Job Search Blog

When looking to hire a potential candidate the interviewer is trying to learn as much as they can about that person in a short amount of time. This means that the typical interview questions they ask will likely be deep, probing and often hard to answer. We have compiled a list of some of the more common questions along with an explanation of the likely reply that the employer could be looking for.

What do you know about our Company?
This question is a classic and is probing to see how resourceful you are. If you want to impress the interviewer you will have carefully researched the company you are interested in working for and will be able to talk about what they do, when they started and why you want to work for them. Spend half an hour going through the companies website and learning about them before the interview and it will pay off.

What are your Strengths?
Another common question, this is where you have to brag a bit and try to have a story ready to go that displayed one or more of your strengths. It is much better to relate an actual situation showing a show of strength rather that just saying “Hardworking” or “Persistent”.

Tell us about any Weakness’s you may have?
Pretty much the exact opposite of the previous question, however before you resign yourself to pouring out all your weak points to the interviewer you can actually use this question to your advantage. This is where you can turn a negative into a positive by highlighting a situation where you have tried to hard, or unwilling to quit sometimes. Something like that which is actually a good trait however can be used to counteract an awkward question like this. e.g “at times I don’t know when to stop and have worked well into the night to solve a problem.”

Where are you trying to get to Career wise?
This question can be tricky to answer honestly and come away with a win, the problem is the position they are trying to fill may not be suitable for someone that is already thinking about taking over the Ceo position. You really need to weigh up the position that you are trying to get and judge the answer based on what you think they will be wanting. IE if they have struggled to keep people in the position for long periods it may pay not to talk about moving up and onwards to quickly and point out you will need to spend considerable time learning about the business first. Of course you should still point out that you are motivated to get ahead, just don’t overplay this to much if it could cause any issues.

Tell us about a time when you…..?
Always have about 3 or 4 stories ready to go from your past that will fit these kind of probing questions. It really depends on what kind of job you are looking at as to how the question will go but lets take for example a Sales type role. You may be asked something along the lines of “Tell us about a time where you gave great customer service?” now this may cause you to freeze and not be able to think of anything especially if you are nervous, so have the scenarios already etched out in your mind.

That sums up 5 of the most popular interview questions out there, go to the interview prepared and make sure you do plenty of research about the company.

If you have any other common interview questions that you notice keep coming up please share with us by way of leaving a comment on this article. We can add it to one of future articles so it is shared with other Job Seekers.

Good luck!