Career

Interview Tips

Planning & Preparation

Effective Tips and Interview Questions to Land You in Your Next Job

The impression you make on the interviewer often can outweigh your actual credentials. Your poise, attitude, basic social skills, and communication ability are evaluated along with your experience and education. You and the interviewer must engage in a conversation - a mutual exchange of information and ideas. Only through such a dialogue can you determine if you, the organization, and the job are well matched. Preparation is the key.

These top interview tips will help you cover everything you need to know to ace a job interview successfully. From checking out the company to sending an interview thank you note, these job interview tips cover all the basics for interviewing success.

1. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?

This question, often the interview opener, has a crucial objective: to see how you handle yourself in unstructured situations. The recruiter wants to see how articulate you are, how conﬁdent you are, and generally what type of impression you would make on the people you contact on the job. The recruiter also wants to learn about your career trajectory and understand what you think is essential and what has caused you to perform well.

Most candidates ﬁnd these questions a difﬁcult one to answer. However, the upside is that this question offers an opportunity to describe yourself positively and focus the interview on your strengths. Be prepared to deal with it.

There are many ways to respond to this question correctly and just one wrong way: by asking, “What do you want to know?” You need to develop a good answer to this question, practice it, and be able to deliver it with poise and conﬁdence.

The right response is twofold: focus on what interests the interviewer, and highlight your most significant accomplishments.

Focus on what interests the interviewer

Do not dwell on your personal history--that is not why you are there. Start with your most recent employment and explain why you are well qualiﬁed for the position. The key to all successful interviewing is to match your qualiﬁcations to what the interviewer is looking for. You want to be selling what the buyer is buying.

Highlight Important Accomplishments

Have a story ready that illustrates your best professional qualities. For example, if you tell an interviewer that people describe you as creative, provide a brief story that shows how you have been creative in achieving your goals.

Stories are powerful and are what people remember most.

A good interviewee will memorize a 60-second commercial that demonstrates why they are the best person for the job.
2. How long have you been with your current (or former) employer?

This is a hot-button question if your résumé reﬂects considerable job-hopping. Excellent performers tend to stay in their jobs for at least three to ﬁve years. They implement course corrections, bring in new resources, and generally learn how to survive--that’s why prospective employers value them.

If your résumé reﬂects jobs with companies that were acquired moved, closed, or downsized, it is still viewed as a job-hopper’s history. Volunteer and go to events where hiring authorities may be found. Ratchet up your networking to include anything that exposes you to hiring authorities who can get past your tenure issue because now they know you. Your networking efforts have never been so important.
3. What is your greatest weakness?

An impressive and conﬁdent response shows that the candidate has prepared for the question, has done serious self-reﬂection, and can admit responsibility and accept constructive criticism. Sincerely give an honest answer (but not a long one), be conﬁdent in the fact that this weakness does not make you any less of a great candidate, and show that you are working on this weakness and tell the recruiter how.
4. Tell me about a situation where you did not get along with a superior

The wrong answer to this hot-button question is, “I’ve been very fortunate and have never worked for someone I didn’t get along with.”

Everyone has had situations where they disagreed with a boss and said they hadn’t forced the recruiter to question their integrity. Also, it can signal that the candidate is not seasoned enough or hasn’t been in situations requiring them to develop a tough skin or deal with confrontation.

It’s natural for people to have differing opinions. When this has occurred in the past, you could explain that you presented your reasons and openly listened to other opinions.
5. Describe a situation where you were part of a failed project

If you can’t discuss a failure or mistake, the recruiter might conclude that you don’t possess the depth of experience necessary to do the job. The recruiter is not looking for perfection. They are trying to understand better your level of responsibility, decision-making process, and ability to recover from a mistake, what you learned from the experience, and if you can take responsibility for your mistakes.

Respond that you’d like to think you have learned something valuable from every mistake. Then have a brief story ready with a speciﬁc illustration.
6. What are your strengths?

Describe two or three skills you have that are relevant to the job. Avoid clichés or generalities; offer speciﬁc evidence. Describe new ways these skills could be used in the position you are being considered for.
7. How do you explain your job success?

Be candid without sounding arrogant—mention observations other people have made about your work strengths or talents.
8. What do you do when you are not working?

The more senior the position, the more critical it is to know about the candidate’s qualities that will impact their leadership style: is the person well-adjusted and happy, or are they a company zealot?

Discuss hobbies or pursuits that interest you, such as sports, clubs, cultural activities, and favorite things to read.

Avoid dwelling on any political or religious activities that may create conﬂict with those of the interviewer.
9. Why did you leave your last position?

At high levels, issues that relate to personality and temperament become more critical than they might otherwise. The recruiter wants to know if you will ﬁt in with the client company. The recruiter may also be ﬁshing for signs of conﬂict that indicate a potential personality problem.

Be honest and straightforward, but do not dwell on any conﬂict that may have occurred. Highlight positive developments that resulted from your departure, whether you accepted a more challenging position or learned an important lesson that helped you to be happier in your next job.