Host Sheila Boysen-Rotelli discusses common interview questions and how to handle them. Though the hiring processes will vary greatly, you will most likely be asked many of the same questions with the same motivations. There are a plethora of ways to prepare yourself for these questions, so pay attention!
Episode Highlights:
- The interview process can vary greatly depending on the role and company that you are interviewing with
- Consider the person that is asking you these interview questions
- Interviewers might be looking for different things depending on their role
- The HR Manager aims to ensure that candidates are a good fit for the position and usually run the initial screening interview
- A Supervisor will ask more in-depth questions about specific skills that the job requires and will be very knowledgeable about the role
- Coworkers just want to know what it's like to work with you and how you communicate
- You can reach out to the HR Manager to see your schedule beforehand and prepare yourself
- While each industry and organization follows some normal questions, they each have a different process
- Do your research on each company so that you can use the right language based on literature that you see
- Glassdoor.com can provide great information from those people that have worked for and interviewed with these companies
- There are usually three basic formats that interview questions follow
- Behavioral questions use your past behavior to predict how you may behave in the future; provide specific examples. "Tell me about a time…"
- Situational questions aim to evaluate your planning skills, problem-solving abilities, and analytical skills. "How would you…"
- Historical questions are based on your resume and past experiences for the most part
- "Tell me about your strengths." - Identify your competencies with specific examples
- When they ask for your weaknesses, they want to see how realistic you view your own competencies
- Determine what you don't have based on the job description
- Choose the item that is least important or the easiest to learn
- "Why are you interested in this company or our position?"
- They want to know how committed you are to the profession, product, or service
- Do you understand the position?
- How do you plan on contributing?
- Utilize research into the company to frame your answers to these questions with specific information about the company
3 Key Points:
- Depending on the role of the interviewer, different people will have different motivations for the questions that they ask.
- There are 3 basic formats for the questions that will be asked during an interview: Behavioral, Situational, and Historical.
- A deep analysis of the job description will allow candidates to prepare themselves for strength and weakness-based interview questions.
Tweetable Quotes:
- "I know this can feel intimidating sometimes, but with some practice and some planning you can really bring more confidence into your interviews." - Sheila Boysen-Rotelli
- "Even though there are common interview questions...there are no common answers." - Sheila Boysen-Rotelli
- "SAR: this is the method of outlining and explaining the situations, the actions you took, and the results that came away from it." - Sheila Boysen-Rotelli
- "They just want to know that you have a realistic view of yourself and can overcome any challenge that might be presented." - Sheila Boysen-Rotelli
- "No matter what question you get asked, it always comes down to 'why should I hire you.'" - Sheila Boysen-Rotelli
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