Interview Skills

Commonly Asked Questions by Interviewers:

• Tell me about yourself

Hint: Prepare your Introduction before going for an Interview. Add your qualities, strengths, hobbies in the Introduction. One-sentence description of who you are, your biggest strength and the major benefit that a company will derive from this strength. Relate your strength with the Job profile.

• How would your friends describe you?

Hint: Open minded, Creative and goal oriented, etc

• What makes you different from the other candidates for this position?
• Describe the accomplishment of which you are the most proud.

Hint: My accomplishments were in school because school is what lead me to bigger accomplishments in life.

• Why should we hire you?

The best way to respond is to give concrete examples of why your skills and accomplishments make you the best candidate for the job. Take a few moments to compare the job description with your abilities, as well as mentioning what you have accomplished in your other positions. Be positive and reiterate your interest in the company and the position.
Example:

• What strengths and attributes could you bring to this position?
• Describe the course that has had the greatest impact on your thinking.
• How did you find your summer jobs?
• Describe the job or the activity which has had the greatest impact on your thinking.
• What are your career and educational goals?
• What would you like to be doing five/ ten years from now?
• Why are you pursuing this field?
• What interests/impresses you about this company?
• What do you believe are the key issues and problems in our industry today?
• What do you think it takes to be successful in this field?
• What other jobs/ fields are you considering?
• In what kind of work environment do you do your best work?
• With what kind of people do you like to work?
• What kinds of tasks and responsibilities motivate you the most?
• What is your ideal job?
• Do you have a geographical preference?
• Tell me about what you learned from your previous jobs.
• What did you dislike most about the last job?
• What do you think you would like least about this job/company/field?
• What is your greatest weakness?
• Have you ever failed at anything?
• What has been your greatest challenges?
• What do you enjoy doing outside of work in your free time?
• If you had six months ahead with no obligations and no financial constraints, what would you do?
• If you could invite anyone you would like to a dinner party (famous or historical figures, dead or alive), which ten people would you invite?
• If you could trade places with someone for a week, what would it be?
• Which is your favourite book/movie/song/painting-or author/singer/artist?
• Which magazines/newspapers do you read regularly?
• Which books have you read recently?
• What would you like me to know about you read regularly?
• Which books have you read recently?
• What would you like me to know about you that is not on your resume?
• Do you have a final statement?
• Do you have a final statement?
• Do you have any questions you’d like to ask of me?
• Where do you see yourself doing five years from now?
• How do you make yourself indispensable to a company?
• What’s your greatest strength?

“Don’t just talk bout your strength-relate it to the position”.

• What’s your greatest weakness?

“Say something along the lines of, ‘I have difficulty with this thing, and these as the strategies I use to get around it,” For example, you could say, ‘I’m not the most organized of individuals, so I always answer my e-mails and phone calls right away. I’m aware of the problem and I have strategies to deal with it.

• Tell me about a time when your course load was heavy. How did you complete all your work?
• Tell me about a time when you had to accomplish a task with someone who has particularly difficult to get along with.
• How do you accept direction and, at the same time, maintain a critical stance regarding your ideas and values.
• What are some examples of activities and surroundings that motivate you?
• Tell me how you handles an ethical dilemma.