I'm a native English speaker and wouldn't agree with the "no cigar" bit unfortunately. I've never heard of that before, and if I heard it in an interview, I would probably be very confused. :-)

You could definitely say "Close.../ Almost..." and then follow it up with, "but would you like to try answering that question again?".

Or perhaps something like: "That wasn't quite what we were looking for... But would you like to think about how you might answer that question differently?"

You could also use a leading statement and point the interviewee in the right direction by saying: "Good... But have you thought about x, y, z...?"

Hope that helps a bit.

You're not a Thomas Dolby fan then, Becca :)

We came close
close but no cigar
you didn't miss by far
you know you came this close
close but no cigar

I don't know how widely used the exppression is, but it definitely exists and I've heard it in the UK as well as from my British friends here in Germany (though not exactly five times a day).

Ha ha :-) Oh gosh, I'm sorry, no I hadn't ever heard of that saying before. Maybe I should mention I'm in my early 20s, so perhaps my age could be a reason for my ignorance :-P

That's probably why - The song above is at least 10 years old (might be a lot more than that) and nothing changes faster than idiomatic expressions, I guess.

But as nice and helpful as your suggestions in #2 are, is there really no short and snappy expression for 'knapp daneben' that people of your age use?

I've been racking my brain, but can't find any nice snappy idiom for "knapp daneben", sorry :-S All I can think of is "Close, but not quite there", or "Close, but not quite close enough".