- Why did you leave your last job?
- Have you ever been fired or forced to resign?
- Why have you had so many jobs in such a short period of time?
- Can you explain this gap in your employment history?
- Exactly why do you want to work here?
- Why should we hire YOU? What can you do for us that someone else can not?
- Have you ever had problems with a supervisor or a coworker? Describe the situation for me.
- Describe some times when you were not very satisfied with your own performance. What did you do about it?
- Give me an example of a problem you faced on the job, and tell me how you solved it?
- Give me an example of an important goal you had to set and tell me about your progress in reaching that goal. What steps did you take?
- What was your role in your department’s most recent success?
Learn More: In less than 15 minutes you will learn how to:
- “Package & Spin” your work experience so it is a perfect fit for the job
- Increase your confidence, easily calm nerves or fear
- Be more like-able
- Use professional words and phrases that will impress them
- Position yourself as the BEST candidate for the job
- Tell them exactly what they want to hear — so you get hired!
Use this Guide to build and re-enforce your attitude of confidently EXPECTING to succeed. Visualize yourself conquering the interview and GETTING HIRED!
Download it now. The Guide is yours, instantly — even if it’s Three O’clock in the morning!
I’m searching for an Internship for summer 2012. Please help me!!!
This webpage is horribly designed. Why is there a dark background only behind the questions that are written in dark type? Are you trying to ruin my eyesight?
Heather, Thanks for your input. We took a look an there were some problems. Please take a look and see if it looks better. If it does not can you tell us what browser you your using? thanks.
http://internsoverforty.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=20&action=edit
Perfect article and advise
As an employer, I’ve been influenced to hire people that were good at getting interviewed. They probably read articles like this one. The terribly unwise side to this sort of advice is that down the road, I had to let these employees go. Given how much I hate being put in that situation, I feel sick about articles that help people get hired, instead of helping people that are job-seekers determine if they can actually bring value to an employer and teaching them how to communicate that value. Getting hired isn’t the answer. In fact, getting hired into a job that you hate is a terrible fate that many/most people find themselves. Stop making the interview and hiring process into a game. There is too much at stake for employees and employers.
totally agree with Steve; as if ‘successful candidates’ are to be reduced to sly play-role imitators. It makes them different from the real being, making the whole exercise to a degree uncomfortable.
As an experienced manager myself, I see (too) much bent logic, phoney theories and prejudices around being applied as proven science, which in the long run damage companies.
So why only addressing candidates over 40, 50, instead of rather addressing HR/Hirers under 40 to gain a much better understanding of the added value an experienced candidate could bring into the company and stop using the useless myths on ‘old workers’. That’s much more of a problem. It would avoid desparate seekers having to work out their academy-award winning role, whilst their skills are not being fully appreciated. Because the cause is rather an HR problem not being strategically skilled to look beyond their narrow hedges.
Michael,
A very interesting prospective. I think many are enlightened. But there is a cultural tendency in our society towards age bias- just look at a news stand or on the front page of any online news source. What are they selling eternal youth and beauty:).
Natalia; cannot agree more. Indeed I was playing a bit ‘naive’ by pretending for a second that employers would not discriminate candidates based on age (which, as you pointed out, is unfortunately the daily general practice – else we would not need websites like this one).
The sad part is (and both witnessed this myself or had such confirmed by my circle of contacts) – that CVs are not even properly read/assessed: in case you have more than 3 or 4 job functions, you end on the wrong pile. When fishing for feedback, you’re told that the job required e.g. at least 3 years of X (and you have even 5 years…) then you know how the process is being performed.
Conversely it is being argued, that many CVs came in. But as a CxO one also needs to make vital decisions and there’s is much information to deal with – and a manager making wrong choices because he “has too much input” is not taken seriously; whereas such excuses from HR professionals is commonly heard.
Interestingly enough, one hears such complaints from many CEOs, confirming it is ‘bothering’ them too… yet hardly ever anything is done to make a change for the better. Have we lost a sense of strategy? or did managements lose the ability to lead?
best,
Michael
Thanks for insight on telling employer that we can state what we have to offer that makes us unique and others lack.
What Steve said.
All too often, eager or even desperate job seekers play along with manipulative or even demeaning interview questions because they somehow think that submission will get them to the next step in the hiring process.
That said, it is vital that a job-seeker anticipate and prepare answers for likely questions. And to recognize illegitimate questions. Not only the blatantly illegal ones, but those which are just too prying or manipulative.
You gotta know when to answer and when to walk.
Very nice post i really like this question because its very tough situation when face these type of question nad same time very funny when you are out from interview room and think about them really good.
Thanksssss.
A good interviewer does not have to ask these kinds of questions to get at the information that is needed. Asking these obvious, non-creative questions sets you up for canned and rehearsed answers. A good interviewer knows when he/she is being feed a rehearsed line.
Kathryn, I totally agree with you. The only information I need to know from the candidates could be divided into 3 parts: Technical Skills – Motivation about the job – Fit into the agency culture. Straight to the point!
This book is a sad commentary on the “something for nothing” mentality that exists on both the employee and employer side of the interview process. The goal of the process should not be to outwit each other and trick each other into making a mistake that will, as Steve pointed out above, create a bad match that results in having to let the employee go later. Instead, it should be much like a courting process for marriage. You wouldn’t want to marry someone who you ended up hating, would you? Even if you could make some money in the process, taking a job you hate or with an employer you can’t stand, or vice versa hiring an employee that’s not a match, costs both sides dearly (much more even than a bad marriage in some respects). Hiring an employee is an expensive process, and bringing them on board even more so, both in monetary cost and lost opportunity if they don’t work out. Similarly, taking a job where you get fired is a career mistake that will live with you for a long time. So it *never* pays to manipulate, whether you’re an employer or employee. The employer should ask tough questions – skills and behavioral-wise – which might include some unusual ones like the manhole covers question. And the employee should be ready with some questions not just about the job but also the company to make sure there’s a fit. But trying to trick each other simply starts the relationship out on the wrong foot and leads to no good for either side. This book appears to encourage that behavior and some of the advice I’ve seen given even here in this advertisement would lead me to immediately terminate an interview.
While I agree that memorizing rote answers to questions is not the best way to go, the value I see in products/discussions like this is that it helps open the view of the job seeker (who may not have had to interview for many years) to be ready for questions like these. If all the job seeker does is think through the answers, that’s far better than being surprised by the question during the interview. You’re right that tricking the interviewer into moving you to the next step for a job that’s a bad fit is not a good idea. But if a job seeker walks into an interview not even expecting the questions, s/he will be removed from the short list even if s/he is actually extremely qualified for the position.
So: NO to memorizing answers, and YES to knowing the questions & thinking through your answers before the interview.