and respect their freedom to choose.
Step 1: Give before you ask
Giving first comes before any ask. The Cialdini Institute defines reciprocity as "the rule that obliges us to repay what another person has given us" and sums up the advice as "Give first" (Cialdini Institute, accessed 2026-10-26). In practice the gift is small: the answer to a question their team keeps getting, a summary of a document they need, an introduction, or the time to learn what they are trying to ship.
Input: a person you have never met and something you want. Output: one useful act, done before the ask. Strangers are harder than colleagues because there is no history, and the Harvard Chan page notes that urgent work often crowds out the long project of building relationships. So make the gift quick and cheap for you. In the interview, say what you gave and why you chose it. You now have a reason for the stranger to listen.
Step 2: Find a goal you share
A shared goal gives the stranger a reason to act. The W. P. Carey School of Business defines unity as "sharing an identity, sense of partnership, or set of goals with someone else" and groups it with liking and reciprocity under relationship building.
Input: what you learned while giving. Output: one sentence that states a goal both sides want, such as fewer support tickets or a faster release. Ask the person what they are measured on, then look for the overlap with your own aim. If there is no overlap, say so and look for another route before you ask; a request that serves only you is the one a stranger declines. In your story, name the shared goal in plain words. The next step turns it into a request.
Step 3: Ask for one small, specific action
The ask is one small, specific action. Steindl et al. (2015) describe reactance as the motivational state aroused when a person's freedom of behavior is threatened. So a big demand or a pull of rank tends to backfire, while a narrow request with a choice of how or when leaves their freedom intact.
The same W. P. Carey page puts authority and social proof under reducing uncertainty. A stranger does not know if your request is safe, so a true note that a person they trust supports it, or that similar teams have done it, lowers the risk. Input: the shared goal. Output: one request they can grant in a short time. Never exaggerate the backing. Naming who truly supports the request is fine; pulling rank ("leadership wants this done") is what backfires.
Step 4: Tell it as a story, with action longest
A strong spoken answer is a short story in which your own actions take about half the time. The structure is called STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result), and the University of Cincinnati guide says to focus on your individual contributions and use "I" instead of "we."
Northwestern's guide gives rough shares of 15% for situation, 10% for task, 50% for action and 25% for result, and says action should always be the longest part. The University of Wisconsin guide gives 15, 15, 50 and 20 instead, so treat the split as a convention.
Step-by-step description
- Help or share information before you ask.
- State a goal you both want.
- Request one specific action.
- Use I, and make action the longest part.
- Giving first comes before any ask.
- A shared goal gives the stranger a reason to act.
- The ask is one small, specific action.
- The story spends about half its time on action.
A 60 second answer spends about 30 seconds on action. A 90 second answer spends about 45 seconds on action.1
Text description of the diagram
- A 60 second answer spends about 30 seconds on action.
- A 90 second answer spends about 45 seconds on action.
Knowing it is half the job. Saying it is the other half.
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Start Free Trial →The Staff-level answer
How do you influence people you've never worked with?
Last year our signup flow was losing users, and the fix needed an event feed from a platform team I had never worked with. They did not report to me and had their own queue. First I spent a week learning their goals, and I wrote the schema document they kept postponing. They were measured on tickets about missing events, so I framed the request around cutting those. They worried about schema churn, so I asked for one versioned event and offered a choice of two dates. They shipped it, signup completion recovered from 61 to 74 percent, and I kept sending them the results, so the next request was easy.
The scenario and the figures in this answer are illustrative. What makes it Staff-level is that the ask is cut to fit how they resisted, and that you kept the relationship alive after the result, so influence compounds. It also names the gift, the shared goal and the single ask in order.
A weaker version of the same story: "I explained to the platform team why it mattered and they agreed." It has no gift, no shared goal, no specific ask and no result, so the interviewer learns nothing about what you did.
