You have applied for your dream job and made it to the final stage of that stressful job-seeking process and now you need to meet with your employer or HR face to face! Don’t worry, we are going to get you through this. In this guideline, you are going to find a lot of useful tips and suggestions to prepare yourself for the next challenge! Before we start with the dangerous questions you may come across during the job interview, here are a few hints for you to stay calm throughout your interview.
1) Do your research. Check the person or people who will interview you. Learn more about their positions and background.
2) Research the company along with the industry and come up with a few smart questions you may want to ask when the interviewer is ready to take your questions at the end of your interview.
3) Practice your answers and attitude in advance and do not forget to rehearse (do not memorize your answers, just try to normalize them as if you are going to have a conversation with your friend about your skills and experiences).
Last but not least, do not forget to have a positive attitude. Everybody gets nervous before interviews and feel the anxiety both physically and psychologically. If you prepare yourself enough and you show up early with a good smile and attitude, nothing can go wrong! Let’s get started.
1) Tell me about yourself.
This is usually how interviewers start the process. For any kind of job, you will be asked this question. It may seem obvious how to answer it but actually, it is not that easy to bring your answer into perfection. You are the one who knows you more than anybody else, so you should be the one who can express who you are the best.
How to Answer: You should have a short statement which will take you no longer than 2 minutes. Just briefly talk about your educational background and focus more on your strengths, work ethic, and professional achievement in your career so far. Do not brag about yourself but be confident. You can talk about your future goals, highlight your skills regarding the position you are applying for (do not try to convince the interview, just put stress on your abilities). This is the question you should really have a specific answer because it is about you. Do not give obscure answers.
2) Why do you want to change your job?/ Why are you looking to make a move?
The reason behind this question is usually to detect what is not enough for you. Additionally, they want to find out if the job you are applying for suits you. You should be careful with your answer because you must not talk bad behind your current employer. Although you may be having the worst experiences with your current job environment, the interviewer would be bothered to hear you talking not professionally about your current situation. Moreover, you would not want to give the impression that you are not skilled enough for your current job or you struggle in it because of your lack of abilities. Try to think in advance what the main differences are between your current job and the prospective employer.
How to Answer: The answer varies hinging on your job change. If you are applying for a much larger company than you used to work, you may want to say that you need a type of expertise. If you are leaving your current company for a smaller firm, you might say that you need a greater variety of duties to improve your skills. In both cases, make sure they know that you are not escaping from a predicament. Instead, you are just seeking better opportunities for your career and they do not exist in your current job. You should give examples of those better opportunities. Do not simply say that you are looking for a change. It would make you look whimsical. Give examples of training programs, different departments, and career planning opportunities. Check the company values and their understanding of work ethic in advance.
3) What are your long term goals? / Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?
This question evaluates your professional ambitions rather than your personal features.
How to Answer: Try to talk about the potential you see within the company and you want to build on your skills around that potential. You may say that you want to climb the ladder and hopefully get promoted for a position with broader responsibilities. It is important to emphasize on your desire to stick in the company. Nobody wants to invest in an employee who wants to change his/her job after a year.
4)What are your short term goals?
It is also important to mention some short term goals to prove that you are an ambitious person who seeks for constant personal development.
How to Answer: You may talk about the possible improvement in your skills regarding the position. Learning a new language to help you with your job, getting certificates, or joining training programs could be great examples.
5) What are your strengths?
It is one of the most common interview questions but still, the struggle is real on answering it. You should be confident but not so arrogant about your strengths. The key is to find the balance.
How to Answer: Think of your strengths as both benefical for you and also for your employer. Find adjectives that describe your strengths clearly and do not hesitate when answering. You can say that you work well under pressure and you are not scared of high volume workload. Maybe you are a detail-oriented person so jobs that need to be done meticulously are perfect for you. Saying that you are not afraid of taking initiatives but know when you should get supervision and you can take criticism quite well.
6) What are your weaknesses?
This question could be the trickiest throughout the whole interview and you need a killer-answer. Do not say that you can’t think of any or you don’t have weaknesses because everybody has and the interviewer knows it. Avoid cliche answers like “I’m a perfectionist.” In today’s business world you need better expressions than that. Your weakness could be a strength in some cases, so try to give an example from a previous situation you managed to overcome.
How to Answer: The interviewer is not expecting you to be perfect, but he or she would be interested in knowing if you are aware of your weaknesses and how you are working on them. You may say that you are trying to focus on several things at the same time and it sometimes it makes you tired. But you do it anyway in order to be able to multitask when needed.
7) How do you handle stressful or challenging situations?
Everybody knows that difficult situations exist in the work-life and there is no way to prevent them from happening. It could be related to customers, management, and coworkers, etc. The key here is to show how mature you are and you are handling things in the most professional way possible.
How to Answer: For this question, it is important to give a specific, real-life example, a problem that you have overcame professionally. It could be solving a conflict between coworkers or fixing a problem with an angry customer, depending on your experiences.
8) Do you prefer to work individually or with a team?
The answer may vary depending on the position you are applying for. However, in today’s business world almost everybody must work well with a team, even if the job’s nature itself is pretty individual-centered.
How to Answer: To answer this tricky question, you should give an example to prove you are a good team player, but you also enjoy working individually. Do not pick one over another.
9) How do you spend your leisure time?
The key here is not exaggerating your hobbies by lying in order to sound productive. Nowadays, nobody has that much of a “leisure time”. However, it is important to prove that you have certain interests and routines. Just show them you are a versatile person without violating integrity.
How to Answer: You may be interested in a sport or you enjoy reading to relax. You know your hobbies better than us. It is good to mention if you like spending time with your family and friends and activities (going to concerts, theatres, playing chess) you do together. If you are in a community to volunteer or for something else, you may talk about it as well.
10) The Most Difficult Question: What Is Your Salary Expectation?
The interviewer may ask this question after she/he asks you how much you made in your last job. Although many progressive companies abandon this habit of asking a previous salary ( in San Fransisco it is even illegal to ask salary history), it might be useful to guide you on how to answer such a question, just in case.
How to Answer: Most people still think that giving a number is a mistake because you may intimidate the interviewer if they are not able to meet your expectations. Well, this belief has been proven wrong. The key in here is not to be persistent about your expectations, but to show that you have certain industry insight about the market value. You can check the market value through several websites such as Glassdoor or Payscale. Be honest and tell your expectation but mention that you are also open for negotiation.
If you do not have an answer, do not panic
Keep in mind that you can not prepare for every single question that can be asked. For sure, there will be some that you haven’t dwelled on in advance. It is important not to panic when this happens. Take it with a smile, breath and try to answer in a calm way rather than rush it. If you have an average answer to the question, do not hesitate to reply. If you really do not know what to say, sometimes it is better to say that you haven’t thought much about it and you are not sure how to answer. You can ask questions to clarify the interviewer’s intent and create some time to come up with the right answer. Before you go to the interview, try to think about possible hypothetical questions regarding your position. They may create scenarios and ask how you would act.
Additional Suggestion
Always, be honest about your previous employments. They could ask references and realize that you have been lying in order to get the job. If you got fired from your previous job, be honest about it. If you do not have certain skills they are looking for, mention that you are eager to learn instead of lying. Do not forget that personality and communication skills also matter a lot during interviews, it is not just about professional experiences.
