Job interviews

Interview questions

It's impossible to predict which questions you may be asked during a job interview. Being nervous, you may wonder what you'll be asked. You may even think that a list of commonly asked questions will better prepare you for the interview. The truth is that if you know yourself and what you have to offer, you will likely be well-prepared for questions. Don't let the seemingly endless list of possible questions overwhelm you—there is no way you could ever possibly be asked all of them. The key thing to remember is that every interview will likely contain questions that are worded similarly to those on this page. Your key is to reframe questions so as to provide the interviewer with the information he or she needs. After all, we can safely assume that interviewers want to:

• Explore your education, training, skills, accomplishments relative to the position to which you've applied
• Uncover what you know about the job to which you've applied, as well as what you know about their organization
• Learn how the skills and qualifications you bring enable you/qualify you to do to the job. In other words, they want to know that you've analyzed yourself and their needs
• Know about your career goals and how you plan to meet them
• Learn more about your work habits and work ethic
• Verify the information on your application, résumé and cover letter

Traditional interview questions

Traditional interview questions can usually be answered simply with "yes" or "no." As easy as it is to answer this way, it's best to offer an example from your work experience.

• Are you a people person?
• Do you like to work hard?
• Are you a leader?
• Do you consider yourself a detail-oriented person?
• Are you comfortable assuming a supervisory role?
• Are you flexible?

Behavioral interview questions

Employers strive to build effective team environments and it's important that they place the "right" people in the "right" jobs. As such, many employers are making changes to the ways in which they interview and hire candidates. Because past behavior is often the best indicator of future behavior, behavioral interviews and behavior description questions provide the best information about candidates being interviewed. As its name implies, behavior description interviewing asks the interviewee to describe his or her behavior in a variety of job-related situations.

More and more, there is a shift from hypothetical questions that ask about hypothetical situations to behavior description questions that require solid, detailed examples and instances in which you encountered the topic situation. To prepare for behavior description questions, you need to learn about yourself and how you typically function in a variety of situations. This implies analyzing your intent, your behavior, and the end results. To do this, you can take what's called the CARS approach:

C	Identify the particular goal or challenge.
A	Describe the action you took to find a solution to the challenge or problem.
R	Describe the results you achieved. What did this experience mean to you? To others?
S	What skills did you use in order to meet your goal or overcome the problem/challenge? What did you learn from the experience?

• Describe a time when you had to provide service to an arrogant or angry customer.
  Skills being assessed:
  • Customer service
  • Resourcefulness
  • Communication
  • Interpersonal relations
  • Knowledge of policy, resources
  • Initiative
  • Problem solving
• Tell me about a high-stress situation when it was important to keep a positive attitude.
  Skills being assessed:
  • Stress management
  • Resourcefulness
  • Communication
• Describe a time when you had to make a quick decision and take fast action in order to meet a strict deadline.
  Skills being assessed:
  • Time management
  • Resourcefulness
  • Initiative
  • Prioritization
  • Problem solving
  • Decision making
  • Knowledge of policy, resources

Other examples could include:

• Tell me about a time you were persistent in order to reach a goal.
• Give me an example of a time you used facts and reason to persuade others to take action.

Other common interview questions

Opening

• Tell us about yourself.
• How does your background prepare you for this position?
• Tell us a little about your education and experience.
• Why do you believe you are qualified for this position?

Education

• Why did you choose to study _________?
• In hindsight, would you make the same choice?
• Tell us what you liked/disliked about your university/college experience?
• Do you plan to take additional courses or training?
• How does your education prepare you for this position?
• What's your learning style?
• What do you feel is lacking from your education?

Experience

• How does your past work experience prepare you for this position?
• Describe your past work experience.
• What types of job experience have you had?
• Briefly describe what you do in your current job.
• What did you like best about your past job(s)? What did you like least?
• What would you say are your biggest work-related accomplishments?
• Describe for us any challenges or barriers you faced in past jobs. How did you overcome them?
• What has been your experience working with a team?
• How would you define customer service?
• How computer literate would you say you are?
• What are your work habits like?
• In your current job, describe what you do/accomplish during a typical day.
• What adjectives best describe your work style?
• How would your colleagues describe you?
• Why do you want to leave your present job?
• Why did you leave your last job?
• How would your supervisor describe you?
• Tell us what you believe you learned in your last job.
• How does this job relate to your past work experience?

Supervisor

• Tell us what you like best in a supervisor. What do you like least?
• If you were the boss in your current/past job, what changes, if any, would you make? Why?
• What is your overall impression of management in your past job?
• How well did you get along with your last supervisor(s)?
• What is your idea of the ideal supervisor?
• If we were to ask you present/past supervisor(s) about you, what would they tell us about you?
• How much did you interact with your supervisor in your last job? Daily? Weekly? For what purpose?

Skills

• Describe a stressful situation you had to overcome recently. What was it? How did you handle it? What was the outcome?
• Tell us about a conflict you've had with a colleague, a supervisor or a customer. How did you resolve it?
• What are your strengths? Weaknesses?
• Why should we hire you?
• Why do you feel you're a good candidate for this job?
• Tell us about a past decision you made you're not happy with. If given the chance to relive that experience, what might you do differently?

Responsibility

• If we hire you for this position, how long do you expect to stay with us?
• Tell us about a group project you worked on. What were you responsible for? Describe any challenges faced by the group and how these were overcome. If we asked them, how would the other members of the group describe you?
• If you felt a co-worker wasn't pulling his weight or if you witnessed something (e.g. stealing, sloppy work, failure to abide by safety rules or company policy, inaccuracy in another's work) you felt was wrong, how might you deal with that situation?
• We might require you to put in overtime. How do you feel about that?
• What do you expect in terms of hours of work?

Motivation

• Tell us why you want to work here.
• What aspects of this job would you find the most rewarding? The most difficult?
• What are your long-term career goals? How do you plan to achieve them?
• What have you done to overcome major obstacles in your life?
• What has been your greatest crisis? How did you solve or overcome it?
• How do you cope with stress?
• What frustrates you? What motivates you?
• How do you define success?
• What do you see yourself doing in 5 or 10 years?
• What's the most important thing to you in terms of employment?
• How did you prepare for this interview?
• Why did you apply for this position?
• What aspects of this job are most appealing to you? Least appealing?
• How long do you think this job will continue to hold your interest?
• What types of things would you like to learn if hired for this position?
• What skills do you want to improve?
• What do you know about our company?
• Tell us what you know about our products/services/industry.
• If we hired you for this position, what do you see yourself doing in this job?

References

• Do you have a list of references?
Copies of letters of recommendation?
• What would your references say about you?
• Tell us about highlights of a past performance appraisal.
• How would your colleagues describe your strenghts and weaknesses?
• If we were to ask customers you've served, how would they describe your customer service and problem solving skills?
• If we contacted your supervisor, what would he or she tell us about you?

Closing

• Is there anything you'd like to ask us before we wrap up?
• What would you like to know about us?
• When might you be able to start?
• Is there anything you'd like to add before we close?
• Is there anything more you'd like to tell us that we haven't already asked?