The rubric
Use this table to practice against; it is not any company's scoring sheet.
| Dimension | Weak answer | Strong answer | Staff answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Says the people were cooperative | Names who they were and why you had no authority | Also says what you learned about their goals first |
| What you gave first | Nothing | A small help or piece of information | Something they wanted, given before any ask |
| The ask | A vague request for support | One specific action | One small action, shaped to how they resisted |
| Your own actions | "We" throughout | Your steps in "I" terms | Your steps plus a choice you made and why |
| Result | "It went well" | A result with a measure | The result and what you changed afterward |
Three variants of this question
How do you win over a stakeholder you have just met?
Start with what they are trying to achieve, give one useful thing, then link your request to that goal. The answer is the same four moves with a shorter first step, because there is less time to build history.
Describe a time you persuaded someone to see things your way.
Describing a time you persuaded someone is a sample behavioral prompt on the University of Cincinnati guide. Pick a story where the other person had a real reason to disagree, show how you learned that reason, and say what you changed in your own plan.
What do you do when the other team says no?
Ask what a yes would cost them, since a no usually points to a priority you missed. Then shrink the ask or offer a choice; the pushback may be reactance, a response to a threatened freedom to choose, and pressing harder feeds it.
Common mistakes
- "I told them the project was a priority from leadership." (wrong) That pulls rank, which can threaten their sense of choice and invite resistance; naming who supports the work is fine, ordering by priority is not. (right) "I asked what they were trying to ship and showed how my request helped it."
- "We got the team to agree." (wrong) The interviewer cannot see your part. (right) "I wrote the document, I proposed one event and I followed up."
- "I called in a favor." (wrong) Reciprocity means giving first, not collecting. (right) "I helped first, and only then asked."
- "I spent most of the answer on the background." (wrong) Action should be the longest part. (right) "I give the situation one or two sentences and spend the time on what I did."
Follow-up questions
How do you influence someone who is more senior than you?
Use the same moves, but make the gift information or saved time and keep the ask small and easy to approve. Seniority raises the cost of a vague request, so be specific about the action and the benefit to their goal.
What if you have no time to build a relationship first?
Shrink the first step instead of skipping it. Open your first message with something useful to them, state the shared goal in one sentence and ask for one action; the Harvard Chan page warns that urgent work pushes out relationship-building, so make it brief.
Is this the same as the influencing-without-authority question?
The influencing-without-authority question overlaps with this one, but this prompt stresses that you have no history with the person. The page on telling a time you influenced without authority covers the broader story; here the extra work is the gift and the shared goal.
Should the story say I or we?
Say "I" for your own actions and "we" only for the shared result. The Cincinnati guide tells candidates to use "I" instead of "we" so that your contribution is clear.
How do you choose a story if the company publishes leadership principles?
Read the written principles and choose a story that fits their words. The page on the Amazon Leadership Principles shows how one such list can be turned into stories, and the common interview questions page lists the neighbors of this prompt. Good listening and clear speaking carry the story; see interpersonal communication, and prepare questions to ask the interviewer about how their teams work together.
- Give first: help or share information before you ask a stranger for anything.
- Tie the request to a goal you share, then ask for one small, specific action.
- People resist feeling managed, so offer a choice and do not lean on rank.
- Tell the story in first person, with action as the longest part.
- End with the result and what you did afterward to keep the relationship.
Sources
- The 7 Principles of Persuasion — Cialdini Institute (undated; accessed 2026-10-26), 26 Oct 2026
- The gentle science of persuasion, part seven: Unity — W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, 22 Apr 2025
- Exerting Influence Without Authority — Harvard Business Review (Lauren Keller Johnson), 28 Feb 2008
- Understanding Psychological Reactance — Zeitschrift für Psychologie 223(4) (Steindl, Jonas, Sittenthaler, Traut-Mattausch, Greenberg), 1 Jan 2015
- Leading Outside Your Authority — Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Advanced Learning Academy (undated; accessed 2026-10-26), 26 Oct 2026
- Behavioral Interviewing & The STAR Approach — Northwestern University Career Advancement (undated; accessed 2026-10-26), 26 Oct 2026
- STAR Method for Behavioral Interviews — University of Cincinnati (undated; accessed 2026-10-26), 26 Oct 2026
- STAR Method for Behavioral Interview Questions — University of Wisconsin career guide (undated; accessed 2026-10-26), 26 Oct 2026
