Interview Questions

Do you want to know the most common interview questions? Well this article attempts to list out those reported back by our career coaching clients. It also includes all the accumulated interviewing experience of the author who interviewed hundreds of candidates in his career in HR.

Unfortunately I can’t give you the questions you will be asked at your interview. After all people go for all sorts of different jobs, with different levels of seniority. However based on this list you can pick the questions most likely to be used in your interview. If you are not sure how to do this there is a link at the end of this article to another Blog article on this site that will help you. I can’t emphasise enough that once you have the most likely questions it is essential to practice you answers ahead of the interview. You should also make sure you can run through your CV in no more than four minutes.

Interview Questions

• Could you run through your CV highlighting your achievements and experience which you think are most relevant to this job?
• Why don’t you start of by telling us a bit about yourself?
• What’s your motivation for applying for this job?
• What other jobs have you also applied for?
• What would you say are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Why do you think we should take you for this job rather than one of the other candidates?
• Tell us about a time when you have given outstanding customer service.
• Tell us about a time when you had to deal with an angry customer.
• Could you describe a time when you have worked as part of a team? What did you do to help the team?
• Tell us about a time when you had to make an important presentation, how did you prepare for it and what did you do on the day
• Tell us about the way in which you managed your time and priorities in your last role
• What do you find most stressful about your current job?
• What would your last boss say about your work?
• What was said about you in your last performance appraisal?
• Tell me about how you would sell me (an article in the room)
• Tell us about a time when you had to plan and organise an important event or task
• How do you lead and motivate the team that work for you?
• Give us an example of how you have developed people that work in your team
• What would your team say about your management style?
• Tell us about a time when you have had to deal with a difficult performance problem with one of your staff
• Describe the way in which you went about solving a difficult problem
• Tell us about a particularly difficult decision you have had to make, how did you make the decision?
• Tell us about a situation when you have had to persuade others to your point of view
• Tell us about the way you control your budget
• Where would you like to be in 5 years time?
• Are there any questions that you’d like to ask us?
• Is there anything we should have asked you which we haven’t?
• What is the biggest mistake you have made at work so far and what did you learn from it?
• What do you consider to be stress and how do you cope with it?
• What do you consider to be most important – getting a job done on time or getting the right quality even if the job is a bit late?
• Tell us about a time when you believe you were at your most creative

Technical Questions

Remember you will also be asked technical questions if you are applying for a role where this is an important requirement.

If you are a school leaver or graduate applying for a part-time or your first full-time job there will be much fewer technical questions as the employer will expect to train you to do the job.

Answers

There are two articles on this site that will help you structure answers to all these questions. The main one is on competency based interviews; the other is about how to answer difficult interview questions. If you can’t work out which questions you might be asked please read the article on competency based interviews this will guide you.

Your Input

If you get any questions that aren’t on this list please let us know in the comments box. If they are likely to be used at other interviews we’ll add them to this article. Thanks

Tony Goddard

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