Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Her Career: Interview Questions

I remember sitting outside the room on my first interview. I literally had to push down on my leg to get it to stop shaking. And over and over in my mind I played the thousand of possible questions they could ask me. The best way to prep for an upcoming interview is to review possible questions and write notes to yourself of what your might answer. The hardest part is finding the questions. I asked my friend in the UT business school to send me their interview prep and I picked a few questions in particular to give example answers. You can see the full list of questions and interview prep Here:

Tell me about yourself.
 -This is just the generic first question when you get into the interview. Keep it short and simple. My name is Lauren, I am a senior at BU studying Public Relations and English and I am really excited to be meeting with you to talk about...
Tell me about your past employment? 
-Sometimes your entire interview will follow this theme. Have your resume memorized and be prepared to talk about specifics in your last job that really highlight your role.

How did you obtain your last position?

What were your responsibilities in your last job?

What did you like most/least about the job?

What are some of the problems you have encountered? Which one frustrated you the most? What did you do about it?
-Companies usually ask situational questions to gauge in the form of past experiences. They want to know how you would handle a problem at that job. Try to come up with example that could apply to their company it's okay to fib a few details that don't change your skills.

What are your short/long-term goals? How will you benefit by achieving them? What plans have you made to achieve them?

What could you improve upon to really help your career?
-This is a way of asking your weaknesses. If they ask for your weaknesses at any point, always phrase it as "something I am always working on to improve"

What are your greatest strengths/skills? How have you applied them to the job?

What do you consider to be the ideal working environment?

What five adjectives would you use to describe yourself?

What do you like to do when you’re not working?
-This is just a question to see what kind of person you are. Really to see how the chemistry would be with you and the office.

Why are you interested in this particular job?

What do you think you can do for us that someone else can’t do just as well?
-This is them asking, why should we pick you? Read the job description ahead of time and find out what qualities they are looking for and try to highlight them.

Describe the ideal job for you.

What else do you think I should know about you?

What would you like to know about our company?
-This is another way to ask you what you already know about question. Do your research and give them an example. " I saw that your company did ______, then ask a follow up question. it shows your interested and knowledge for the company.

And remember always practice practice practice and make your interview perfect.

1 comment:

  1. Some excellent observations... All certainly worth considering pre-interview! I just shared this post on my blog as well. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete