Interview Questions You Must Know By Heart…
Another one of many articles about presenting yourself as the best candidate. This time, the focus is on job interviews (any interview etc…).
I am writing with the hope that many of you will add to this as I believe interviews differ by job type and field. So here is what you should know like your ABCs…
Before the Interview
- Draw a line down the center of a piece of paper. On the left side, make a list of what the employer is looking for based on the job requirements. On the right side, make a list of the qualities you possess that fit those requirements.
- Research the company, their industry and their competition.
- Prepare your 60-second personal statement (your answer to the “tell me about yourself” question).
- Write at least five success stories to answer behavioral interview questions (“Tell me about a time when…” or “Give me an example of a time…”).
- List five questions to ask the interviewer about the job, the company and the industry
- Research salary data to determine your worth.
- Determine your salary needs based on your living expenses.
- Get permission from your references to use their names.
Basic questions you should know by heart
- Tell us about yourself.
- What do you know about this company?
- What are your goals?
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- Why do you want to work for this company?
- What has been your most significant achievement?
- How would your last boss and colleagues describe you? (If you worked before)
- Why should we hire you?
- What are your salary expectations?
In addition to the above, here is the four questions I think we should all ask during a job interview:
- What do you expect me to accomplish in the first 3 months of the job?
What you are saying: “I want to make a difference – right away” - What are the common attributes of your top performers?
What you are saying: “I want to be a great long-term employee”. - What are some of the things that really drive results for the company?
What you are saying: “I want to add value to the company – and so you want to know the secret”.
-
How do you plan to deal with…?
You did your research about the company right? So, there must be something a competitor is doing well which the company should do something about in order to remain at the top. Or a negative comment your read about the company online…
In addition to the above, here is a list of questions you can and should ask at every level of the interview and why. This is geared towards experienced jobseekers…
Questions to Ask the Recruiter/HR
How would you describe the culture of the company?
- Helps you get a feel for the company from an employee outside the direct organization you will be working for.
What do most people like about working here (the company)?
- Similar to the above question, helps you to get an impression on why you would want to work at this company.
What is the average length of time someone stays at the company?
- Can help you tell if this is a short term company people are using as a resume builder, potentially bad company where people don’t stay long, or somewhere you can expect to have the potential for a long career.
Why is the position available?
Will there be a hand over period so that I can best understand the role and process?
What are your training & development initiatives?
Questions To Ask The Hiring Manager
What can I expect to learn from you?
- Gives you a sense of how the manager sees him/herself and what skills they can pass on to you.
What is your biggest accomplishment?
- Can get an idea of what they feel is an accomplishment.
What do you value most in an employee?
- Helps you get an idea of what the manager is looking for.
- Helps you know if you fit those skills and can be successful or if possibly not a good fit.
What do you like most about working there?
- Further digging into the company and more specifically the individual organization you would be working for.
What is the most important thing I can do to ensure that you feel I have done a good job in my first six months?
- Helps to defines expectations of the position clearly so that you can determine if it’s the right pace and skill-set for you are you going to be able to meet those expectations to ultimately be successful.
Follow up Questions to Ask Dir. and up
What is your vision for the team?
- Helps to give you an idea of the direction the senior management/executives have for the team.
What do you like best about an employee?
What kind of accomplishments can I help the team make in the first year to make you feel like we are exceeding expectations?
- Similar to the question asked of the hiring manager, this gives an idea of what you will need to contribute to exceed their expectations and grow the team.
What do you see as the future of the company in the next 5 years?
- Let’s you know if the plan is to grow the company, move in another direction, some inclination of where you might fit in that plan.
What reservations do you have about me as a candidate right now that I might be able to address?
- Gives you a chance to address any concerns they may have right away before they dwell on them and make decisions on things you might be able to change.
After the Interview
- As soon as possible, write down what you are thinking and feeling.
- Later in the day, review what you wrote, and assess how you did.
- Write a follow-up thank-you letter/email. Please make sure to remind the interviewer of your qualities.
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199 Comments
how do you answer the question ” what have been your achievements”. if you never achieved anything in your life.
Interviews!Interviews!
I’m doing Mech Engineering at College. I love my trade and believe it’s got something to do with who I am. It is the best thing to reasearch about the company, thoroughly!! Okay, the interview was for a Fitter and Turner Apprenticeship. In this partucular interview, I can say most of the questions were about the trade of which I wasn’t expecting and wasn’t tipped about.
I researched about behaviour in an interview and all that, but due to me not having prepared for such questions I panicked and ruined it all. I realised that the intetview was a ”Stress Interview”, whereby they try to put you under, try provoke you in how they phrase their questions. Here are some of the questions Fitter and Turner students can expect:
1. What is a Pump and its functions?
2. What is a Valve and its functions?
3. The difference between a Valve and Pump?
4. What is a Rotary Pump and its functions?
5. Give Handtools and their functions.
6. Give workshop tools and their functions.
7. Give measuring tools and their functions.
8. Causes of Machine vibration.
9. What is shaft allignment?
Doing bad in this Interview for me, was a learning curve and a chance to improve my presentation.
Dear site editor, im going to interview next week at dep of agriculture all i want is some tips and question to expect as a human resource graduate , thank
I think you should spend sometime reading what others had to share on this page…
hi am going for the final interview at Nedbank with line managers. it is a graduate programme. what are the things i should know before entering the interview room?? need help please
I’m a first year student of ND Building. My course requires me to do in service training during my second year. I have never been to an interview before or even found a suitable place to employ me. Any tips and help would be most appreciated. Please do help
Hi guys
I would like to express my gratitude for the way you responded to my problem,as it stands I am going for an interview tomorrow and I will apply some of theses tactics and tips you guys have given out to me
Please wish me luck
if you know how to present yourself, there is no other way you could lose the position.if u tell urself that maths is difficult u will never be a doctor
I was interviewed a week ago, and I never expected this question and I think some-how I might have fail the interview. The question was: Tell us about the National Building Regulation and Standard Act?
This question got me confused and even today I don’t know how to answer it, please help.
Hi guys
I have a problem and I think maybe I am the only one experiencing this,I have been to more than five interviews now but what happens is that I do my preparations and research but as soon as I get seated,something just washes away my memory and I forget all my researches,I simply fails to express myself and to seel myslf
Hi Busani,
I posted your question on the site’s Facebook page and here is some of the comments:
People please google interviews question and download any PDF files you come across, those files have all possible answers to any general questions your are most likely to be asked on an interview, except technical questions ofcause. they are extremely helpful though in giving you an idea of what to expect on an.
For graduates I think a good question to ask is ‘How much support will I get for the transition from graduate to employee, in order to make sure I work to my best ability?’ and ask about any other opportunities you’ll be exposed to if you get a successful response.
Hope this helps. Thanks you Site Editor for such a great website.
And the person who raised the mxit language comment is right, lets practise here to communicate clearly and it will follow suit in our interviews, to be clear and concise.
K let me try to simplify it the best i can, an interviewer came to me when i ws still outside waiting for my term. She gave me the story on a piece of paper and said when m done reading it i must enter into a interview room. I read it approximately 2minutes thn i entered, when i ws imminent the panel table i greeted and tried to extended my hand for handshake bt a first interviewer from a panel greeted back and instead of showing interest torwards responding to my hesitated hamdshake, she gave a hand and hastily said “please give me that piece of paper with a story”- i gave it to her and felt like there is no reli space for me to shake their hands anymore- the other interviewer followed by “please take a seat”, tht cancel any thought of handshaking possibility to me. We enrolled on the interview questions. After an interview they open a platform for me to ask them anything, i did tht thn after tht they said we done. Tht ws another tense moment for me, i kindly said “thank you for an interview” and they said “okay, we will inform u of a outcome” well i feared catergorically to extend a handshake b4 i left simple bcz it didnt happen initially. Now considering tht situation, did i make a mistake by not insisting on shaking their hands initially and for not doing it b4 i left- also how important are points of handshaking on the interview?
Thank you all, i hope i manage to virtually write in a proper grammar now
Boss to tell you the thruth i think handsshake are very importantt when it comes to interviews, whether you coming in or about to leave the interview room, this is important, if you coming in and try to offer them a handshake and uyou find that the interviewer is inviving you for a seat, please ignore that and go on shake his hand because his trying to check your nevousness and how sure are u about this handshake.
and after thamking them for an interview, you will find that they will continue tlking and wishing you a nice journey or telling you where to find the exit, please listen to that and wait for them to finish talking and go on shake their hands again for the last time thanking them for an interview again. im not perfect either and i have failed lots of interviews because of silly mistakes like that.
Lets avoid them now.
Cheers
Greetingz everyone- let me first extend my appreciation to all of u who has shared with us their experiance and tips even in a form of questions, it is true tht theres no victory without unity and what u guys are doing demonstrate how gradually we are becoming a reli unity in s.a. Coming back to topic of interview- i attended a interview back in 2011 and i wld like to share my story with a question ofcourse- an interviewer came 2me when i ws stl outside & gave me a script of paper to read thn said i mst enter into a interview rum wen m done- i took 2mins & entered- jst wen i entered whilst i ws stl on my way, in my mind ws tht “i mst greet them with a handshake” bt a lady responded in my greeting and quickly said “plz give me tht piece of story” from there thn i cldnt c a chance to extend my greetingz with a handshake- they just said plz take a seat. The interview went on thn after an interview i personal feared to give a handshake again subjected to a pre-occassion tht i didnt at a first place. I jst thanked them and left the venue- i know i made a flop but somebody tell me- how do i make it easy to give a handshake and how important is it to perfom b4 and after the interview?
Njabulo,
This is an interesting angle you’re bringing in but your message got lost in your writing style. Could you please, try to write it using proper grammar?
Thanks.
Please clarify me on these two questions: 1. Tell us about yourself and 2. What are your strengths? because i think it is the same. Thank u
Tell us about yourself means gives a brief description of your qualifications and your work experience and maybe a bit about your hobbies but its mostly about your professional life. What are your strengths then you can describe what you consider to make you a better candidate for the job e.g My greatest strength is that I am calm and can maintain peace of mind even in times of distress. Hope this helps.
Greetings people and thanks for the insight.
I want to know, when an interviewer asks you a theoretical question and you happen to know the answer but you can’t just remember at that point, what does one do in that situation? If I ask that s/he comes back to that question later, it happens that I might not get a chance to re-visit the answer I seek because I’ll focus on answering the coming questions right. #talking from experience#
You politely ask them to move to another question, you will get back to that one later.Interviewers are also human they understand.
When they asked u about tell us about ur self? They just want to know what type of person are you,(Not ur Name’s) what you value most, if u are a shot tamperd or not, how do u deal with challenges or problem
@stanza, tell them what makes you unique from all other candidates, what the company is going to benefit from you
how do I deal with this kind of a question: Why should I hire you?
please I have an interview tomorrow!!
How do I deal with this king of a question: Why should I hire you?,
please I have an interview tomorrow!!
Stanza just sell yourself to them. tell them things you can achieve for the company and link them with what you had achieved in the past. SIMPLE ENGLISH IS THE BEST TO SPEAK and don’t be afraid to ask if you didn’t hear what they asked you.
What kind questions should I expect from a bursary interview?